Fear of Flying or Vertigo

Geedee, real common what you have. More to do with anxiety than fear of flying. I consider fear an accurate consideration of something that will hurt or kill you (guy with gun, tree falling on you, car coming at you at speed, ect). It is usually pretty fast and intense. Anxiety is more a growing feeling that rests in the pit of your stomach. You know why you feel it but the specifics are tough to pin down (I am in an airplane, the airplane is flying and I don't feel good about it even though I know everything is ok). Nothing more than a technical point.

I think others pegged it as the loss of control as a good chunk of it. Another point may be your anxiety about heights. Almost everyone has it (except, for some very odd reason, Mowhawk Indians. It's odd but they have no fear of heights). I have heard it said that it is not the fear of heights that you have, but a fear of edges inclusive of heights. Don't worry about that part, we are hardwired to fear heights (at least I think that is it, Heights and abandonment, those are the two fears we are born with if I remember my college Psych classes correctly).

It isn't vertigo. Vertigo isn't scary. It's just plain wrong. I've had it. Thought I was flying along, wings level and...I wasn't. Sliding off to the right. Amazed me. I thought everything was ok. WTF is the thought you get when you realize you're being affected by vertigo. Not fear, amazement.

Not much you can do with what you have. Some people get a few beers in them (Knew about a guy who flew B24s during the war and he would never get on a commercial bird sober. Just couldn't do it, drank like a fish and tried to pass out- bad memories I guess. He never told anybody why). Others take pills. Not recommended but it does work. Perosonally, I sometimes get that shot of anxiety when the airplane takes off. And I'm a pilot (but not the airplane I'm flying, too busy)! But only when I'm a passenger in a commercial bird and only for a second or two. Probably loss of control/roller coaster affect. But, I also instantly tell myself to not worry about it and start wondering when the stewardess is gonna start serving drinks

Failing any other option, keep your mind busy during the flight. I-pod, video games, watch a movie, read a book, drink a beer, but don't just sit there looking out the window. Then, anxiety will start to build.

I know one thing Gary a girl phoned radio 2 the other week (you may have heard it) and said her greatest ambition was to fly in a P51.
Duxford show director phoned back and said come to FL your going up in Velma. Bet you would forget all your flying probs to take her place mate

trackend said:

I know one thing Gary a girl phoned radio 2 the other week (you may have heard it) and said her greatest ambition was to fly in a P51.
Duxford show director phoned back and said come to FL your going up in Velma. Bet you would forget all your flying probs to take her place mate

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Dude, I am so going to buy a bra for the weekend !!!!

I can relate Gary. I'm not big on standing on edges that more than 2metres high really. But I have flown and most recently was up in a Tiger Moth. Yet I was fine in the moth, even looking over the edge of the cockpit direectly to the ground at one point. It's a funny thing when the mind gets too active when the control isn't there. I can equate to a high ball in out field playing cricket. Catching it isnt hard, keeping your mind at bay before it gets to you is. Distracting yourself would help in those situations you mentioned I guess.

Good luck with it.

Here's one that gets to me when I'm flying (especially when I'm the pilot):

(Note-I know all about the science of flying)- I look out the window and down at the ground. Usually to the left front as I'm flying a low wing bird. About 3-5000 feet up, just looking, clouds drifting by, that sort of thing. Then I look at the wing. Back at the ground. I think, "The only thing holding this thing up is that wing". I swear it looks like the smallest piece of anything when viewed with the earth in the backround.

That always gets to me.

I can't offer any suggestions except that I'm a member of this Group Therapy here.

I have no problem flying in a Cub, Cessna, helicopter, twin engine prop job, B-17, Stinson even did a flight in one of those crazy "Air America" STOL mission birds. No problem. Loved evey minute of it.

But in '91 I went to San Fran in a 747 and couldn't stand it! Don't know if it was the jet or imaginary "pre-crash" jitters but I will never fly in a commercial jet again. Never. I don't understand it because I will be hoping in any small plane before you could ask but dem jets - no way.

And as for cliffs - I have a different reaction. I always get a strong urge to jump and I have to have enormous control. Cliffs, balconeys, anywhere high.

You are not alone!

Njaco said:

And as for cliffs - I have a different reaction. I always get a strong urge to jump and I have to have enormous control. Cliffs, balconeys, anywhere high.)

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Ah... Feeling suicidal ? You know there is better solutions...

Hmmmmmmm guys?

I found an interesting article on the web, which I feel really hits my problem with heights and motion/balance spot on.
I don't know if it can help you guys, but I know that it sure hit home here.

