What Do Birds Feel When They Land?

Goshawk preparing to take off

Here is a Navy story about T-45 Goshawk pilots-in-training doing Carrier Qualifications for the first time on the U.S.S. Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier. From other accounts we have read, watching videos of the landings and take-off's, and talking with our own Lieutenant Junior Grade in the the same stage of training, it is an intense activity. It is also the kind of thing that mothers lose sleep over, especially if she takes an afternoon nap and then has a caffeinated beverage along with dinner the night before. Our experience today is that once you hear everything went well, the qualification is complete, and the student pilot is back safe on land in Jacksonville, it's time to celebrate. A short phone call is all we needed for the time being - looking forward to details later. We have heard the first-time sensations from landing and taking off are pretty intense.

Shaking

T-45 Goshawk landing

The shaking some people experience during anxiety is usually most noticeable in the hands. Since social anxiety sufferers are often very self-conscious about others noticing their anxiety this can be a problem. Wobbling teacups, peas jumping off forks and shaking speech notes all make anxious shaking more visible and this can lead to sufferers avoiding these things when around other people. Shaking legs and quivering lips are also common visible symptoms.

The main worry of sufferers is that people will see their visible anxiety symptoms and then make a unfavorable judgement about them. The feared judgements will typically be that the sufferer is weird because of their odd movements or that they are weak because they are feeling anxious.

T-45 Goshawk take-off

People will often do their best to try and hide their anxious shaking, but this tends to only worsen the situation. Anxiety sufferers are nearly always caught in vicious cycles where the ways they try to manage their anxiety only serves to worsen it. Fears about starting to shake in front of people leads to increased worry about the onset of shaking. This worry then increases anxiety levels during social situations which in turn leads to the actual shaking they are trying to avoid. Self-consciousness is increased because of this visible shaking which leads to more worry and more anxiety and more shaking creating a distressing vicious cycle.

In addition to this, sufferers will try to hide or control their anxious shaking, but this only adds fuel to the fire. A common strategy is to tense up to try and keep movements still, but this increased muscle tension only exaggerates the shaking. Another strategy is to try and hide shaking through avoidance or keeping hands out of sight, but this too will worsen the situation. Avoidance strategies like these reinforce the idea that we need to hide these symptoms and that revealing them could have negative consequences for us. They prevent us from finding out that, most of the time, revealing our anxiety will nearly always have no negative consequences for us and that doing so will prevent the anxiety from occurring in the first place. (1)
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T-44C Pegasus

With the Carrier Qualifications complete, the next stage of training is a multi-engine T-44 Pegasus. The Pegasus aircraft is manufactured by Beech Aircraft Corporation, Wichita, Kansas.The aircraft is used for advanced turboprop aircraft training and for intermediate E2/C2 (carrier based turboprop radar aircraft) training at the Naval Air Station, Corpus Christi, Texas. The T-44 is equipped with deicing and anti-icing systems augmented by instrumentation and navigation equipment which allows flight under instrument and icing conditions.The interior includes a seating arrangement for an instructor pilot (right seat), a student pilot (left seat), and a second student.Two additional passenger seats are included.A distinguishing feature of the aircraft is the avionics fault insertion capabilities afforded the instructor pilot from the right-seat armrest and the second student/observer audio control panel that allows the second student to monitor all radio communications.The T-44A is powered by two 550 shaft horsepower PT6A-34B turboprop engines manufactured by Pratt & Whitney of Canada.

T-44C Pegasus

Specifications

Primary Function: Training platform for Navy/Marine Corps pilots.
Contractor: Beechcraft
Propulsion: two Pratt & Whitney Canada PT-6A-34B 550 hp engines
Length: 35 feet 6 inches
Height: 14 feet 3 inches
Wingspan: 50 feet 3 inches
Airspeed maximum: 245 knots
Ceiling: 31,300 feet.
Range: 1,300 nautical miles
Armament: None
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(1) Source of the explanation for shaking.