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Anyone here who fears flying in planes (due to turbulence)?

jpn

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I assume it's because of a fear of crashing? I decide not to care. A plane crash is so far outside of my circle of influence that I'm not even gonna bother caring. I buckle up when seated and when I board I count the number of seats to the nearest emergency exit, that's what I can do to make myself safer. Anything else is delusional.

Plus, I know a lot of Aerospace engineers and airplanes are ridiculously strong and can handle a lot of mechanical stress, especially the stress from bouncing up and down in turbulence. Planes are very good at staying in the air. Not really too worried about bouncing up and down a bit. Or a lot.

If it's not a fear of crashing, then it's a free rollercoaster ride! What's not to like?
 

FlipFlops

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More specifically, the fear of turbulence when flying.

You know, you're on the plane and suddenly the plane drops a bit then goes up high again and then drops a bit.....almost like a rollercoaster, your palms start dripping with cold sweat, your heart feels weak.....

Dude,
Relax. Unless shit is pinned, I mean pinned to the ceiling - Drinks, bags, flight attendants, iPads, people without seatbelts on, etc., don't worry. I use to be an airline pilot. 23 years, never hurt anybody. From little planes in Alaska on 40-50 knot windy days, to 737's. Flew through thunderstorms, mountain waves etc. Unless people are pinned, I mean stuck to the ceiling, just chill. The bumps you feel in the back are nothin. The altimeter doesn't even move on any of the bumps you talk about in your post. (accurate to 10 feet.) We are always following some other plane. It is required, by law, that we report ANY turbulence over light to the air traffic controllers. They relay it to the planes following, we go around the bad stuff.

Long time ago, in my youth, I was flying along (too close to a thunderstorm) hauling freight in a Fokker F-27 for FedEx, middle of a Friday night. Ah hell, I got a hot date, gotta get home! My girl is waiting for me, keeping my bed warm. Cut a thunderstorm close, ok I flew right threw the middle of the darn thing. (weather radar is solid red.) Turbulence is bad. Coffee coming out of its cup, type bad, like floating droplets of coffee - You've seen it in an astronaut movie.. Next thing I know my coffee cup is out of its holder, the coffee out of the cup. I look at the co-pilot his eyes are as big a saucers, all the manuals behind his seat are over his head. Then they are pinned to the ceiling. My coffee is out of its cup, pinned to the ceiling, the cup stuck on the ceiling. Both engines lost oil pressure - because the oil floated upwards, and the propellers started to feather. A few seconds later we were slammed into our seats. The manuals and books fell on the co-pilots head. My coffee was in my lap. All was good. We laughed our asses off. 23 years, flying 4 days a week, that is by far the worst thing that ever happened.

I know it sucks being in the back with no controls, not knowing what is going on. But all is good. Unless the people are pinned to ceiling, fear not. (And I have NEVER seen people/bags/coffee/drinks/chips/meals/computers/ipads/whatever even come off the floor, much less pinned to the ceiling - except for the time I mentioned above.)
 
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AgainstAllOdds

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Embrace it and say F*ck it.

If something goes wrong, it'll be a quick and painless death. Not that bad. There's millions of worse ways to die.
 
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amp0193

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You know what you should really fear?

Driving your car.

~40,000 fatalities on U.S. roads in 2017. That's a 1 in 10,000 chance of death.
Source: Motor vehicle fatality rate in U.S. by year - Wikipedia


Compare that to commercial airline travel:

ZERO deaths, worldwide, in 2017. An estimated fatality rate for commercial liners is one out of every 16 million flights.
Source: 2017 safest year on record for commercial passenger air travel: groups


When I drive on the highway, I'm hyper-aware, and am actively looking to avoid death, which could be around any corner. I don't drive at peak times. I take every toll road available (as they have much less traffic, at least here). I sure as hell don't use my phone (talk or text) while driving, or allow anyone who's driving me to do so. I take the train every time it is feasible to do so, even if it makes the trip 3x longer.

1 in 10,000 vs. 1 in 16,000,000



edit: I know that many fears are irrational, and defy logic, and I don't mean to downplay that if that's you. For me, logic enables me to get a handle on fear.
 
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Xeon

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UPDATE: Below are some stuff which helped me A LOT during my flight a week ago, which might be useful for fearful fliers like myself.
Aviophobia (fear of flying) is a very real phobia, so those of you who experienced no such phobias might find the below overkill and silly, but for aviophobians, it will do magic things for you.

