My boss's wife has not flown in nearly 20 years due to what she claims is physical illness she had started experiencing back then when she flew. Now that they own our business, increasingly they are faced with traveling and thus far shehas insisted that they drive from Ohio to places like Florida, Vegas ect. We need to go to a trade show in Vegas in Sept, so I talked her into going up in my 4 seater to see if she could handle it. I told her we would go u to 8000' to simulate cabin pressure in an airliner.
Well I got her up to 5000' climbing in stages very slowly. So log as she had her hands on the controls and I had the trim set at 100 fpm climb rate, she as OK, but when I would take over and try to climb a bit faster, she would start complaining that she was starting to feel "funny" so I would reset the trim and let her fly again (she did not notice that we were still climbing) and she would settle down. After 40 minutes, she said she was ready to return, so I let down and landed.
She said she was fine and thought maybe she could fly to Vegas, but a few days later, she says they are just going to drive..... What a PITA and a waste of AV gas.
She still is claiming it is physical due to altitude change, but after observing her during our flight, I am 100% convinced it is caused by fear.