MILTON, Fla. (AP) - Some of the more than 1,400 military flight students who pass through Whiting Field Naval Air Station each year make an unexpected stop on the way to their coveted Wings of Gold - the infamous “spin-and-puke chair.”
The chair is manned by Navy Lt. Justin Meeker, an aerospace physiologist, and is used to correct motion sickness by helping the body’s vestibular system adjust to certain movements.
In 2016, 100 flight students were sent to Meeker for treatment after having motion sickness on multiple flights. After working with Meeker, only one of the students was unable to continue with flight school.
“That’s a 99 percent success rate, so it is proven to work,” Meeker said during a recent tour of the office he shares with Stephen Baugh, a civilian aeromedical officer and former Navy pilot, who also helps flight students with motion sickness issues.
For the young Navy and Marine officers selected to attend flight school, motion sickness can become a big problem.
“There is a large anxiety component because they are working so hard to reach their goal. They are feeling lousy with the motion sickness so their performance is lousy and they are all very hard on themselves,” Meeker said.
Students are only sent to the chair after motion sickness medications have failed. Many times, the medicines will help the body adjust to the motion with no need for the chair.
“The body is remarkable in its ability to adapt, but after about three flights with motion sickness, even with the medication, they get sent to us,” Meeker said.
Although students have long called it the “spin-and-puke chair,” it’s actually called a Barany Chair. It was named for Robert Barany, a Hungarian physiologist who did research on the vestibular system in the early 20th century. It has been used to help pilots overcome motion sickness for years.
Meeker spins the students in the chair at various speeds in one direction for 10 minutes, takes a 10-minute break, and then spins them in the opposite direction. He instructs the students to move their heads and eyes in various directions during the spinning. The process, which continues each day for a week, helps to adjust the body’s inner response to the motion.
They spin anywhere from 13 to 18 rotations per minute.
Students sometimes throw up in the chair, but that’s something Meeker hopes to avoid because he doesn’t want the students to start to associate throwing up with relief from the motion sickness.
He encourages the students to take deep breaths when they start to feel sick and to focus on something outside of the cockpit.
Unfortunately the chair cannot help people who suffer occasional motion sickness. It helps people adapt to the sensations of flight and only works for those who are routinely in the air, Meeker said.
Ensign Madalyn Thompson, a 24-year-old U.S. Naval Academy graduate, is just starting her flight training in simulators. She hopes to eventually fly helicopters.
She has had brief spells of motion sickness flying as a passenger in various aircraft, but hopes the motion sickness won’t plague her in flight training.
“My fingers are crossed,” she said. “I do have friends who had to spend time in the chair and they say it really helps; it works.”
Baugh, the aeromedical officer, flew SH-60 Seahawk helicopters in the Navy and was an instructor at Whiting. He knows how difficult flight school can be.
“It depends on the student. You have an image from television and movies about what it is like to be a military pilot, but when you get here it might not be what you expect,” he said.
And the students tend to blame themselves for anything that goes wrong, even motion sickness.
“They start blaming themselves and questioning their abilities, but this is something they can overcome. It is tremendously rewarding to see that happen. To have them graduate and know that you have helped them.”
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Information from: Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal, https://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com
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