Backstory:

I just got back from my Taiwan trip. I was scared as hell during the 3 weeks before the flight. I was imagining all the worst things : plane getting hit by a Ground-to-Air missile (Ukraine incident), plane crash into another plane 30,000 feet in the air, plane suddenly falling out of the sky like a rock, plane vanish suddenly (MH370 mysterious incident).....it was starting to get more serious.

So I went online and tried to find courses and ebooks, and I came across a few, but the really good one was this SOAR (Seminars On Aeroanxiety Relief) book from retired pilot Tom Bunn. I only discovered the book 2 days before the flight, didn't have the time to complete it before the plane took off, but I managed to read about 30 - 40% of it, and that was more than enough. These are the helpful tips from the book combined with a bit of what I encountered during the flight :


1) BEFORE TAKE-OFF: 1 - 2 hours before flight take off, do the 5-4-3-2-1 method.
This is whereby you look around the airport and say out 5 things you see.
"I SEE a leather jacket", "I SEE a blond woman", "I see yellow sneakers", "I see fat people", "I see glass windows".
Then you close your eyes and say out 5 things you hear.
"I HEAR kids crying", "I HEAR the sound of trolleys, "I HEAR....."
Then you start deep-breathe and say out 5 things you smell.
"I SMELL something musky", "I SMELL McDonald's", "I SMELL...."
(if you hear or smell nothing, just say "I HEAR NOTHING" until the next sound or smell shows up)


Then you start all over from the "I SEE...." part again, but this time, only say 4 things.
Once done, start all over again, but this time, say 3 things....
and on and on, until you complete the set of 5-4-3-2-1.

When you're on a plane, there are 2 movies playing. One is the Reality Movie (plane take off, cruising calmly, people laughing and chatting....) and the other is the Imaginary Movie (plane crash, missile hits plane, bermuda triangle swallows plane, Thanos firing power blasts to destroy plane....).
STAY IN THE REALITY MOVIE. ALWAYS.

The moment you realize the Imaginary Movie starts playing in your mind, use the 5-4-3-2-1 method IMMEDIATELY to BRING YOU BACK to the Reality movie.


2) DURING TAKE-OFF: During the take-off when the engines buzz very loudly (which I find very alarming), look out of the window, then inhale and exhale deeply, and put your hands on the back of the front seat GENTLY (not forcefully, don't grasp or it'll make it worse). In my case, I realize if I inhale/exhale very fast, it helps even more. You know how pregnant women breathe when giving birth, as shown on TV usually? That's how I breathe. This took away almost all the fear when you feel that G-Force thing lifting you up in the air during takeoff. Flying suddenly became beautiful, as I saw the vast scenery in the distance.
You have only ONE (1) task to do during take-off : inhale and exhale fast and deep like a woman giving birth.
I stopped only when the plane has reached cruising mode / stabilize a bit. Nothing to be ashamed of, we're all scared of something.


3) Turbulence Tip #1 : Turbulence is my greatest fear (especially sudden drops), but not so much anymore. I used to grip the seat bars tightly during my previous flights; I was in panic mode every second. It was mentally and physically exhausting and painful. My trip this time was a lot more stable but I'm very confident it will help to a large extent even for more turbulent flights.

The book says that you when you reach out your hand in a fast bicycle, you can feel that bit of wind resistance against the hand (as solid as water). If you try that in a speeding car, that resistance against the hand gets stronger (as solid as oil). Now imagine an airplane which is a shitload faster than any speeding car. That air resistance gets even stronger (now it's as solid as gelatin!).

Now, picture a table with a bowl of gelatin. In it, there is a toy plane right in the middle. The plane is completely covered by gelatin. You can shake the bowl, and the plane in the gelatin will wobble (turbulence), but will the plane blast out or drop out of the gelatin bowl? NO! How can it?!

The author also mentions that the faster the plane accelerates (I used to be scared of that too), the stronger the resistance, meaning.....THE GELATIN THAT PROTECTS YOU IN MID-AIR GETS EVEN STRONGER, AND YOU'RE SAFER. That air that surrounds the airplane, Gelatin Air, is your friend. Now whenever the flight gets rough or bumpy, I don't get nervous. Instead, I got happy and felt safe, because I know gelatin air is there to protect me.
Heck, I even wanted the plane to accelerate faster during my return flight home cos' I want more gelatin!

