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This has already been answered well by a couple pilots here with more experience than myself, but I figured I'd chime in. "Recovery from unusual attitudes" is an integral part of flight training, both in VFR and IFR training. I do not have an IFR certification yet, but am working towards it. EVERY flight, my instructor directs me to close my eyes, take my hands and feet off the controls, and lean either far forward or far backwards. While I'm in that state, he puts the airplane through a myriad of maneuvers that trigger sensations that makes it feel like the plane is climbing, diving, banking, upside down... with your eyes closed, it could be doing anything. After a period of time (20 seconds to a minute), he directs me, "OK, open your eyes and recover." This is "under the hood," meaning I can't see anything but the instruments once I open my eyes. At that point, you take in the information presented to you by the instruments and act upon it. As long as you stay calm, recovery is pretty much a "by the book" procedure, and there's procedures for any unusual attitude. I don't have any problem with this exercise, and actually enjoy it. The lad's father had way more experience than I do, and WAS IFR rated and experienced.If a lesser experienced pilot got the plane out of control due to loss of orientation it must be doubly harder for the other pilot to take over, orientate himself, then orientate the aircraft. Wouldn't it?
In my opinion, based on my training, no.. it wouldn't be doubly hard if someone else got the plane into an unusual attitude. If anything, I think it might be easier because you wouldn't have been the one to mistakenly place it there in the first place; you wouldn't know what went wrong, only what WAS wrong, so you'd just fix it instead of slowly having been fooled into a bad situation by physical sensations.
I recognize that my experiences with IFR unusual attitudes have been in very controlled situations with a 20,000 plus hour flight instructor. If the kaka hit the rotating blades, I didn't know it was coming, and I was alone, I still think I could deal with it, but I would most likely be pretty dang scared. That's one of many reasons I'm pursuing not only the IFR rating, but serious proficiency. As with the standard VFR PPL, the real learning starts once you HAVE the rating/certification.
Thanks for the question, Mark.
Best wishes,
Barry