To quote the pilot while we were flying South above Hudson River: “You, who sit on the port side, have a magnificent view of Manhattan, whilst you on the starboard side can see New Jersey”. 
Chicken liver indeed! Not this time, but last time I flew to Asia, a few years ago, having a monitor at every seat was a new thing. I was flying alone, no hubby to clutch onto, and did not have anything tuned in on the monitor.
Imagine my horror as we approached take off, and suddenly with no warning, on comes the monitor with the view from the nose or cockpit. OMG, I was furiously punching buttons on the thing trying to tune in anything else! It was truly frightening! Yikes! Why would anyone want to see that? I don’t care for take off as I have the feeling so much as a pebble in the pathway will surely send us all to fiery deaths!
I eventually became a better flyer by the oddest of circumstances, I always loved travel, and preferred the kind of big planes that leave Chicago and land in Tokyo 15 hrs later! Some of the smaller planes I road in S America were just frightening, or anything flown by Air India, for that matter. Then one summer we flew in a little Cesna pontoon plane into a friends woodland cabin. It changed everything for me!
Over the years my hubby had always tried to reassure me with stupid science, explain lift and drag, blah, blah, blah, always finishing up with, “So you see, it MUST lift!” Yeah, I’m looking as something bigger than a building, I’m not really buying that. I’ll get on the plane, but I’m going to enjoy the take off, no how!
But the little Cesna changed all that, I sat up front with the teenaged pilot, ( see NOT a chicken shit!), I swear it was smaller than our car inside, and as it taxied out into the lake it creaked and rattled, not very confidence inspiring at all! But then as it began to pick up speed to lift off, it was really odd, but I could suddenly actually feel the lift, as my Aussie friend’s like to say, “In my bones!” And suddenly I understood that it really, actually, and truly, MUST lift!
Chickenshit? I think not! You take that back!
The takeoff roll for a commercial jet is actually about 30 seconds, and not quite as fast as 180. It does gain speed faster in the air since there is no drag from the wheels, but because of the pitch it is not as noticeable (you notice the pitch change more than the acceleration).
I’ve always thought that flying in a small plane, especially the front seat, is very different from being in a large airliner. You can see out to the front and to both sides; you can get a proper sense of your orientation to the ground. If it’s an area you’re familiar with, you can find landmarks and know where you are. There’s a sense of seeing where you’re going, and why. I’m not sure that it would help everyone with a fear of flying, but I think it does still carry some of sense of adventure that flying used to have.
On an airliner, at best you’ve only got a little window looking sideways. I even have to bend my neck to look through it properly.
It’s not just a fear of flying, it’s people who are claustrophobic who benefit from seeing form the pilot’s perspective. Allowing them to fly the plane helps even more when they realize it’s not magic keeping a plane on course.
I was given some flying lessons in a Grob Viking glider when I was in the Air Cadets. In the front seat, there’s not much of the aircraft in front of your feet, and not a lot below your bum. It really is like sitting on a cloud. Once the winch cable is released, the flight is nearly silent. A winch launch must be the next best thing to being fired off an aircraft carrier, it’s very quick.
It is thousands of times better IMHO than sitting in a 747 with hundreds of other people.
The pilot actually said “whilst”?
My spectacular view stories:
(1) Flew from Oakland to Seattle in 1980, just a month or so after Mt. St. Helens went kablooey. We flew almost right over it, just a little to one side. The pilot announced the fact, and banked the plane so we had a view out the right side looking down into the crater, which was still smoking. For miles around, the ground was solidly covered with gray ash and fallen trees that looked like piles of Pick-Up Sticks.
(2) During a sailplane flying lesson, the instructor wanted to show me what visibility inside a cloud looks like. We were flying just below a cumulus cloud (a fine place to find lift, generally), so he took over the controls and allowed us to drift upward into the cloud.
Damn! Inside a cloud is, like, totally opaque! It wasn’t dark – just kind of dim. But you couldn’t see anything at all.
BTW: Yes, the gliders we flew (Schweizer 2-33’s for the student pilots) all had yaw strings.
I said chicken liver, not chicken shit.
This. elbows, did your teen-age pontoon plane pilot let your try your hand at flying it yourself? Next time you get the chance, be sure that happens! (Pro-tip: Keep your eyes open 
)
Okay, I take it back. If you managed to drag yourself into a small plane (kicking and screaming or otherwise) and you kept your eyes open (did you?) then you’re not so chicken, shit or liver or otherwise 
Did you enjoy the view?
Next up: Ask your pilot to show you a stall. If your survive that, try a spin.
A stall? A spin? Okay, so maybe I am a tad chicken liver after all, cause I sure as hell won’t be doing any of that! I said I was brave - not foolhardy!
And yes the view from that little plane was spectacular, a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, the lakes were smooth as glass. Nothing but lakes, rocks and virgin forests. When I booked the flight I told them I was unsure how to explain where the cabin was located, they said, “No worries, you can just point!”:eek:
The landing was unbelievable, there was this overpowering sensation that once we touched the waters surface we would sure go ass over nose directly into the lake. But it was like landing on whipped cream, no jolt or bump. Smooth as silk. I was so surprised I immediately turned to the pilot and asked him, what keeps the plane from going ass over end, on the landing? With a great big grin, he responded, “I do!”
I’ll be content to just not be white knuckling it anymore, thanks.
What is that quote? “Faster and faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death.” (Or some such thing, I may have mangled it a bit.) Pilots really are a different breed, I’m convinced. (And I don’t mean that in an entirely complimentary way, either!
Actually, there’s a saying:
“There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots.”
It was a British Airways flight. 
I agree with all of these.