4 ms·

The Turn (1993)

• princekolt 8y ago
  > Sometimes we can even give a direction to the bank. But if we then close our eyes, we have no way of telling that we are sitting at an angle. I know from experience how difficult it is to convince people of this. > [...] > He had found here in the spinning chair the proof that instinct is worse than useless in the clouds. I had a similar experience that absolutely proved this while flying recently. I was sitting near the middle of the airplane (it had a 2-4-2 seat configuration), and all the window shutters near me were closed. We were approaching our destination, and the pilot had started manoeuvring to get into the approach pattern. I sensed some rotational acceleration and guessed (correctly) that we had started a long and wide bank turn, and I was convinced that it was a bank towards the right. I waited until some passenger near the right-side windows opened the shutter to peek into the ground outside, ant to my utter astonishment and surprise, all to be seen from that window was a sheet of sky blue (we were banking to the left). I cannot even begin to explain how disconnected from reality I felt for a good 2 or 3 seconds.