Spatial disorientation occurs in the IMC conditions without visual reference to the natural horizon: inside clouds, pitch black night over the water (e.g. Kenne

Spatial disorientation occurs in the IMC conditions without visual reference to the natural horizon: inside clouds, pitch black night over the water (e.g. Kennedy 1999), etc. Pilots specifically train to fly in these conditions (IFR rating) and also practice to be proficient. I heard there is a research that a pilot w/o IFR rating or w/o current recurrent training or w/o recent actual experience loses control in less than 60 seconds. The key here is recent experience or training. I fly IFR a lot (I live in Michigan and we have clouds 12 months a year) - I clocked 0.6 hrs instrument time on 1.4 hrs flight today. I always hand fly (w/o autopilot) at least part of the flight and I feel safe doing so. Many (if not all) other pilots who regularly fly on instruments feel the same - when you are proficient, it’s really not a big deal (and honestly kind of boring after a while). Now, I am not surprised that researcher was able to do all these cool tricks with his invention after recent training and experience using this tool. But that would not help with real problem of pilots being out of proficiency. I wonder if this invention will be as effective for a pilot who didn’t fly for a couple weeks or a couple months. Can this pilot do all the same tricks safely? That would be the actual test on the usefulness of this invention. Edit: grammar