Physiological response to hyper- and hypogravity during rollercoaster flight

Healthy male subjects--26--were flown in a Lear jet aircraft through rollercoaster and parabolic weightlessness flight. Eye movements, respiration, and blood volume pulse were recorded on magnetic tape. The same subjects underwent a battery of five vestibular tests in the laboratory on the ground. One subject in each flight was flown in an upright position, the other in a 90 degree foreward tilted head position. The foreward tilted subjects always reported motion sickness earlier and after fewer rollercoaster manoeuvres than the upright sitting subjects. It is concluded that the susceptibility to changes of X-axis acceleration is higher than to changes of Z-axis acceleration. Correlation was found between the ability to estimate the subjective vertical (modified Müller-Aubert-test), optokinetic nystagmus asymmetries, and susceptibility to rollercoaster flight sickness.