Do not think about this gelatin air during turbulence. Think about it way before the flight, picture the plane, the calm bowl of gelatin. Then during turbulence, think about it again. "F*ck YEAH! Gelatin air is here to protect me again!"

This removed one of my biggest fear of turbulence.
I recall the several incidents I had on the road sitting in cars, and now that I think about it, it's true : cars are way more dangerous than planes.


4) Turbulence Tip #2: Sometimes when the plane is bumping along and it feels like a bus traveling on a rocky road, and you start to panic, put a clear water bottle in front of your seat tray. Make sure the water bottle is half-filled, and the cap is on. Look at the water in the bottle. Does it swish and slosh around violently? How violent? Or is it just moving across slightly side to side? Now, try the same experiment in a bus or a train. I'm pretty sure the same bottle of water will swish WAY MORE on those two, compared to a plane! I tried this! In fact, on the mass rapid train, it was swishing way more violently than it did on the plane!
And if you're not scared of the mass rapid train, why should you be of the plane?

But the plane is 30,000 feet in the air? Yeah, now refer to 3) above!

Not convinced yet? Download those free G-force meter apps onto your mobile phone. It's more like an app that measures movement and shaking. Keep your body and hands still when holding the phone (or put it on the tray). When the plane is in turbulence mode, look at the meter in the app. The lower and upper limit of the meter is 1 to 5. During the bumpy turbulence, the meter registered a maximum of approx 1.15 on the scale.
I tried this again on the mass rapid train, and it registered a reading 3 - 4! That's insane!


5) Turbulence Tip #3: Sudden air drop. I experienced this once in my previous flight where all was calm and peaceful, and the plane suddenly felt like it was dropping 2,000 - 3000 feet vertically STRAIGHT down. I feel this is not as common as the rocky-road type of turbulence, but it does happen once in a while.

But I realize this is all nonsense. Take a cup half-filled with water, hold it high above the bath-tub, then drop your arm vertically straight down while still holding the cup. Try dropping the arm down by 1 feet, 2 feet or 4 feet.
How much water got spilled out from the cup? Now, put that same cup on your seat tray on the plane. When the plane drops by what feels like "2,000 - 5,000 feet", how much water actually got spilled out from the cup? Was it more than what happened in the bathtub? Or way lesser? Was the amt of water that got spilled out during this sort of "3,000 feet air drop" similar to what happened in the bathtub, or way less, or just a little bit more? I'm willing to bet very likely that it was way less. If so, is there any reason to be terrified? What felt like a 3,000 feet drop from the air is, in reality, only several feet, or.....gasp......just a couple feet! Not some 3,000 feet (or 10,000 feet) sudden drop!


6) Landing: Personally, I never have a fear of landing, because the mind is telling me as we get lower down, it gets safer, even though I know take-off/landing is the most dangerous part of the flight. I haven't got to the part on landing yet in the book, there's another 50% left to read, but most fearful fliers' biggest fears are take-off and turbulence, not landing.


7) When plane is turning: I used to think the plane, when it turns, that it flies with the wingtips pointing towards the ground (90-degree adjacent), but I realize it was only a slight tilt. What I FEEL is NOT what is actually happening!

With my fear of flying slowly being removed, I now have no inhibitions. Now I'm thinking of places further, like Japan, Korea, heck.....even the US! There's so many beautiful places and gorgeous sub-urb neighborhoods I wanna see there!
 
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OlivierMo

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More specifically, the fear of turbulence when flying.

You know, you're on the plane and suddenly the plane drops a bit then goes up high again and then drops a bit.....almost like a rollercoaster, your palms start dripping with cold sweat, your heart feels weak.....

How do you guys overcome this or make yourself feel better? One method which I'm using is to watch anime on my phone throughout the flight. It doesn't cure the fear but distracts my mind and makes me feel 30 - 40% better.

I found that if I can stand instead of sit, for some reason, it doesn't feel scary. Maybe it's because there's a sense of more control when you're standing? With sitting and that stupid seatbelt, it feels you're completely helpless and can't do anything. Something like chaining you to a chair and then pushing that chair into a lava pit lol
I used to and took a flying lesson in Los Angeles. Since then I've realized things are super safe and that you're better off in the sky than on the 405 freeway. So it cured my fears.
 

Castillo

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More specifically, the fear of turbulence when flying.

