Dealing with Flying

[Asita]

I am super afraid of flying.

The obvious question is, why are you afraid of flying?

Planes are pretty safe. Getting checked by security isn't a horror movie. I got selected for a random search on my second trip, and they make you go into a plastic box (well, it doesn't have sides, just a front face), and I was grinning at the situation because it seems so absurd.

But yea, what is it that frightens you?

Plummeting to my death.

Well, as someone who probably straddles the line of acrophobia, I can certainly relate. And yes, I did have a stint where I'd practically dig my fingers into the armrests any time the plane changed altitude or hit a bit of turbulence. One thing that helped me was reasoning out that flying wouldn't be a common mode of transportation if it wasn't overwhelmingly safe. There are tens of millions of commercial flights every year, and the number of accidents don't tend to even hit triple digits, and the vast majority of those accidents (like, 80% of them) are resolved without issue. I actually crunched the numbers, and while my figures were rough, it basically boiled down to me (and you) worrying about 0.000045% of flights[footnote]No, that is not hyperbolic. That is the figure I came up with after crunching the numbers I found when using 2013 as a base year. (couldn't remember the original numbers I'd come up with)[/footnote]. Which might be a non-zero number, but it's also a ridiculously small one to base a worry on. You might joke about people invoking statistics, but for me it did help.

Distractions also help. I personally recommend new books because there are never any restrictions on their use and, in my case at least, getting engrossed in one tends to make me tune out a lot of the little things that would otherwise irrationally worry me.

 

[McElroy]

When something doesn't seem to work out ask yourself: what would Jesus Batman do?

Bruce Wayne was afraid of bats, but he turned that fear into strength and became a superhero. It's not a bird, it's a plane, but inside the plane... It's Saelune, The Flying Furry! Onlookers across the country can only stare in awe!

My brother developed it, despite having flown a good number of times previously he became terrified of flying and took some medication (Don't know specifically what he took, just something to help with nerves) to alleviate that fear which, pretty much stopped the fear dead in his tracks as he no longer needs them to fly anymore.

Woah. That must be one for the record books. How does he explain going through all that?

 

[RedDeadFred]

While I actually enjoy flying, one of my friends hates it. He tends to listen to relaxing music the whole time while trying to focus on reading.

I can't really speak to the security of the US airports, but if it's anything like Canada, domestic flights shouldn't be a big deal. You check in, drop off your baggage, go through security (just put your carry-on on the belt and walk through the scanner). If you're worried about this part, just double check the carry-on regulations and make sure you're following them. Remember, those people aren't your enemy, they're just doing their job and trying to keep everyone safe.

 

[stroopwafel]

I don't like flying either but for me it's a combination of mild claustrophobia(I don't like small and confined places with lots of people, but really, who does?) and all the shit you hear in the media about planes crashing, being hijacked, blown up, shot down etc. Ofcourse rationally you know flying is safe(safest way to travel actually) and that something happening is extremely rare but unfortunately this doesn't exempt you from worrying.

However though my wish to visit certain places only reachable by plane was ultimately stronger than any (irrational) fear. Also, for me it was more like worrying about all the things that could go wrong but when I actually arrived at the airport and in the plane I just took a cup of coffee and was pretty relaxed.

Letting worries or anxieties determine your decisions is usually not a good idea. You probably have nicer memories and more experiences to draw from when you go than when you stay at home.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

I am super afraid of flying.

The obvious question is, why are you afraid of flying?

Planes are pretty safe. Getting checked by security isn't a horror movie. I got selected for a random search on my second trip, and they make you go into a plastic box (well, it doesn't have sides, just a front face), and I was grinning at the situation because it seems so absurd.

But yea, what is it that frightens you?

Plummeting to my death.

Planes don't really "plummet" once their up in the air. If they somehow lose all engines or something, it just turns into a glider, and the pilot can just set it down nicely like a paper airplane. Hell, Tom Hanks can land a plane on a freaking river in the middle of New York City! And Denzel Washington can do it while drunk!!

 

[Joccaren]

I dislike flying. I do it, because I love the destination, but yeah, shitting myself half the flight.

For me, since its not intercontinental I'm going to guess and they won't give you a proper entertainment suite [And even if they do], my flight survival kit;
-Blanket. Keeps you warm, makes you feel snuggled too.
-Book. Great for reading.
-Handheld gaming platform. 3DS, or something similar. If possible, get a new game for it you're really looking forward to.
-Laptop. Save movies, videos, and games to it.
-Phone or other music playing device. Yeah, airplane mode, but you can save your music to it, and listen to it.
-Full head headphones.

