"Seat of The Pants" Flying
Anyone in an aircraft that is making a coordinated turn, no matter how steep, will have little or no sensation of being tilted in the air unless the horizon is visible. Similarly, it is possible to gradually climb or descend without a noticeable change in pressure against the seat. In some aircraft, it is possible to execute a loop without pulling negative G so that without visual reference, the pilot could be upside down without being aware of it. That's because a gradual change in any direction of movement may not be strong enough to activate the fluid in the vestibular system, so the pilot may not realize that the aircraft is accelerating, decelerating, or banking.
Read more about this topic: Spatial Disorientation
Famous quotes containing the words seat of, seat, pants and/or flying:
“Time is indeed the theatre and seat of illusion: nothing is so ductile and elastic. The mind stretches an hour to a century and dwarfs an age to an hour.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“My taking a seat on the Council of the Fathers caused a desperate fluttering among my ghosts.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty ... what you will. I am going to sing for you, a little off key perhaps, but I will sing.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“A word carries far—very far—deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)