Surreal pictures, like the one above from HuffPo, all over the interwebz this afternoon. TFH and I will be travelling to Florida, via Charlotte NC, on US Airways next month, so I threw a bit of a wobbly when I saw this. I hate flying at the best of times, but to read that a frigging BIRD brought a whole flight down just freaks me right out. Although, if we’re to look on the (slightly ghoulish) bright side, given the law of averages, US Airways should be safe for a few years now.
I’m not really sure how it came about, my fear of flying. I used to spend hours at Baldonnel Aerodrome as a kid, when my father was in the Air Corps, and I loved everything about airplanes. I read all the Biggles stories by W. E. Johns and I was bound and determined to take flying lessons as soon as I turned 18. Then I got an inner ear infection when I was about 12 years old, which left me with a severe balance problem for a few months, as well as a lifelong fear of heights. I can’t even look down when I’m walking down a staircase, and my one and only trip up the CN Tower in Toronto did not go well, especially when I found myself in a glass express elevator that shot up the OUTSIDE of the building and I was looking the WRONG way. But I digress …
I freaked out the first time I travelled on a commercial flight, when I was about 16. It was between England and Ireland on a Vickers Viscount, the pride and joy of Aer Lingus at the time, and the mainstay of its fleet. The air pockets between those two countries can be pretty ferocious and those old turbo-props used to suddenly drop what seemed like hundreds of feet every hour or so. I was a basket case by the time I got off the aircraft, and had to make the return journey on the Mailboat, much to the consternation of my father. Needless to mention, the flying lessons vanished in a puff of smoke.
Even in my 20s, when I lived first in Germany and then in England, I would only travel home if I could be guaranteed that the flight was on a jet, which in those days was not always the case. Jets seemed to me to handle those air pockets much better. I would try to bag a window seat, just so that I could jam the blind down immediately, for fear of seeing the ground fall away as we took off or banked before landing. And I insisted on a seat in the very tail of the aircraft, because I read somewhere that it was the safest place in a crash.
I’m much better now … so long as I have TFH with me and can hang on to his hand, with white knuckles and eyes closed, during takeoff and if there’s any turbulence. I sometimes even look out the window as we take off and land. And these days, I insist on sitting as far forward as possible, because I now know that the tail, while it may be safe in a crash, is damn’ uncomfortable in any kind of turbulence, as I found out when we took off from Las Vegas one time in a sandstorm.
But still, given a choice between flying and poking myself in the eye with a pointy stick, I’m strongly tempted to choose the latter. And there is no way, in this life or any other, that you will ever get me up in one of those huge, size of a football field, Airbus A380s, with their 550 passenger capacity and onboard casinos. Now that’s really defying the laws of nature.
Many years ago, Tessa,I got to be an embarrassment on business flights, to the point (long red-facey story) that I took bio-feedback classes. It helped enormously and even though a little nervous, nowhere near the gibberish puddle I was when on board yet another flight.
But I can so sympathize with you.
One of the mantras I use is:
“Feel the fear but do it anyway”. It really helps me.
XO
WWW
Thank for the tip, wisewebwoman. Every little bit helps …
I don’t really have a fear of flying. Some good healthy anxiety maybe but not enough to stop me. The Biker Nazi flew US Airways today and as in the air when I first heard about this crash. Talk about anxiety!
I can just imagine how you felt. Whenever any of my nearest and dearest are on flights, I keep an anxious eye on breaking news reports until they are safe on the ground. Which I know is really, really stupid, since they’re more likely to be killed in a traffic accident on the way from the airport to their end destination.
Oh Tessa, I too share your fear of flying…As you know, Dave absolutely refuses to fly, and I am beginning to share his position…problem for me is a darling daughter and two granddaughters on the western edge of the country. So once or twice a year I will hop on a flight, feeling somehow a bit more secure in the homeland. But let us just hope that we can all have such an experienced pilot in any plane we fly…New guidelines and research will surely be emerging from this averted tragedy…And statistic do show that flying is still safer than driving!!!…I am very relieved that you are delaying your road trip until April…xoML…
Me, too. But don’t tell TFH!
god i hate flying too…coming home from LA 2 summers ago i sat in front of 2 airline employees and listened to them discuss a pilot who had recently died mid-flight of an aneurysm…fabulous…just what i needed to hear.