Get on the plane. Get out blanket, and put it on. Get handheld and book ready. While plane is taking off, read book, snuggle in blanket. Once its high enough in the air that you can use electronic devices, either keep reading your book if you really like it and its keeping you distracted, or, pull out your music device and headphones, start to listen, get out your handheld, start to game, and just sit there utterly distracted and immersed in everything but the flight. When it comes time to land, reverse the process, get off, and not have realised you were on a plane. For long distance flights, this doesn't work as well [8-12 hour flights kill me], as the seats are so uncomfortable after a while, and its much colder, and you run out of things to do, BUT, for most flights you should be fine with this.

 

[sneakypenguin]

To ease your mind the FAA regulations for part 121 and 135 carriers are insanely thorough from MX to crew training requirements. Airspace in the flightlevels is controlled by ATC and RVSM airspace is autopilot only so mid airs are virtually impossible plus they have TCAS. Airliners can do cat 3 ILS's to essentially 0 RVR. Systems are triple redundant requiring pretty much a missile hit to bring a plane down. Crashes nowdays are survivable cause CFIT doesn't happen anymore with TAWs and all the precision RNAV capability. You can glide a good 90 miles if you lose an engine at altitude. Single engine climb performance is excellent so losing an engine is fine. The FARs are written in blood and nowdays for the US at least aviation is pretty much the safest thing you could do.

 

[stroopwafel]

Systems are triple redundant requiring pretty much a missile hit to bring a plane down.

Unfortunately this is what lead to a national tragedy here two years ago when a passenger plane with 200 somewhat Dutch people was shot out of the sky by pro-Russian rebel forces who (probably) mistook the plane for a Ukranian supply or presidential plane. Obviously the airline company is largely to blame by having their flight path traverse eastern Ukraine when it was engaged in a proxy war with Russia but it still demonstrates the vulnerability of passenger planes to remote missile launchers or portable surface to air crap. People with ill intent will always search for the weakest link and it's not impossible for like a stinger to end up in the wrong hands. So, maybe passenger planes should be standard equipped with flares and some missile approach warning sytem?

Also, do you know about psychological evaluation of pilots? Like, last year as well there was a pilot with apparent issues and also using anti-depressants who suicided with the plane taking all 144 passengers with him(including 2 babies). Pilots snapping is unfortunately also not the first time it happened.

Like I said incidents are extremely rare but when they do happen the damage is immense.

 

[Saelune]

Systems are triple redundant requiring pretty much a missile hit to bring a plane down.

Unfortunately this is what lead to a national tragedy here two years ago when a passenger plane with 200 somewhat Dutch people was shot out of the sky by pro-Russian rebel forces who (probably) mistook the plane for a Ukranian supply or presidential plane. Obviously the airline company is largely to blame by having their flight path traverse eastern Ukraine when it was engaged in a proxy war with Russia but it still demonstrates the vulnerability of passenger planes to remote missile launchers or portable surface to air crap. People with ill intent will always search for the weakest link and it's not impossible for like a stinger to end up in the wrong hands. So, maybe passenger planes should be standard equipped with flares and some missile approach warning sytem?

Also, do you know about psychological evaluation of pilots? Like, last year as well there was a pilot with apparent issues and also using anti-depressants who suicided with the plane taking all 144 passengers with him(including 2 babies). Pilots snapping is unfortunately also not the first time it happened.

Like I said incidents are extremely rare but when they do happen the damage is immense.

Ok, so I had already settled on not going, but I really didnt need to know this. My issue wasnt with the pilots, but really? Fuck that guy. If I believed in Hell, Id hope he gets the worst of it. I dont demonize suicide like some do, but not when you are responsible for other people! What a fucking piece of shit.

 

[stroopwafel]

Ok, so I had already settled on not going, but I really didnt need to know this. My issue wasnt with the pilots, but really? Fuck that guy. If I believed in Hell, Id hope he gets the worst of it. I dont demonize suicide like some do, but not when you are responsible for other people! What a fucking piece of shit.

Yeah, it was the Germanwings incident. One Andreas Lubitz was treated for suicidal tendencies but didn't inform his employer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525

 

[sneakypenguin]

Also, do you know about psychological evaluation of pilots? Like, last year as well there was a pilot with apparent issues and also using anti-depressants who suicided with the plane taking all 144 passengers with him(including 2 babies). Pilots snapping is unfortunately also not the first time it happened.

Like I said incidents are extremely rare but when they do happen the damage is immense.

