There are few situations more dangerous for a helicopter pilot than flying into bad weather, a fog bank or other situation with zero visibility, where the mind can literally make up feel like down and right feel like left.

Such spatial disorientation is a huge problem in the helicopter industry and may has been implicated as a factor that led to the crash in which Kobe Bryant, his teenage daughter and seven other people perished earlier this year.

On this episode of Rotor Radio, we speak to Vertical’s own resident pilot and editor Elan Head about the “terrifying” phenomenon of spatial disorientation, flying in degraded visual environments and how it can fatally trick a pilot's own senses.