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Fear of flying


darrenm

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8 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

God I hate flying, I use to love it until about 8-10 years ago on a  flight back from Florida when all of a sudden our plan dropped and all the food carts fell everywhere and people screaming and praying. It was horrendous and scary as f*** turns out we caught a tail of  a hurricane.

 

Since then I have hated flying. I take a diazpan to relax me! I know I am right coward :(

 

Does the diazepam help siginificantly?

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I had a bout of severe PTSD due to a horrendous flight back from Mexico 5 years ago (we dropped about 1000 feet in about 5 seconds in the mid Atlantic and had to emergency land in Reykjavik), like psychologists and sertraline sized anxiety. It triggered 3 months after funnily enough whilst travelling back from a stag weekend in Newquay and I wouldn't wish it on a blue nose, scary shit. Part of the rehabilitation included a short hop to Dublin in what can only be described as a aeroplane that came straight out of Indiana Jones and the temple of Doom, but it worked a treat. Fly regularly to Ireland and Tenerife now with no bother but Airports are the dullest places on Earth.

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New app called Sky Guru released today to help people with a fear of flying

 

the description of it from the news article made it sound a load of bollocks but you never know , it might help 

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I love flying, its great, and I love planes. What I have a problem, thats developed over the last 10 years is take offs and landings, I make myself ill with worry. My wife tries her damnedest to distract me and half the time it works, but its getting worse and worse. Weirdly as soon as we are up in the air I do not have a single worry.

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32 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

I love flying, its great, and I love planes. What I have a problem, thats developed over the last 10 years is take offs and landings, I make myself ill with worry. My wife tries her damnedest to distract me and half the time it works, but its getting worse and worse. Weirdly as soon as we are up in the air I do not have a single worry.

Interesting. For me and a few others I've talked to it's the opposite. I quite like take offs with the loads of thrust, bit of excitement as the nose lifts up and the plane seems to tilt to too much of an angle and then you feel the push in your seat and then start climbing quite quickly. Then 30 mins before landing when they throttle back and you feel the plane decelerating I can relax because I know they're actively involved in flying the plane and paying attention. When in the air I'm uneasy because of the threat of severe turbulence happening at any point with people being thrown about, people screaming and crying, being sick, prayers being recited etc. All pretty horrible stuff which is out of place when you see 

I suppose mine is just borne out of mistrust of others. Yours is fear of the actual more dangerous parts of the flight.

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1 minute ago, darrenm said:

Interesting. For me and a few others I've talked to it's the opposite. I quite like take offs with the loads of thrust, bit of excitement as the nose lifts up and the plane seems to tilt to too much of an angle and then you feel the push in your seat and then start climbing quite quickly. Then 30 mins before landing when they throttle back and you feel the plane decelerating I can relax because I know they're actively involved in flying the plane and paying attention. When in the air I'm uneasy because of the threat of severe turbulence happening at any point with people being thrown about, people screaming and crying, being sick, prayers being recited etc. All pretty horrible stuff which is out of place when you see 

I suppose mine is just borne out of mistrust of others. Yours is fear of the actual more dangerous parts of the flight.

Even now I know I am going on holiday later this month, and I can't wait, love being at airports and love being on the plane, the anxiety starts as soon as the plane starts moving, which is a good thing for me as it doesnt effect me until that point, but at that point I am close to being sick through worry.

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Good pair of headphones and some loud and aggressive music helps me through take off, which is the worst part for me. Its when the plane seems to be at its most stressed mechanically and most at risk of bird/ drone strike a critical moment. The rest of its boring until we land which is always a mild relief.

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My sister pretty much refused to go on planes because of the fear. Anyway, about a month ago she had a wedding to attends in Italy (and was even considering driving). I remembered a while back I saw someone recommend a book called "cure your fear of flying". I sent her a copy in the post (was about £3 off amazon), she read it the day before she went and she told me it was the most relaxed flight she's ever had. Worth checking out anyway, for the sake of £3 I reckon! 

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17 minutes ago, Milfner said:

My sister pretty much refused to go on planes because of the fear. Anyway, about a month ago she had a wedding to attends in Italy (and was even considering driving). I remembered a while back I saw someone recommend a book called "cure your fear of flying". I sent her a copy in the post (was about £3 off amazon), she read it the day before she went and she told me it was the most relaxed flight she's ever had. Worth checking out anyway, for the sake of £3 I reckon! 

