Henrik-Jan van Veen has carried out a great deal of research into spinning. This is especially true for “graveyard spins”, the term for what happens when fighter pilots get so disoriented they miscalculate how to get their plane back on course. They can end up in a dangerous and often fatal spin. Van Veen works at a research lab run by the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, the TNO. The range of research covered by the TNO is vast, and it sees itself as a practical problem solver. And for the Dutch air force, the graveyard spin is certainly a problem that needs solving. Van Veen’s specialty is “vibrotactile devices”, which use vibrations to convey information. His latest project is a vest studded all over with small discs that can each vibrate independently. In a test room, a pilot is strapped into a seat in a “cockpit”. At the push of a button, the lights go out and the chair starts spinning. After a while the chair is stopped. “He’ll think he’s spinning the other way now”, says van Veen. The pilot is told to correct the spin, but instead, he overcorrects massively, and the chair begins spinning again. In the next test, the pilot dons van Veen’s vest and is told that the patch of the vest that is vibrating will indicate the direction he should force the joystick to correct a spin. This time, when the chair stops spinning the pilot manages to keep the seat still. Van Veen thinks the vibrotactile vest could do more than save the lives of fighter pilots. He’s now working on linking the system to a GPS receiver so that tourists in a foreign city or blind people in an unfamiliar environment can use the vest to find their way around.