[esselle]

Have had a few moments of doubt over the years, but concluded that the crew were always a good indicator of how bad things were. If the cabin crew looked anxious and were shooting each other worried glances, it was time to concentrate!

[LuganoPirate]

I don’t mind flying into LCY, it’s takeoffs on windy day I don’t like as after the initial buffeting you fly at 2,000′ for about 15 mins before climbing to normal cruise levels.

I’m not actually afraid of flying, it’s just I don’t like turbulence. My fear of the wings coming off is irrational I know as is my preference, like Rich for Boeings and 4 engined planes.

A pilot once said to me, the trouble with 4 engined aircraft is there are two extra engines for the birds to aim at! Ummm, yesss!!!

[MartynSinclair]

Pity, nervous passengers cant sit in whilst pilots are undergoing checks on simulators. That would certainly show the nervous passengers, how well trained pilots are and their ability to recover the aircraft from unusual situations.

[Charles-P]

Martyn’s
There is a flight simulator company at Bournemouth Airport that does this. They show all the work a pilot does during take off and landing as well as simulating minor emergencies to show how they are dealt with. I understand that seeing the cockpit helps a number of nervous fliers.

[craigwatson]

Hmm, I can think of a number of sim sessions that may not have been a good idea to have nervous fliers sitting in on!! They would never go near an airport again.

[NTarrant]

I don’t have any fears with flying and turbulence I find sends me to sleep. Mrs T was very fearful until she took the course mentioned above, in fact she did it twice to go with a friend. She does not like turbulence still but all the other things that used to flighten her have gone. So it is well worth the money.

What was interesting was that like Mrs T there are many people who were not fearful of flying but developed the fear and that is explained in the course.

[LuganoPirate]

I was thinking the same Craig.

Light turbulence also sends me to sleep, and once in the land of nod I rarely wake up for a good six hours!

[Bill_Hants]

I once read about a woman who had a deep fear of flying. Her husband was a keen flyer, who insisted she accompanied him on holidays, so this created problems.

She eventually went secretly to a specialist psychologist. He came to the conclusion that it was not fear of flying per se, but fear of her husband’s disapproval of her distress, and his overbearing chiding. The husband was apparently a domineering type, intolerant of different points of view.

The wife eventually overcame her phobia but whether this was achieved by divorce or by putting arsenic in his tea, I don’t recall!!

[LuganoPirate]

Just watched Air Crash Investigation. (Why do I watch these programmes?) It concerned the rudder failure on a Northwest 747-400 which thanks to the crew hand flying the plane under very difficult circumstances, landed safely.

It was the Captain’s comment at the end that confirms something I’ve thought of for some time now, and perhaps this is the most worrying aspect of flight today.

“In today’s day and age, there are fewer and fewer pilots who can hand fly an aircraft”.

Should we be worried by this?

[LPPSKrisflyer]

I have a friend who is a training captain on A320s with BA. About a year ago I was lucky enough to spend some time in a simulator at Cranebank with him and another training captain. We were in there for four hours and it was an amazing experience.

I learned quite a lot and managed a few take offs and landings and had some nasty situations thrown at me too.

For the last hour I challenged them to show me how the experts really do it and they showed me how to control the ‘failures’ that the simulator is capable of. I threw things at them that would be way beyond what could happen and beyond what would be thrown at them on their checks and used airports BA do not fly to including Funchal and Innsbruck. They dealt with multiple engine failures, fires, jammed flaps and rudders and more. They were both sweating by the time we finished but all I will say is we landed safely every time. I don’t know why but I wasn’t surprised but they were. These guys have amazing skill and although I never feared flying I now have no doubts about the skill of the people at the front.

I was also assured that standards on the flight deck are the same at BA, LH, AF and more and they work together on operational standards and that we can have equal confidence in them all.

[RichHI1]

I am less worried by tech issues than traffic errors on taxi, take off and approach. Aircraft are predictable but other traffic is not always.

[IanFromHKG]

Interesting how this affects people. My wife was a very nervous flyer and has managed to downgrade herself to simply nervous – she used to hold my hand (in a deathgrip!) on take-off and landings and got rather upset during heavy turbulence. Now it is mostly the turbulence that bothers her. My mother, on the other hand, started off fine and now is increasingly nervous of flying.

I myself have only been genuinely frightened three times:
(1) as a child on a school trip, looking out over the wings – just after touchdown the upper half of the engine casing flipped upwards. I realised later it was the airbrake (probably using the wrong term here, sorry) but it really gave me the willies at the time
(2) on a CAAC flight from HKG to PEK. The flight had been repeatedly delayed for technical problems, after we eventually were allowed on board we pushed off from the stand and a few seconds later the plane just died. Completely. Engines, lights, aircon, everything, all at the same time, as if someone had thrown a master switch. Same thing happened on the second attempt. If that plane is still out there somewhere it probably still has marks from my fingers crushing the armrests when we finally took off…
(3) trip back from Jakarta to HKG. There had been various problems with A330s with a particular RR engine, widely reported in the local newspapers at the time. On arrival at the airport, CX staff redirected me to the Garuda desk, without initially explaining why. Turned out CX had grounded its entire fleet of A330s with these engines. And transferred us onto a Garuda flight. It was only when I boarded that I realised it was – guess what – an A330 with the same RR engines. So I sat there, thinking “Hmmm. CX – with some of the best-maintained aircraft in the world – think these things aren’t safe to fly, and they have put me on one maintained and operated by GARUDA??!!!” Closest I have ever come to walking off a plane before take-off – as it turned out it was fine, but I still wish I had had the balls to do it. I would definitely do it now.

Otherwise, I have had no problems. I am, it should be said, something of a fatalist – apart from taking sensible precautions, I simply don’t see the point of wasting emotional energy worrying about a contingency until it actually happens. My wife, on the other hand, is a worrier, and faced with a potential issue will want to carefully think through all the possibilities and make contingency plans. Drives me nuts. I wonder if there is a link between this sort of atitude to life and fear of flying? I am sure my approach is better for blood pressure, but I don’t know whether it is simply built in (which I suspect it is) or whether it is something that is cognitive and could be adjusted. Thoughts, anyone?

[RichHI1]

My flight instructor had a strange habit of sqying “that’s another one we walked away from”. I picked this habit up. Have got some strange looks from other passengers when oberheard but flight crew normally just smile.
Though you have limited influence as a passenger. Anyone else have superstitions or what an ex Girlfriend called OCD behaviours?

[MartynSinclair]

Take off from intersections rather than full length always gets a

“runway behind is no bloody use”.

[Bill_Hants]

Ian_from_HKG

I suspect it can be adjusted and maybe that’s where the ‘fear of flying’ courses apply their effort. Not having been on one, I don’t know, however.

Myself, I’ve never had a problem. I suppose I belong to your school of thought. If the plane is going down, there’s damn-all I can do about it … Numerous landings over the years at Kai Tak, often in pretty hairy weather, have never shaken my stance.

I do think the cabin crew have an influence on ‘fear of flying’ – passengers take their cue from the crew’s approach to minor problems – and that has nearly always been a very professional approach in my experience.

[Author]

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