Fear of Flying

[Disastrous]

I went to Nürnberg from Glasgow (GLC - NUR Hbh if we want to be absurd about it) by train at Christmas and it was superb. It only took marginally longer than the plane from Glasgow to Schipol and then the connection on and I left Glasgow at 0830 and arrived around midnight.

The point is though, those intervening hours were spent relaxing in a comfortable chair, drinking proper wine out a glass, served with a cheeseboard by some proper stewardesses on the Eurostar and ultimately, knocking back a solid bottle of red I had in my hand luggage (which also contained a knife and some fireworks and nobody fking batted an eyelid).

It was the definition of civilized and as I sat only comfy leather chair on an ICE, smashing through the german night, I regretted absolutely nothing about my decision.

I even forgot my passport and was allowed through The French border no bother.

My flight back was a fking nightmare and I nearly punched a Chinese child on my flight.

[eharding]

Disastrous said:

I even forgot my passport and was allowed through The French border no bother.

My flight back was a fking nightmare and I nearly punched a Chinese child on my flight.

Well, without a passport, I'm not surprised the flight back was a nightmare.

Presumably the Chinese kid eventually gave you his passport without you having to actually smack him about?

By the way, weren't already on some form of no-fly watch-list, you are now.

[popeyewhite]

surveyor said:

Any one else tried one of these? Do they work or a load of hot air?

Two popular ways of overcoming a phobia are some kind of mental skills package and systematic desensitisation. They can both work.

If she's good at imagery/visualisation then densensitisation therapy might work. If not it's an MST course working on focus and eliminating anxiety. Here it depends how anxious she is...if it's just cognitive anxiety she shouldn't have much of a problem. If it's somatic (sweats, raised bp, feeling sick etc) it's harder to deal with but not in any way impossible. She'd work on self-control/self-talk and imagery/focus most likely. Your friendly local counselor will advise.

[insurance_jon]

I used to have a fear of flying. a few flying lessons fixed it.

[Disastrous]

eharding said:

Disastrous said:

I even forgot my passport and was allowed through The French border no bother.

My flight back was a fking nightmare and I nearly punched a Chinese child on my flight.

Well, without a passport, I'm not surprised the flight back was a nightmare.

Presumably the Chinese kid eventually gave you his passport without you having to actually smack him about?

By the way, weren't already on some form of no-fly watch-list, you are now.

"Listen man, of course my name is Cheng-Gong Lee and I'm 12 years old and live in Beijing! Now let me pass!"

Fortunately I had a friend post it out to me whilst I was away. Didn't stop me fighting the Chinese kid. He was a 'seat lecriner.' Unforgivable on a KLM sttyhopper.

[Simpo Two]

Disastrous said:

My flight back was a fking nightmare and I nearly punched a Chinese child on my flight.

Ha, that reminds me of a flight out of Incheon seated opposite the Korean Olympic coughing champion

[Disastrous]

eharding said:

Disastrous said:

Ayahuasca said:

EWR-BHX y exit aisle.

Genuine question - do you know every single airport code? It's surely not routine to use them unless amongst pilots/people you're trying to look like a jet setter to?

Besides unless you know every single one its pointless, no?

Relax - the *real* saddos on aviation forums use ICAO codes as opposed to IATA ones, and are generally roundly castigated for doing so...

I just never ever pay attention to them. I suppose I must know the local one and probably LHR for London, and I guess JFK and LAX from hearing them referred to that way in american TV.

But I wouldn't ever assume anyone else would know 'my' airports, so would be odd to use them. Went through a couple of weird stops in northern India a couple of years ago and it would be strange to use the codes for them (as if I even remotely paid attention to them at the time) for me to use them as I can't imagine they'd mean anything to anyone. Even pilots would need to look them up.

I'm just curious as to whether it's me that's odd for not knowing them as people on here do it a lot.

[brickwall]

Disastrous said:

As I get older and travel more with work, I grow to loathe flying more and more with each flight.

It's not so much fear of flying (I quite enjoy taking off and knowing I'm in the air) as much as the sense of dread of going to the airport, the ballache, the security, the remembering to take the Swiss army knife out your pocket, the people, the noise, the cramped plane, the uncomfortable seats etc etc.

I just loathe it.

Anyway, my point is maybe get her to focus on hating everyone else in the vicinity, the level of service etc. I find that by the time I've got on the plane, I'm angry at everyone, surly, drinking heavily and far too ill-tempered to even consider being afraid of crashing. Id have positively welcomed it the last time I was on Ryanair.