You can read the article here:
Fear of heights

I know that if I get on to a ride in a fun fair that spins and turns so much that I lose my feeling of orientation and direction, I get - at best, dizzy, at worst, sick.
I remember very vividly a fun ride, where the whole idea was to make the participants lose their sense of direction. The ceiling, the floor and the walls inside the fun ride was painted in the same pattern all over, to create the illusion of lack of direction.
I had to grasp the safety bar that helped me stay seated while the ride was going on, and I had to stare at my own hands while I was in there, I got so dizzy that it almost made me sick. But staring at my hands holding on to that safety bar helped me get through the ride, and afterwards I was uncomfortably dizzy for a while, but I didn't get sick.

But put me on a rollercoaster ride where I still has got a sense of direction, and I'm just fine.
In a commercial plane, the slight movements of bobbing gently up and down and not knowing visually how my body is located, I get an uneasy feeling of disorientation, which I find very unsettling, bordering on near panic.
But put me in a tiny Cessna or Piper Cub - and I'm okay. Yes, I'm still a bit uncomfortable, but it's nowhere nearly as bad as in a big plane, where my eyes/balance/brain can't find out where the rest of me is in a sensory sense [sic?], if you understand what I mean.

I know for sure that I've got a pretty lousy sense of balance, which doesn't make things any better - one of the more annoying things about being hypermobile - but maybe training my sense of balance might help.
So maybe I ought to do just that, together with some serious relaxation exercises - that might help just a little bit, and it might be worth the effort.
I don't know, but I'll try it, just to see if it helps.

Maestro said:

Ah... Feeling suicidal ? You know there is better solutions...

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Perhaps that's not really being suicidal but more like the "Lemming syndrome"

ohh, I've been found out!

Rightyho chaps.

I'm off to Cyprus at Sparrow F*rt tomorrow morning. Still not looking forward to the flights but I'm trying to be big and brave.

You guys will have a quite time for a few weeks as I'm not back until the 20th and can only get the occassional access to a pc at the internet cafe at RAF Akrotiri, so I wont be bombarding you with my usual sort of stuff.....dont all shout hoorah in unison !

Catchya later

Heights in general scare me... I get really nervous driving over large bridges. my palms are sweating even thinking about it..

but I've bee parachuting 7 times.. i just have to rationalize the hell out the experience and break the symptoms of fear into small, easy to understand packets. The more i analyze the fear, the less i am afraid.

.

Never have been comfortable around heights, if I don't have something to hold on to. Gimme a good hand-grip, and I'm fine. Weird.

Well, I'm back !.

First flight managed to get a seat by a window as I said I would try and do. Actually....managed to blag the jump seat up the pointy end for the first 20 mins of the flight !. Crickey, that was a busy session, with the step-climb and all the course corrections due to thunderstorms. Managed to video the whole thing from starting out and when I finally put the video camera down....yup, not quite five sections after I had put the ruddy thing away....we had a lightening strike, right on the nose !. Huge flash !. Scary.

Then on the return flight, mild turbulence for the first 2 hours....dont like that very much. And managed to blag the jump seat from the start of the descent profile to setting the chocks. Woohoo !. All captured on video that I will share later on.

Still aprehensive about flying in the big jets but two flights in a short time with time in 'the office', has certainly helped to calm my fears.

I've loved planes ever since i can remember. There's something about airliners that doesn't click with me. Pretty sure it's the not having any control thing. Your at someone else's mercy. Nothing against the pilot, it's i have no control and that stresses me to no end.

I too am willing to put money on the problem being a "lack of control" on your part. In the many hours of flying I have done, I never have an issue in small planes as I am either in control, in the front seats, or able to at least see the controls. When I have to get on airliners, I dread it. Being seperated from the cabin by a locked steel door relegates me to "living baggage" with no say over what happens in the plane. I also don't like being surprised, and when you can't see the controls, every turn is a surprise. I've calmed this down a bit by trying to get seats on the wings (easy if your willing to sit near the exits) as watching the control surfaces I can then tell what is going on. Also, exit seats have more leg room and at 6'1" I'll take all I can get.

Now the one "fear" I've never understood is my fear of heights. For instance, come Christmas I get uneasy getting on the roof to hang lights, but put me in an open cockpit at 10,000 ft. inverted with nothing but a 5-point harness between me and falling nearly 2 miles and I am in heaven. I really would like to figure that one out.

I can vouch for that as well. I have over 1500 hours of flight time and love flying. Never had a problem flying an aircraft that I had preflighted.

I do have a slight problem flying an airliner however that I have not preflighted. I start going through things in my head and it kind of makes me nervous.

Flying though is not the problem, it is the fact that I had nothing to do with the airworthiness of the aircraft.