You know, you're on the plane and suddenly the plane drops a bit then goes up high again and then drops a bit.....almost like a rollercoaster, your palms start dripping with cold sweat, your heart feels weak.....

How do you guys overcome this or make yourself feel better? One method which I'm using is to watch anime on my phone throughout the flight. It doesn't cure the fear but distracts my mind and makes me feel 30 - 40% better.

I found that if I can stand instead of sit, for some reason, it doesn't feel scary. Maybe it's because there's a sense of more control when you're standing? With sitting and that stupid seatbelt, it feels you're completely helpless and can't do anything. Something like chaining you to a chair and then pushing that chair into a lava pit lol

Funny you say this, on my flights home yesterday there was horrible turbulence entering as well as leaving Denver. I get DAMN scared man. What worked for me is simply meditating. Learning to control your breathing helps like crazy as well as trying to let emotions pass.
 
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BlindSide

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Flying - or, more accurately, falling from heights - is one of my biggest fears. I actually studied this for a bit after a flight I had recently that had very scary turbulence.

1. No plane has EVER gone down from turbulence. The testing they do on these things is so much stronger than you’ll ever experience.

2. Tensing your body up actually makes it worse, since you feel everything that’s happening. If you stay loose and just relax your body, it feels better. I’m not saying it’s completely gone, but your body goes with the flow.

Those are a few I learned. Still a big fear, but it makes it easier.

Also, I don’t really drink, but I heard liquid courage makes you forget ALL about haha.
 

Veloce Grey

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The interesting thing is when you tell people you're terrified of flying, they always assume it's a fear of crashing.

Like OP for me it's nothing to do with any potential for the plane to go down, it's the complete lack of control where you're stuck in a seat, the plane is going to gyrate wildly for a while and there's nothing you can do about it. A bit like going to the dentist when you're young and you're going to sit there and get sharp things prodded into your mouth and it's going to be unpleasant and there's no escape.

I honestly couldn't care if the plane crashes while I'm on it, apart from obviously not wanting that for anyone else on it who would also die.

I flew into Wellington (NZ) airport a few times in medium conditions-I wouldn't go near it in very rough. Anyway one day the pilot tried to put it down on the short runway then bounced back up and put the engines on....so it meant another 10-15 minutes of bouncing around. On the second landing attempt as selfish as it sounds I was literally thinking "just put it down and if we go off the end into the harbour I'll take my chances". Sounds insane but by that point logic has gone well out the window.

OP-I use valium. If it gets really bad I start praying frantically.
 

OMDA

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Since you seem familiar with aircraft.....there's one thing bugging me.

When the plane is flying normally and everywhere is white bright clouds, it feels pretty calm and quiet. When I look out the window, everything moves by real slow......BUT.....

.....when the plane gets near those grey clouds, suddenly, the plane instant-accelerates 3x - 4x faster, the engines hums very loudly, everything outside the window whizzes by in a flash. I find that extremely alarming and disturbing.

Is this placebo or is the plane actually going much faster in those conditions?

There are a few things happening here. Usually, the average airspeed of the plane is the same. The pilots try to keep the plane at a constant speed in order to preserve fuel mileage. Changing altitude, changing speed, etc. all costs fuel.

When you fly through clouds, there are all kinds of air currents that are not there in free air. Near and in clouds, there can be spots of air rising up and air falling that the plane flies through. And it's uneven. So the plane can be pushed upward or downward by the air currents. Sometimes more on one side or the other. Sometimes sideways. It's pretty unpredictable. You're at the mercy of mother nature. Just like waves on a shore.

When you're designing aircraft parts, there is usually a "gust" condition that ends up determining how strong some parts may have to be. I can't remember exactly how powerful a gust, but anything above that and the pilots will have to steer clear of it or have early maintenance.

So, what you feel is literally the plane being pushed upward and downward in the clouds.

There's another effect as well. The density of the air can change rapidly on or around the clouds due to temperature and moisture content in the air. Changes in density affects how much the wings are pushing up. When the air is "thicker" or more dense, the wing will make more lift. For the same reason, airplanes fly better in cold than in hot air. They cannot even take off normally with a full load in hot temperatures at high elevation due to this.

