Yeah - I definitely want to get over it. I’ve promised myself and others that I’m going to seek help. My question really is, what type of help is out there, how does one access it, and how well does it work?
I’m the opposite. I don’t like flying on airliners because (1) I can’t tell what’s going on, (2) they’re big complicated machines with tens of thousands of parts and any number of things that have to work perfectly to keep them flying, and (3) they’re so big I don’t really have a feel for the air around me. I’m a nervous flyer in a big passenger jet.
A little plane, on the other hand, is great. I can see the pilot, I’m comfortable in the environment, I feel the air, little planes aren’t that mechanically complicated, etc., etc. When I was in Alaska last week, I took a sightseeing trip over tundra and glacier with an experienced bush pilot in a tiny Cessna. Wonderful experience and I didn’t think about the aircraft at all.
Airplanes are amazingly strong. Commercial airliners are designed to accept stronger G-loads than they’re ever expected to encounter. A Utility Category aircraft, such as a Cessna 172, must withstand +4.5g and -1.8g.
To illustrate how strong aircraft can be, just look at the old WWII newsreels of bombers that have pieces shot off, missing noses, big holes, etc. that have been flown for hours back to base.
Yeah, I think it’s the “Bus/Movie Theater” factor. The larger the plane is, the less it looks like a plane and more like a bus or even a movie theater, which I’m (needless to say) much more comfortable inhabiting. A tiny plane… there’s no escaping that you are in a freaking plane, man!! :eek:
The view is so much better in a small aircraft!
Thank you - will check it out, but… I’ve done similar things already. I’ve gone through a website called http://www.fearofflyinghelp.com/ and stuff about four times… and I’m just afraid that ‘self help’ is just not going to be enough in my case. I even printed it out (in its entirety) and brought it on the plane with me… and it was of marginal assistance. There’s something a little deeper going on here.
Humorous sidenote: the site offers "Fear Of Flying Ringtones - Send This Ringtone To Your Phone’… what the heck could that be? 
I’m a pilot, and I hate flying.
Well, whenever I’m not in control, I mean.
I really hate flying airlines. Hell, I don’t even like being in small plane if I’m not the one in control (even if the controls are right in front of me)
It’s not a matter of confidence in the pilot. I know the pilots are good. I also have complete faith in the machine.
I just can’t handle it when someone else is in control. Same with driving. If someone else is driving, I’m hanging on to something, eyes up, making sure the driver’s doing what they’re supposed to do.
I’m also afraid of heights. I can’t even go on my buddy’s 10th floor balcony. I can buzz his building in a balloon without thinking twice, but dammit, I’m not going close to that balcony railing. Hell, I can’t even get on a ladder without being worried.
Deathly afraid of heights. White knuckle flier, with a popped eardrum.
Ever see that Discovery Channel show, that showed a really tall building with the window washing machines way up at the top?
I didn’t. I couldn’t look at the t.v. screen when they showed a camera shot of the street below.
My bias is I’m a lapsed private pilot and I love flying in airliners, because it means when I get off I’m so damn far away from where I started I rather think of planes as a ride on a slow transporter beam.
So I can’t really relate to the OPs problem, but I can’t help but think that some aspects of a fear of flying relate to larger issues than simply not liking to be on a plane. For example, the problem with not feeling comfortable because one isn’t in control of the plane: that’s not a problem with airplanes, IMHO, that’s a problem with being a control freak. I wonder if that control problem manifests itself in other ways, like micromanaging one’s subordinates at work, nitpicking one’s spouse on how they do the laundry, or whathaveyou. If those are problems, too, then it seems to me that focusing on the airplane part of how those fears are manifested is a waste of time, because there’d still be an elephant in the room causing problems. Maybe a good ol’ self-help book would be more helpful than one about fear of flying.
If the problem is only with airplanes, then I’m at a loss. To me it like saying someone doesn’t like cheese. I understand it is a problem for them, but I have no idea where to do with that.
Okay, fair enough. Some people are deathly afraid of spiders - I think they’re cool.
My question, therefore, was not really directed at people like you, but rather at people who’ve HAD this kind of fear, done something concrete about it, and changed their fear response (if not eliminated their fear entirely). I want to know what concrete steps people have taken to tackle this. I’ve done most of the self-help-thing, I’m looking for other options since it hasn’t worked yet, i.e. has anyone done official therapy for this (or similar phobia) before, has it worked, how did you access it, etc…
For me it phone-o-phobia. I was scared to death of talking on the telephone. Didn’t matter if it was someone I knew very well or total stranger, I would often choke up, start to panic, and end up either hanging up in the middle of the conversation then feel like a total idiot, or end up speaking gibberish and feeling like a total idiot (while in person I fear no man, woman, or beast except my friend’s parrot.)