I can imagine it would help. Fear of flying is totally irrational and having not read the book, I can imagine it would have plenty of stuff reminding you of the reasons why it's irrational.

I'm always nervous, then I'm fine, then nervous, then fine. I'm in a patch of absolutely hating landing at the moment. A run of landing at night in snow/rain I think has spooked me a bit.

Also, I read an article where if you factor in absolutely every type of plane crash, your odds of survival are 90%.

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1 hour ago, StefanAVFC said:

I can imagine it would help. Fear of flying is totally irrational and having not read the book, I can imagine it would have plenty of stuff reminding you of the reasons why it's irrational.

I'm always nervous, then I'm fine, then nervous, then fine. I'm in a patch of absolutely hating landing at the moment. A run of landing at night in snow/rain I think has spooked me a bit.

Also, I read an article where if you factor in absolutely every type of plane crash, your odds of survival are 90%.

When the turbulence starts and I get the creeping dread, I have this visualisation I can use of a plane flying forward through a space at 600mph deviating a few metres a sec and it looks like a slightly oscillating dart as the lateral movement is nothing in comparison to the forward movement.

That helps a lot. But the fear of flying school podcast with the bits about it not being a vacuum, and that severe turbulence lasts a very short amount of time is very reassuring. So it seems that keeping on ingesting information to gain knowledge is the key.

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6 minutes ago, darrenm said:

When the turbulence starts and I get the creeping dread, I have this visualisation I can use of a plane flying forward through a space at 600mph deviating a few metres a sec and it looks like a slightly oscillating dart as the lateral movement is nothing in comparison to the forward movement.

That helps a lot. 

Yeah I agree. Also, the analogy of a car going over a bump in the road.

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I hate flying but not because I'm scared of anything. The problem for me is air sickness. I've had it all my life but it was definitely worse in my teens and as an adult. Haven't actually been sick for almost 10 years now but for long-haul flights especially (usually to Australia) I basically feel sick the entire time. The worst thing about it is that I feel I can't eat because that just makes me feel even more sick but obviously not eating also makes you sick so it's catch-22. I barely even drink water on planes. Part of it is psychological though I think - I feel sick just before I go on planes and even the smell of certain types of coffee makes me feel sick because that's the type you get on planes.

Also had a fit on a plane when I was about 10 because I slept on the floor.

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6 hours ago, darrenm said:

When the turbulence starts and I get the creeping dread, I have this visualisation I can use of a plane flying forward through a space at 600mph deviating a few metres a sec and it looks like a slightly oscillating dart as the lateral movement is nothing in comparison to the forward movement.

That helps a lot. But the fear of flying school podcast with the bits about it not being a vacuum, and that severe turbulence lasts a very short amount of time is very reassuring. So it seems that keeping on ingesting information to gain knowledge is the key.

If it's helps they are predicting that heavy turbulence of the kind that makes planes shake as if being held by Louise Woodward is going to get more and more frequent over the years , there was a scentific reason for it but I can't remember what 

 

you  can thank me later :) 

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3 hours ago, tonyh29 said:

If it's helps they are predicting that heavy turbulence of the kind that makes planes shake as if being held by Louise Woodward is going to get more and more frequent over the years , there was a scentific reason for it but I can't remember what 

 

you  can thank me later :) 

Yep it's due to climate change causing the planet to get windier.

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I am not the best flyer, but I am a bit of a plane goon so I enjoy certain aircraft notably old MD-83/-87/-88, MD-90's, 717's etc. I will always sit near the rear mounted engines on those planes (Flight DL1288 is enough to put people off mind). So I enjoy trips to the US to enjoy some of those aircraft. European trips I could take or leave as more often or not you're on a characterless Airbus A320 family aircraft. I booked a flight to my Brothers wedding next year in Cyprus - BA are still flying a 767-300ER into Larnaca so suffice to say the A321-200 was overlooked.  

Whilst I will fly, I do always ponder the 'what if'. As I have mentioned before I work with aircraft engines, inspection and appraisal. Before, I studied similar things but had a passion for aircraft safety. Probably stems from that.

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