So you're getting knocked around a lot more. Everything at that altitude is happening at hundreds of miles per hour. That's why the clouds flash by your window so quickly, and tend to puff and flash. It's just the raw speed of a small cloud passing by. Or, sometimes the air hits the wing and causes water vapor to become visible. This is really obvious on some fighter jets when they are in a hard turn. They get these streamlines of vapor over the wings:

F-18-condensation-cloud.jpg
 

Johnny Bravo

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Perhaps I'm one of those nutcases like @OMDA and @jpn who find these sorts of rides exhilarating. Perhaps it's because I'm a commercial pilot. Regardless, the engineering behind these planes is absolutely phenomenal. I enjoy looking out the window at the wingtip and watching the wings flap up and down like the wings of a drunk bird. Did you know the design allows flapping upwards of 20 to 25 feet?!?

Check out the stress testing on a Boeing 777. If this doesn't make you feel good about the airplane, nothing will!

 

TinyOldLady

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I have the same fear (developed several years ago). Recently I have the impression that coffee magnifies my fears. If you drink coffee, try to avoid it before a flight
 
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Fortune5ive

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Think of turbulence as a car driving over a poorly paved road, pothole etc. it’s such a small hiccup for the plane but psychologically you panic and you get anxiety because you know you’re 38,000 ft up. Retrain your brain and rest assured, no plane has ever crashed do to such occurrences.
 

ApparentHorizon

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More specifically, the fear of turbulence when flying.

You know, you're on the plane and suddenly the plane drops a bit then goes up high again and then drops a bit.....almost like a rollercoaster, your palms start dripping with cold sweat, your heart feels weak.....

How do you guys overcome this or make yourself feel better? One method which I'm using is to watch anime on my phone throughout the flight. It doesn't cure the fear but distracts my mind and makes me feel 30 - 40% better.

I found that if I can stand instead of sit, for some reason, it doesn't feel scary. Maybe it's because there's a sense of more control when you're standing? With sitting and that stupid seatbelt, it feels you're completely helpless and can't do anything. Something like chaining you to a chair and then pushing that chair into a lava pit lol

I actually find it quite enjoyable. Sort of like a reset of the mind.

..won't go on too many rollercoasters or skydive tho lol

I have the same fear (developed several years ago). Recently I have the impression that coffee magnifies my fears. If you drink coffee, try to avoid it before a flight

I just saw this breathing technique on tv where the psychologist was saying to put your right hand on your left chest (the heart area) and your left hand on your tummy, and breathe deeply.

What you guys are describing is anxiety.

I had it for ~6 years in my mid-late teens, to varying degrees. But got over it without medication.

They're not mutually exclusive, but knowing the difference helps you know what to look out for.

For example, studies show when you accept a negative emotion, you can cope with it easier. Trying to suppress it, often times makes it worse by strengthening those connections in the brain. (There is something called Motivated Forgetting if you want to look deeper, but it's a bit harder)

Breathing and eating (including chewing gum) are good ones as well.

Deep breaths in your diaphragm (stomach), and not your chest. This is great for your overall health as well, if you can train yourself to do it automatically.
 
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Johnny Bravo

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1) When you guys first learnt how to fly planes, do you feel fear? Also, those folks who fly small jets and fighter jets, I assume the turbulence and "roller-coaster feel" must be 1000x more than passenger planes.

Obviously this answer is unique for each pilot, but for me the answer is, "it depends."

Flying in a small high-wing airplane (the wing is attached to the ceiling) is more freaky than flying a small low-wing airplane (the wing is attached at the bottom of the cabin). I imagine this is simply because you cannot look out the window over your shoulder and see nothing but a tiny fiberglass door keeping you from plummeting thousands of feet to your horrific death. Similarly, flying at high altitudes is more freaky than at lower altitudes unless you're in the clouds.

Regarding turbulence, as a rule, the smaller the airplane the greater the disturbances. Flying through mildly bumpy air in a 767 will bounce you around like mad in a small helicopter or airplane.

Xeon said:
2) Is it true that flying at night where the weather is cooler = less turbulence? Hotter weather = more?

Sometimes.

Turbulence is a pretty finicky beast. Sometimes I'll look at the weather and warn the crew that it'll be a bumpy day, yet when we get out there it's smooth as glass. Sometimes the opposite occurs.

Turbulence is caused by changes in wind velocity. In general, this can be predicted, but it's not an exact science as I mentioned above. Mountains, buildings, thermal activity, frontal activity, and temperature inversions are the most common culprits.

