Fear of flying

[chris8886]

Originally Posted by red herring

see now, i never could understand this urge to jump out of a perfectly serviceable aircraft.....!

quite!!

If a train bus or car breaks down I can get out and walk, if a boat breaks down I can swim, if an aeroplane breaks down I can not fly. Boats have life jackets,planes have life jackets---------------I want a bloody parachute.

[ChrisCurvyS]

I used to work with a sweet but chronically dim (and morbidly obese) Scottish girl.

When I told her I was scared of flying, she replied: 'I don't get that, raight, cos if tha warst comes to tha warst, you've got that parachute thingy undar yar seet, raight?'

Just had an image of her plunging 30,000 feet to earth with her lifejacket inflating round her blubbery neck...

Benefit from being fat and a life jacket-------SHE WOULD BOUNCE

ex-competitive glider pilot with a fear of heights. It's nothing unusual to have pilots who won't go up ladders.

Commercial flying is dull, very very dull and then some.... I know this only too well as I work in Sweden and spend too much of my life in BA's tin tubes.

There's a brilliant book I saw a review for but can't find on google that explained the stats in a really nice way... it went something like this (can't remember numbers)

Assuming that every working day, you drive for an hour to the airport and then catch a commercial flight to somewhere and at the end of the day fly then drive back home, by the time you die in a plane crash you'll already have been killed umpteen times in car crashes.

You accept the risks of travelling in cars and on bikes but baulk at travelling in a something safer? Crazy isn't it..... there again if you want to panic me, take me to a dentist.......

The hardest thing on a long commercial flight is keeping your mind busy. Good books, good movies etc are your friend! Sleep is another way to pass the time but doesn't help with the jetlag when flying west...

Lastly - I don't know if you've seen this site before http://www.flyingwithoutfear.com/ nothing to do with me I just know they run/ran? courses at a garden centre near where I live..... probably a little too far south for you.. but the website may have something useful in it.

[tigersaw]

I hate flying. Its not the aircraft but the airport terminals I despise; being made to queue, wait, penned, herded around and referred to as self loading cargo.

[PyroUK]

Sadly humans aren't really wired for statistics. According to freakonomics every year in America more people die in car crashes etc than died in 9/11 and even with that number it still barely increased the numbers.

Also swimming pools pose more risk to kids than guns in the house.

[ChrisCurvyS]

Ta for the suggestion Ian but as Pyro says, if your mind is determined to be sh*t scared of something logic doesn't have much impact! It's not so much the chances of something happening, it's more imagining what it would be like if it did.

Like I said, I will get over it and the course I'm doing with BA is supposed to be the best. I think I'll be better flying with BA too as I'll the flights I've been on in the past have been budget airlines packed with nasty drunken chavs, which has made me think that if there was a god, he would probably be doing his best to bring it down.

[Essex of Essex]

The airline I fly for operate Fear of Flying trips for Virgin, I've never operated one but I'm told that all the work they do with you prior to flying is very effective.

I've been flying for 32 years, and as I would generally arrive at the scene of an accident first I work hard to ensure a safe flight every time I fly. As pilots we are checked once a year in the aircraft to ensure procedural compliance and twice a year in the simulator to practice dealing with every conceivable emergency. On top of this we have medical checks and lots of theoretical and practical training throughout our careers, it really is a safe way to travel.

[jambo]

Chris, looks like you've got the bull by the horns as it were. What I can say is that repetition helps.

Mrs Jambo really did not like flying when we first met, she's now a seasoned pro and can navigate terminals and aircraft with the best of them. Once you have a few flights in a short time it becomes much more routine and you consider it much more normal.

Alternatively there's my mate's approach. He hates flying, gets to the airport early and is generally about 8 pints in when he gets on the plane. Not for everyone!

Jambo