What illusion can occur when flying into fog?

• A. Pitching up
• B. Bank to the left
• C. Pitching down
• D. No illusion occurs

Answer: (A)

When you lose visual references like in fog, your sense of motion can be fooling you. The most common illusion is a somatogravic illusion: acceleration makes you feel as though you’re pitched nose-up. As you accelerate, the inner ear senses forward movement and your brain interprets that as the airplane’s nose rising. If you don’t rely on the instruments, you may instinctively push the nose up, inadvertently increasing pitch.

This is why instrument flying is critical in foggy conditions—trust the attitude indicator, airspeed, and power settings rather than your body sensations. The other options don’t describe this typical vestibular illusion: bank to the left isn’t the usual fog-related illusion, pitching down relates to a deceleration sensation, and saying no illusion occurs is incorrect because the vestibular system often produces some perception when visual cues are absent.