We can expect sharp updrafts and downdrafts caused by winds being deflected off of mountain ranges. Landing on a rooftop helipad can be sporty because of the winds being deflected by buildings. Dark areas in full sunlight (parking lot, field, etc.) will produce more heat which creates updrafts. Shaded areas are cooler which do the opposite. Etc, etc.

The short version is that pilots are trained (or at least given the material) to assist in prediction of likely areas of moderate to severe turbulence. The most dangerous occur low level and are partially predicted by better technology.

Moral of the story: Unless you get low level wind shear on takeoff or landing, you're pretty safe. Even then, commercial jets are statistically able to avoid and/or escape these events.
 
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Xeon

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More specifically, the fear of turbulence when flying.

You know, you're on the plane and suddenly the plane drops a bit then goes up high again and then drops a bit.....almost like a rollercoaster, your palms start dripping with cold sweat, your heart feels weak.....

How do you guys overcome this or make yourself feel better? One method which I'm using is to watch anime on my phone throughout the flight. It doesn't cure the fear but distracts my mind and makes me feel 30 - 40% better.

I found that if I can stand instead of sit, for some reason, it doesn't feel scary. Maybe it's because there's a sense of more control when you're standing? With sitting and that stupid seatbelt, it feels you're completely helpless and can't do anything. Something like chaining you to a chair and then pushing that chair into a lava pit lol
 
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BlindSide

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I personally think landing is the most terrifying part! I feel like I always see the wheels bump off the ground and imagine the worst.
 

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Planes were created to fly in the sky...that is the main purpose of a plane so you shouldn't feel terrified when a plan is doing its job.you should only get terrified when you see a plan on the ground ..anything could happen because that's absolutely against its sole purpose. That's what I tell my self every time.... Lol it might/not work for you thou...Good luck
 
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OMDA

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Plus, I know a lot of Aerospace engineers and airplanes are ridiculously strong and can handle a lot of mechanical stress, especially the stress from bouncing up and down in turbulence. Planes are very good at staying in the air. Not really too worried about bouncing up and down a bit. Or a lot.

If it's not a fear of crashing, then it's a free rollercoaster ride! What's not to like?

Yep. I've designed/analyzed some aircraft components. To even get on an airplane it has to pass all kinds of qualifications and tests.

Every time a plane crashes, the FAA investigates, figures out WHY, and then forces a redesign/upgrade/change in procedures. There have been crashes due to some people improperly handling engines during maintenance, causing them to fall off on takeoff, so I believe they changed quite a bit.

Regardless, I know what I'm sitting on. It's out of my hands by the time I'm on an airplane anyway. So I just relax and usually sleep through the early part of the flight anyway.

However, one time flying into Denver on a much smaller airplane, I was loaded in the very back of the plane. Tons of turbulence. I could hear the hydraulics working overtime on the elevator and rudder from my seat. I chuckled to myself a bit and wondered about the engineer trying to justify the stress and fatigue analysis for the actuator attachments while I was sitting there getting bumped around. "Hope he got it right!"

Also, on several different parts of the airplane, some fittings can totally break and the plane is still able to fly and make it back home. The major control surfaces (ailerons, rudder, elevator), need to have redundant fittings on a plane like that. If a wing came off, you'd be totally screwed, but those are the beefiest, strongest attachment points on the plane. Some designs could have a crack going all the way through some pieces and the plane is still flyable.

I was far more concerned about pilot error or software error (for autopilots on airplanes like Airbus which can vote the pilot out of the equation). We talked a lot about the Airbus A330 (or was it A340?) where the pilot and co-pilot were making opposite commands and the computer just averaged their inputs. The plane ended up mushing into the water at speed and taking everyone out on an airplane that had zero issues. I believe it was an Air France flight from south america to europe.

Nevermind, just checked, Air France 447.
 
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OMDA

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@Xeon I forgot to mention:

The engines make more noise because the air density changes. Engines are pretty complex, and there are usually a dozen or more rows of blades in the compressor, then the air gets mixed with fuel and lit up, and then power is made in the turbine.

Each one of those dozens of stages and however many blades get pushed on more or less depending on the density of the air.

Basically, it causes the whole thing to vibrate in an unsteady way. They usually try to get a constant rpm, which makes predicting all the secondary vibrations pretty straightforward. But, when each part is now shaking around independently, it becomes a different story.