Every 6 months you go for a 1st class physical they don't do a psych eval but with the way the US system is set up you need 1500 flight hours to even qualify for an ATP a BA to be competitive for the legacy carriers then 1000s of hours PIC of turbine time so you weed out most everyone whos not cut for it.
To get jobs you gotta network and know people so if word gets around your flaky or somehow off you'll get pushed out. Foreign carriers do ab initio training so you can go from nothing to right seat on an airbus in under a year so theres no where near the training experience and time to weed out poor candidates. Instead they send you to america to fly 190 hours at a part 141 school get a multi crew license and off to co pilot a jet with no experience beyond 100 hours or so in a piper Seminole or DA 42. Flying legacy carriers in the US the mental health of the PIC and SIC up front is probably the last thing I would worry about. Even if a guy was about to lose his license for say a medical reason and depressed he's still got it good cause he's got loss of license insurance and is gonna be paid bank to not work till hes 65. Some guys if a medical issue arises (heart vision etc) wont even fight to keep it cause they might get 100k a year to not work. I don't think the german wings guy had such a system in place when he feared going blind. The Germanwings guy would have struggled to get a job flying parachute jumpers or towing gliders for free in the US and at 600 hours flight time would probably be 5-10 years away from seeing the cockpit at a Legacy. Even the Captain on that flight at 6000 hours is relatively inexperienced.

Not trying to dump on foreign pilots but the US puts them through a lot more certification and experience requirements before they can fly 100s of pax around.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

I've been on two trips this year to the Midwest: one alone, taking two planes to my destination and two planes home; the other with a family member, with one plane to our destination and one back home. All of those trips were harrowing for me.

I've only been on a plane once every 7-9 years and every other time we would travel out of state was by car. The way I got around not being utterly terrified of flying is because my family always insisted on traveling at midnight. I am not a late night person, so I would just fall asleep and wake up at our destination. So yeah, maybe that is a solution for the OP.

If you are traveling during the day, however, I recommend taking stuff that will entertain you and not have you thinking about the flight. For both of my trips, I carried a journal to write my thoughts in, a book that I would read from time to time, my MP3 player to listen to all my favorite music, and my smartphone that is stuffed with various games that I enjoy. By simply keeping my mind occupied, I don't feel as frightened about flying. Some flights even give you complementary movies to watch and that was great. On one of my return flights, I saw Captain America: Civil War and The Dark Knight and didn't even realize that we were about to land.

Even though it was smooth sailing both ways, I'm still nervous as heck when it comes to take off and landing. However, I'm still very excited about traveling next year, and my system seems to keep me calm and collected the whole way through.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Maybe look into working up a tolerance? Like maybe you could get on relatively short plane trips, like 45 minute ones, for a weekend somewhere. And bring something to distract yourself with.

 

[one squirrel]

If you're flying in a plane that is made out of aluminium, you are probably safe. If it is made out of composites (some of the newer ones are, like the A380), then well, my professor said that the fatigue strength of such materials is not really known at this point. Make of that what you will.

 

[Glongpre]

It is so weird reading about people who do not like flying. Take offs and landings are so cool! Like you are flying, how freaking amazing is that!!??!

I love feeling the power as you hurtle down the runway, and then the feeling of getting lift and all the ground friction disappears and you are just gliding along. Not to mention the view is really cool!

Also, when I was coming back from Norway, since I was flying opposite the rotation of the earth, the sun actually reversed it's setting...of itself. Haha. Anyway, what I am saying is that it was setting in Europe, but it was still up in Toronto. It was cool to see from the plane. I got to see the sun set twice that day

Fucking science is awesome.

 

[Saelune]

It is so weird reading about people who do not like flying. Take offs and landings are so cool! Like you are flying, how freaking amazing is that!!??!

I love feeling the power as you hurtle down the runway, and then the feeling of getting lift and all the ground friction disappears and you are just gliding along. Not to mention the view is really cool!

Also, when I was coming back from Norway, since I was flying opposite the rotation of the earth, the sun actually reversed it's setting...of itself. Haha. Anyway, what I am saying is that it was setting in Europe, but it was still up in Toronto. It was cool to see from the plane. I got to see the sun set twice that day

Fucking science is awesome.

Space Travel is even more awesome, and Id be even more scared to do that! The science of it all is fascinating, sure, but I mean...its still hard to wrap my head around how a giant hunk of metal can fly in the air for hours on end.

It is weird reading about the different views people have on it. Take offs suck, sure, but thats the start of the trip. Landings though, I prefer them, it means its over, its done, and if something goes wrong, you wont get sucked out into the fucking sky...