Most people close to me (completely well-meaning) would call me constantly, trying to get me to just chitchat and “get over it” (just freaked me out worse) and force me to call for takeout because “how hard is it to order a pizza?” (damn hard when the order taker asks do you mean sweet peppers or hot peppers and you hang up because you literally can’t remember what those words mean because you feel like you’re going to pass out).
I ended up asking my doctor for a referral to a therapist, and it only took a few sessions for her to ferret out why I had this fear, and suggest some techniques to help myself over the anxiety. (one of the silliest but most effective was to tape a picture of someone’s face next to the phone so I could pretend I was talking face to face with someone.) Now I’m still not one to call people up and gab for hours on end, but I can at least make and answer the calls I have to without freaking out while sounding like myself.
Granted that’s a totally different problem than fear of flying, but I think your best bet would be to find professional help. While I doubt you’d come out of it being all “Yaaaay! I love me some airplanes!” a therapist can probably get to the root of exactly what you’re scared of about flying and why, and what to do about it.
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I ended up asking my doctor for a referral to a therapist…QUOTE]
Cool answer, thanks. Now we’re getting somewhere. So, you did in fact go to your PCP or whatever and ask for a therapy referral. Was it expensive, did your insurance cover it? How many sessions did it take, and what did they do (um, I guess you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to, but I want to know if it was mostly talking or hypnotherapy or exposure therapy or whatever).
Sounds like it worked for you more or less, and I’d be happy with almost any improvement at this point.
One simple but effective technique that has worked for me is to try to pretend I’m on a boat. Boats weigh tons, and it doesn’t seem that the water can support them, but it does. When it’s a bit rough, boats go up and down but I don’t get scared that we’re sinking. So I picture the airplane as not being in “thin air”, but as being in waves of air. (For that matter, even roads are bumpy.)
The next best thing is entertainment. I usually fly long-haul so I get the personal entertainment unit, but if on a shorter flight I would recommend bringing along a portable DVD player and an exciting movie that you’ve really wanted to see. This really helps the time pass.
Also, Xanax works for me. I get a few tablets prescribed, then take one about an hour before takeoff.
This is a timely thread. Like you, barracuda, my husband is a giant hunk 'o man who is not afraid of anything. Except flying. He can put 24k miles on a motorcycle in two years commuting through some of the nastiest pavement in LA county, but getting on a plane is a frightening concept to him (and he hasn’t been on one yet). This thread is really helping me to see his perspective, as I find it completely and totally irrational and I admit I have a hard time sympathizing sometimes. For him it’s also a bit of control issue, but he also has vertigo and acrophobia which compounds things a bit.
Thing is, the man loves flight sims and would love nothing more than to have his pilot’s license. We live by an airfield and in the center of the aviation/aerospace industry, so there are planes all around us all the time. He loves going to special exhibits, like every year a B-17 comes to the airfield and he has to see it every time. He loves airplanes and hates the idea of flying. I don’t get it.
I’ve been showing him clips of planes taking off and leaving out of Cancun (we’re headed there this winter if I can get him on the plane!) to get him used to the sounds of the engine and all that. I don’t know how much good it’s done. I DID get him over his rollercoaster fear a few years back, but that was much simpler to achieve and took a few outings to Magic Mountain.
He’s thinking of Xanax too but he’s freaked out about it - any psychotropic medications he’s ever had (all in the opioid family thus far) have had bad effects on him. I just don’t know what to do. We both want to travel, it’s our #1 priority as far as recreation goes. But taking a boat to Europe or China is neither desirable nor affordable. I may have to clank him out with my cast iron frying pan.
I’m a flight instructor, and one of my first students started lessons with me because he was terrified of flying.
Although he hasn’t completed the license yet, he has soloed and made navigational flights to other airports. But his attitude toward commercial flights has changed a lot. He says he can now actually relax a bit on an airliner, when before he was a white knuckler.
But I won’t overstate his success because it was a very difficult undertaking for him. He didn’t appear to enjoy anything about the experience for about the first ten hours. But he has a tenacious personality and stuck with it. I give him a lot of credit.
But of course, I’m a really good CFI too…
Barracuda Motorcade, I’d be glad to take you up if you happen to live near my area. Send me a PM if you’re interested and we’ll talk.
I love flying and I wish I could learn to pilot (hey, Mach Truck, feel like giving me some free lessons?) so I can’t really relate or say how well it works, but I have heard that many people find it easier to relax once they know what’s going on.
There are a lot of weird sounds going on, particularly prior to take-off as the pilots adjust things and verify that everything is working and get the plane ready to go.
That bump-thump-kalump sound just before take-off? Oh, that’s just cargo doors closing.
