G-LOC

I was on the way home from work yesterday, and it was another perfect Spring evening with great visibility and temperatures in the low 70’s. As I drove onto the taxiway toward the hangar, I remember that my partner was taking some friends to diner in the plane, so I pulled up to my friend Morton’s hangar instead. He was running around in a bit of a hurry and said, “I have to go. We are going up to do some photography in the CJ’s. We’ll be right back, though.” I assumed that he already had a passenger, so I was looking around for a comfortable chair. He came darting out of his office and on his way past me said, “You can probably go with me, now”, as if to indicate the intended passenger was a no-show. “Quick, get the chute on and get in, we’re going right now before the light goes.”

By the time I had all of the chute and seat harness straps and buckles tight and my headset on, we were departing abreast another CJ, with a Cessna tailwheel photo plane in front of us on the departure runway. We took off all three at once, with the two CJ’s side-by-side, and just a few feet apart. Once airborne, we changed frequency and the photography plane pilot called out instructions for turns and altitude changes as he shot pictures of the formation against the sky, the farmland and the airport. This went on for about ten minutes, and then we headed off, solo, to an aerobatics area while the other two planes completed their photography mission.

At this point, I knew that the routine would soon begin with a gradual climb to three or four thousand feet and then immediately go into a series of loops, rolls, hammerheads and the like. This was not what I had planned to be doing tonight, but I figured it would be over in five minutes.

The first inside loop was a bit unpleasant, as I have not done too much aerobatic flight for a few months. I grunted hard and had a bit of red out or grey out at the top of the loop. Five minutes turned into thirty and I started to get exhausted with the back-to-back-to back grunting to keep the blood in my head. I have never puked, but I was definitely feeling it in my stomach. Just when I thought I couldn’t do another, we headed back to pick up the other CJ. Near the airport, they swung in tight under our left wing and I thought we were landing.

In the backseat of the other CJ is the female passenger and partner of one of the photography plane occupants. I guess she wanted to do some aerobatics, so the call comes across “Let’s go back to the area for a few loops.” Then a “click-click” in my headset. Damn!

We did the usual climb, then a steep descent, and then I start my breathing and get ready for the grunt. The smoke machines are on in both planes and we are side by side. As we plow through the 12 o’clock position in the loop, I get really tired and let go. The blood flows out of my head, but there is just a bit of grey-out. Before I know what is going on, we are already directly into the second loop. I am still recovering and as we approach the top I feel the blood rushing out of my head and in an instant I am out cold before we hit the top.

The next thing I remember is hearing a very loud noise. It sounded like a thousand jackhammers blasting on steel plates in my ears; the loudest thing I have ever heard. Imaging waking up from a deep sleep with the loudest rock concert sound system blasting feedback into your head, then times it by one hundred. I open my eyes and do not know where I am. There is an instrument panel in front of me and it is vibrating and blurry. It seems that I am in an airplane. The sound is getting louder. I look up and see that we are heading straight for the ground and the cockpit is filled with smoke, but the plane seems to be frozen still in the air. I am trying to think where I am. Did we crash? Am I dead? Where am I?

In the next instant, I become aware that I am in some state of consciousness, but I don’t know if it is a dream, death, hallucination or otherwise. I do know that I was flying before this happened. Maybe we crashed. Maybe I am dead. Why is there so much smoke? Emergency Death Checklist: Tranquility? NO! Quiet? NO! Tunnel with light at the end? NO! Out of body? NO! Seeing dead relatives? NO! 72 Virgins? NO!

Then something tells me that we have to pull up. I reach for the stick, but my arms don’t move. This is not good; not good at all. Why is there so much noise?

Suddenly, my hand moves to where the stick was, but the stick has just moved back into my crotch. When I look up, I see Mort’s head in front of me and start screaming “Mort!, Mort!, Mort!, Mort!” But, there is no sound of my own voice. Then I recall in a flash the violent ripping from my head of my headset and glasses. I grab the headset cord, follow it to the floor, and pull the thing to my head. We are entering another loop. As I jamb it over my ears and start yelling again, I realize that it is on backward and the mic is behind my head. The noise level has dropped in my head as if my brain has taken control of the volume and adjusted it to normal. The noise is now clearly a giant radial engine at full throttle. I pull the headset off and start screaming into the mic “Blackout, blackout, stop, no, blackout, stop”.

The nose levels at the ten o’clock position. The smoke machine goes off and I crack the canopy to clear the air. I spend the next five minutes trying to figure out some way to prove I am not dead. My watch is running. I recognize some landmarks. I see three people that I know. I remember that I was wearing prescription sunglasses, and that they are missing. The time on my cell phone and watch are the same. But, I could still be dead.

When I get home, I am sure that I have just had a NDE (near death experience). The first web article I find on flight physiology and G-LOC (gravitational force induced loss of consciousness) is compared in excruciating detail to a NDE. This whole event took place in a few seconds, but I lost all recollection of what happened or how I got there. One thing that definitely occurred was the total slowing of time, or at least its interpretation. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink, he describes a police shooting that occurs in the same slow motion. Mili-seconds are expanded to still frames of some semi-aware state that allows thought, analysis and decision.

I have to practice my grunting, I guess.