Not sure if it's the best solution really.

I used to have an outlook similar to this. It changed when I started flying in Club routinely. Bizarrely I then started to relax more in the times I was at the back of the bus, because I just relaxed more.

[r1flyguy1]

Simpo Two said:

Disastrous said:

My flight back was a fking nightmare and I nearly punched a Chinese child on my flight.

Ha, that reminds me of a flight out of Incheon seated opposite the Korean Olympic coughing champion

Did you know that departing on the northerly runway out of Incheon there's a limit point indicated on the charts not to far north (& I mean NOT too far) if you cross the North will shoot you down

[Jakdaw]

jjones said:

Get her up in a glider!

Winch launch and then just the sound of rushing air. Couple of those and she won't bat an eyelid at a commercial flight (and will probably enjoy it!)

Best suggestion! Pilot will also be able to explain exactly how everything works (there's not much to a glider, and nothing hidden!) as well as all the things that could go wrong and how they (regularly) practice in dealing with those scenarios...

Biggest risk is that she'll get hooked

[Ayahuasca]

Disastrous said:

eharding said:

Disastrous said:

Ayahuasca said:

EWR-BHX y exit aisle.

Genuine question - do you know every single airport code? It's surely not routine to use them unless amongst pilots/people you're trying to look like a jet setter to?

Besides unless you know every single one its pointless, no?

Relax - the *real* saddos on aviation forums use ICAO codes as opposed to IATA ones, and are generally roundly castigated for doing so...

I just never ever pay attention to them. I suppose I must know the local one and probably LHR for London, and I guess JFK and LAX from hearing them referred to that way in american TV.

But I wouldn't ever assume anyone else would know 'my' airports, so would be odd to use them. Went through a couple of weird stops in northern India a couple of years ago and it would be strange to use the codes for them (as if I even remotely paid attention to them at the time) for me to use them as I can't imagine they'd mean anything to anyone. Even pilots would need to look them up.

I'm just curious as to whether it's me that's odd for not knowing them as people on here do it a lot.

Haha I don't know them all of course, just a few of the main ones, I know many people who would say I am just off to DFW or JFK or LAX instead of Dallas, New York or LA. LHR is easier to type than London Heathrow.

[hidetheelephants]

Disastrous said:

I went to Nürnberg from Glasgow (GLC - NUR Hbh if we want to be absurd about it) by train at Christmas and it was superb. It only took marginally longer than the plane from Glasgow to Schipol and then the connection on and I left Glasgow at 0830 and arrived around midnight.

The point is though, those intervening hours were spent relaxing in a comfortable chair, drinking proper wine out a glass, served with a cheeseboard by some proper stewardesses on the Eurostar and ultimately, knocking back a solid bottle of red I had in my hand luggage (which also contained a knife and some fireworks and nobody fking batted an eyelid).

Did you not have to spend the first 5 hours on a Virgin cattle truck to get to the Eurostar, or have civilised trains finally reached Glasgow now? Only 20 years late if they have.

[ecsrobin]

Disastrous said:

I went to Nürnberg from Glasgow (EGPF - EDDN if we want to be absurd about it) by train at Christmas and it was superb. It only took marginally longer than the plane from Glasgow to Schipol and then the connection on and I left Glasgow at 0830 and arrived around midnight.

The point is though, those intervening hours were spent relaxing in a comfortable chair, drinking proper wine out a glass, served with a cheeseboard by some proper stewardesses on the Eurostar and ultimately, knocking back a solid bottle of red I had in my hand luggage (which also contained a knife and some fireworks and nobody fking batted an eyelid).

It was the definition of civilized and as I sat only comfy leather chair on an ICE, smashing through the german night, I regretted absolutely nothing about my decision.

I even forgot my passport and was allowed through The French border no bother.

My flight back was a fking nightmare and I nearly punched a Chinese child on my flight.

Edited for you

Op I have only heard good things about the fear of flying courses, a lot of it is the noises that scare a lot of people on a plane.

My mother was a very bad flyer for many years, I managed to get her on a plane built in 1942 - a Dakota and the crew were made aware of her fear so the first thing they did was fit her to a harness open the back door and have her stand there during the flight after that's in hooked her and made her walk upto the cockpit (something she had never done on a plane she would just sit in fear the whole flight) and spent the rest of the flight stood in the cockpit.

Now she is a completely different person when it comes to flying.