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

It is so weird reading about people who do not like flying. Take offs and landings are so cool! Like you are flying, how freaking amazing is that!!??!

I love feeling the power as you hurtle down the runway, and then the feeling of getting lift and all the ground friction disappears and you are just gliding along. Not to mention the view is really cool!

Also, when I was coming back from Norway, since I was flying opposite the rotation of the earth, the sun actually reversed it's setting...of itself. Haha. Anyway, what I am saying is that it was setting in Europe, but it was still up in Toronto. It was cool to see from the plane. I got to see the sun set twice that day

Fucking science is awesome.

Space Travel is even more awesome, and Id be even more scared to do that! The science of it all is fascinating, sure, but I mean...its still hard to wrap my head around how a giant hunk of metal can fly in the air for hours on end.

It is weird reading about the different views people have on it. Take offs suck, sure, but thats the start of the trip. Landings though, I prefer them, it means its over, its done, and if something goes wrong, you wont get sucked out into the fucking sky...

That getting sucked out thing like in the movies where somebody shoots a hole in a plane is a myth. The depressurisation doesnt do that, but I believe its more you might feel a gentle tug if you were next to the hole.

 

[Saelune]

It is so weird reading about people who do not like flying. Take offs and landings are so cool! Like you are flying, how freaking amazing is that!!??!

I love feeling the power as you hurtle down the runway, and then the feeling of getting lift and all the ground friction disappears and you are just gliding along. Not to mention the view is really cool!

Also, when I was coming back from Norway, since I was flying opposite the rotation of the earth, the sun actually reversed it's setting...of itself. Haha. Anyway, what I am saying is that it was setting in Europe, but it was still up in Toronto. It was cool to see from the plane. I got to see the sun set twice that day

Fucking science is awesome.

Space Travel is even more awesome, and Id be even more scared to do that! The science of it all is fascinating, sure, but I mean...its still hard to wrap my head around how a giant hunk of metal can fly in the air for hours on end.

It is weird reading about the different views people have on it. Take offs suck, sure, but thats the start of the trip. Landings though, I prefer them, it means its over, its done, and if something goes wrong, you wont get sucked out into the fucking sky...

That getting sucked out thing like in the movies where somebody shoots a hole in a plane is a myth. The depressurisation doesnt do that, but I believe its more you might feel a gentle tug if you were next to the hole.

Sucked out, fall out, pushed out, doesnt really matter.

 

[omega 616]

I don't even realise I am flying, not that I have been in planes a lot but it always felt like just sitting in a movie theatre but with no screen and somehow less leg room.

Sure, I can look out the window and see clouds and the ground is far away but I'm not clutching the seat thinking "I am x thousand feet above the ground and if something goes wrong my head will be part of the seat in front".

Take a book or some kind of distraction and get stuck into it, before you know it, the flight is over.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I used to be absolutely terrified by flying, as an extension of my general crippling fear of heights.

I went to university in North Carolina, but I'm from New Hampshire... so I got stuck doing a lot of flying during those four years, since my family wasn't willing to do a 17+ hour roadtrip each way for every single vacation.

My first solo flight home involved flying from Greensboro, NC to Charlotte, NC then from Charlotte, NC to Manchester, NH. Because Greensboro to Charlotte is only like a 25 minute flight they put us in this seemingly ancient, tiny propeller aircraft. To make matters worse, we had to fly through a storm. I had a white-knuckle grip on my armrests, I was sweating profusely, and felt like I was going to be sick at any moment since I had the opening disaster sequence from the first Final Destination movie running through my head over and over. About ten minutes into the flight the guy sitting next to me asked if I was okay, and I told him the situation. At this point the plane was shaking pretty violently from turbulence from the storm. The man next to me pointed out that across from us there was another passenger in a uniform that was sleeping. He explained to me how the airlines let their aircrews take open seats on flights to get home when their shifts finish, and that the guy across from us was likely a pilot or copilot judging by the uniform. The guy next to me asked me if the uniformed man would be so calm if he thought we were in any danger. Seeing that helped quite a bit, and I still appreciate what the guy who sat next to me did for me that day.

Over the course of those four years I flew home and back to school four times each year, and each flight involved a layover at an airport somewhere in between destinations. By my senior year I was actually getting pretty comfortable with it. My only real gripe is that I always seem to catch some kind of cold every time I fly.

Meanwhile one of my roommates who lived in Maryland and did drive home for each vacation ended up getting into three collisions, none of which his fault, over those four years. Go figure.