That bzzzzzzzzz electric-razor-type sound? Just the flaps being extended (watch them out your window!)
That growling rumble that comes and goes during taxiing? Just the thrust of the engines as the pilot speeds up or slows them down to get to the end of the runway.
That high-pitched whistling whine? That’s the sound of the main fan blades at the front of the engines.
A low electrical hum when you first board? The Auxiliary Power Unit, providing power to the airplane when the engines are off.
The loud, ramping up buzz as the airplane leaves the gate? Just the engines powering up.
When approaching landing, the thud and loud rumble and hiss is just the landing gear being deployed. You’d hear that thud after take-off too, as the landing gear is retracted.
While in flight, there’s a constant hiss… just air, sliding along the plane’s surface.
While you might feel like the plane is perpendicular to the ground on a turn, it’s unlikely that it’s actually more than 30 degrees, at most 45 degrees from horizontal.
I hope that helps!
I love flying, despite the concerted efforts of airlines to make as much like hell on Earth as possible, but my mom used to really, really hate it. Had to drug herself to the eyeballs to get on a plane. Then one flight, some asshole in a Cesna was where he wasn’t supposed to be, and the pilot had to bank hard to avoid smearing him all over the cockpit window. He stood the plane on its wing and dropped like an eagle dive-bombing a field mouse. She says it was the most terrifying thing that’s ever happened to her… but she’s not scared of flying any more. I guess she knows just how bad things can get, and that she can handle it, so it’s not a big deal anymore. Now, if only I could convince her to ride in a car while I’m driving…
Anyway, if you can convince your next pilot to come as close as possible to crashing the plane without actually driving it into the side of a mountain, you might be able to get over your fear. Good luck with that!
I used to think flying was fun. Then, when I was around 20 years old, it suddenly became terrifying. I couldn’t stop thinking about falling to my death. A few things that help/ed:
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I always try to go to sleep on the plane before takeoff. Takeoff really freaks me out, and as long as I am asleep or in a deep state of relaxation/self-hypnosis while the plane is taking off, I’m usually fine with the actual flight (unless there’s tons of turbulence) and landing.
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The doctor gave me Xanax and that seemed to help too, but I haven’t had to use it for the past couple of years.
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I got rear-ended in a car crash and totaled my car, and somehow that helped. I guess because the experience was so sudden and shocking, it made me realize that I would probably be in some kind of heightened adrenaline state if something did happen, and if something did happen I probably wouldn’t be slowly and calmly contemplating the accident Satanic Verses-style, just dealing with whatever happened as it happened, very quickly.
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Playing video games makes flights go fast, much faster than watching movies. I flew Singapore Airlines across the Pacific, and the seatback Nintendos worked like a charm. Even during turbulence, I was so absorbed I didn’t mind.
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As someone else mentioned, it helps to think of turbulence like you’re in a boat or a car. I realized this after I was on a boat in choppy water and people started screaming. I wasn’t scared at all. I realized that if I had been in a plane with that much turbulence, I would have been really scared, but the situation was really essentially the same.
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Talking to someone else can also be a good distraction because of the social pressure to put on a smiling face and act normal. Acting normal makes you feel more normal.
Well, I don’t know if it’s the same level of fear… but there was a time in my life that getting on airplane was so terrifying that I’d puke a couple times prior to boarding.
In my case it wasn’t totally irrational - prior to that time I had had a Very Bad Experience during a take-off involving bits of flying metal and flaming engine and… it was Very Bad, OK? But we all lived and walked away unhurt. So it wasn’t totally irrational.
How did I get over it? Flying lessons. I’ve been a licensed pilot for some time now. I love flying. Mmmmm… flying!
Which isn’t to say it was all easy - I’m not Mach Tuck’s student, but like that student I had some issues in early flight training, and in a couple other spots along the way. You may not want to go all the way to a license - just a few lessons may (or may not) help.
And I tell people that, in most cases, their fear of flying isn’t totally irrational. You are, after all, trusting a total stranger to take you safely through a situation that you don’t know much if anything about in a machine that you know little to nothing about under circumstances so unfamilar you have no way to judge was is and isn’t normal or safe. This will generate a certain level of anixety in most people.
Of course, for most it’s not a crippling anxiety.
So… try to find out what, exactly, is tripping the fear switch. Don’t know what’s going or what’s normal/safe? Then educate yourself about that. You’re a bit of a control freak and it’s the lack of control issue bothering you? Lessons might help - you’ll find that making it go where you point it isn’t a big deal, and that the machine is a lot more forgiving of error than you ever thought possible. Air sickness a problem? (It can cause fear/anxiety as well as nausea) There are medications for that. And so on. There’s more than one solution, you need to find the one that works for you.