[The Wookie]

I've got a fairly substantial fear of flying, to the point of regular nightmares about it. I'd say it's actually got worse over the years. Not helped by an incident a few years ago on approach to Nice after a bumpy flight when the plane dropped and rolled severely during the last turn onto the approach at low altitude. Even worse, I was chatting to my BA pilot best mate about it and he started quizzing me about the date and the time. Turned out it was one of his old flying school mates at the controls. He had texted him after the flight telling him that we'd hit a microburst and for a second he thought we were in the drink! Apparently still talks about it too!

Unfortunately I need to fly with work and racing so I've just learnt to deal with it.

[Jandywa]

Jakdaw said:

jjones said:

Get her up in a glider!

Winch launch and then just the sound of rushing air. Couple of those and she won't bat an eyelid at a commercial flight (and will probably enjoy it!)

Best suggestion! Pilot will also be able to explain exactly how everything works (there's not much to a glider, and nothing hidden!) as well as all the things that could go wrong and how they (regularly) practice in dealing with those scenarios...

Biggest risk is that she'll get hooked

I'd agree with this suggestion! If she can deal with a whinch launch a commercial flight will be an absolute breeze. Plus it will show her how relatively easy/not dangerous it is to fly. Take her into the prop wash of an aerotow and any future light turbulence at altitude won't even register!

I miss gliding.

[Simpo Two]

If you can survive a glider winch launch anything commercial should be easy. But if someone is terrified of flying how are you going to get them to go up in a large Keil-Kraft model with a bit of string on the front?

I wonder how much of the fear of flying is (1) fear of crashing (2) fear of being out of control (3) claustrophobia?

[Spuffington]

Hypnotherapy sorted me out.

I was fine with flying for years - ok with parents on longhaul stuff, ok flying with my Dad in his Grumman Tiger for years just two up, but then in my late teens I got really scared of flying.......in anything. I stopped flying completely, using any excuse I could to take a train or car, until I started in a job which ended up with me needing to fly 3-6 short-haul legs per week for over two years.

I ended up having several sessions of hypnotherapy. It turns out that mine was much the same as many people's fear of flying and was Ametaphobia (fear of being sick in public), which I had no clue about until I had the sessions. Those sessions didn't completely sort me out, but went a good way towards it. I have subsequently had several more sessions with another therapist and I'm about 80% there now.

I spent 2009-2012 flying weekly (as above) and since 2012, I fly at least twice a month LCY to Frankfurt and several longhauls every quarter and generally don't have any issue. I agree with finding a seat you feel comfortable with, Bose Noice Cancelling headphones are also good, a relaxation piece on an iPod can also help (which is practiced with on the ground in relaxed surroundings, so that you feel relaxed when you listen to it when required) and the odd G&T when the going gets bumpy! I'm not talking about getting drunk though.

Also, building up an experience database helps. I've flown in atricious weather and anyone flying regularly into London City throughout the year will have tales of missed approaches and diversions which is enough to break even the calmest flyer or toughen up the most concerned. Very little gets to me at all these days but I will admit that I'm not 100% cured; I just have coping methods and have learned to accept it.

My suggestion would be for your wife to look at hypnotherapy and try and get to the real reason behind the fear (much of the time ametaphobics won't even know that they are, or will be so ashamed of even talking about it, that they'll happily mask their fear by creating other excuses) and then also deploying some additional "comfort" methods as I described above.

All the best - it's rotten when so much of our lives are dominated by potential for plane travel.

[Simpo Two]

Spuffington said:

(much of the time ametaphobics won't even know that they are, or will be so ashamed of even talking about it, that they'll happily mask their fear by creating other excuses)

They won't even know it themselves until it's winkled out by a clinical psychologist or similar. The brain is astonishingly good at defending itself, excuse piling on excuse and behaviour gettting oddder and odder to try to keep curved ducks in a straight line.

[uber]

3 hours before you get on the plane take 10mg of Valium , just before you get on take another 10mg and them before take off another 10mg.

I was terrified of flying until I met mr valium !

[Disastrous]

uber said:

3 hours before you get on the plane take 10mg of Valium , just before you get on take another 10mg and them before take off another 10mg.

I was terrified of flying until I met mr valium !

I had a mate like that until he tried to combine his usual routine of Mr Valium with a boys weekend, pre-flight beers etc etc.

Shortly before take-off he was utterly comatose and completely unrouseable at the other end. We landed in Barcelona and continued out on the town whilst he went straight to bed to sleep it off.