You have to kind of estimate and say "we'll design it for this kind of typical vibration due to the peak conditions" and overbuild it a bit so that it doesn't shake apart. Then, test the hell out of it.
 
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johnp

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ZERO deaths, worldwide, in 2017. An estimated fatality rate for commercial liners is one out of every 16 million flights.

Two big crashes already at the start of 2018 (Iran and Russia. Probably not the best examples).

One crash apparently occurred because the instruments froze and pilot error (last I heard). Seems like something that can happen to any plane, right? Idk.

You can state all of the stats that you want. Flying still scares the crap out of me. And it's not the turbulence. That's fun. It's all of the other stuff, including a complete lack of control. I still do fly, but only when I have to.

Sadly, drinking on a plane seems to be the only thing that helps me.
 

silentownage001

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It's all of the other stuff, including a complete lack of control. I still do fly, but only when I have to.

One of my professors told us about a guy he knows that absolutely hates flying. So he learned to fly. It was, I think, a combination of having control plus being much lower because of the type of plane he flies. I've heard it's very different flying low enough that the cabin does not need to be pressurized.
 
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AdamMaxum

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I've flown quite a bit and it scares me....I tried several things. Being very tired can help. Drinking isn't ideal because then you're always getting up to use the bathroom and I usually had things to do after I got off the flight.

This isn't advice, but the last time I had to fly I simply called up my doctor for some anxiety medicine and popped some xanax before my flights. It seemed to take the edge off....I had never taken it before or anything....so that helped. I would do it again next time I fly.
 

OMDA

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Perhaps I'm one of those nutcases like @OMDA and @jpn who find these sorts of rides exhilarating. Perhaps it's because I'm a commercial pilot. Regardless, the engineering behind these planes is absolutely phenomenal. I enjoy looking out the window at the wingtip and watching the wings flap up and down like the wings of a drunk bird. Did you know the design allows flapping upwards of 20 to 25 feet?!?

Check out the stress testing on a Boeing 777. If this doesn't make you feel good about the airplane, nothing will!


That's a pretty interesting test. They got within 4% of predicted required strength. So the wing was just slightly overbuilt. Overbuild too much, and you get penalized by the extra weight because of the fuel burn.

And that ultimate load is 150% of the limit load. Meaning: the plane can fly up to limit load, which is probably an extreme maneuver that you'll never experience when the plane is carrying all the passengers and fuel that it can be. And it has to be able to take 50% higher than that.

Then they also design in some redundancy so that some parts can be broken and still be able to take limit loads. But, that 50% of cushion won't exist any more. And keep in mind, that's probably an extreme maneuver that the pilots are trained to stay out of or limited by flight software to not exceed.
 
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fiola

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More specifically, the fear of turbulence when flying.

You know, you're on the plane and suddenly the plane drops a bit then goes up high again and then drops a bit.....almost like a rollercoaster, your palms start dripping with cold sweat, your heart feels weak.....

How do you guys overcome this or make yourself feel better? One method which I'm using is to watch anime on my phone throughout the flight. It doesn't cure the fear but distracts my mind and makes me feel 30 - 40% better.

I found that if I can stand instead of sit, for some reason, it doesn't feel scary. Maybe it's because there's a sense of more control when you're standing? With sitting and that stupid seatbelt, it feels you're completely helpless and can't do anything. Something like chaining you to a chair and then pushing that chair into a lava pit lol

I know how you feel. I wasn't afraid of flying and I sometimes went to the bathroom when the belt sign was on. I was on a flight from SF to NY and at some point the plane dropped like a roller coaster, people screamed and drinks spilled all over the plane. No one was injured, but since then I'm scared even when I think about flying.

However I think I can control it very well. I've even been to a psychologist before flying from Europe to US and did 2 months of therapy. However the solution was temporary and after some time of not flying, the fear came back.

I use two methods for keeping my fear under control when turbulence starts:
  • I start listening to one of my favorite albums. I know that turbulence can't last for one hour so I know that when the album is over, everything will be smooth again
  • I start thinking about the miracle of being alive and how because of some random circumstances some chemical elements combined themselves and created life or how a superhuman force created us. It makes me feel awesome that I'm alive and I force myself being present and enjoying the sensation of fear. I don't necessarily think that we should be happy or that we should experience only good emotions. I'm a huge fan of fight club and whenever I need to feel inspired, I watch the following scene
    Maybe you shouldn't fight fear, but just enjoy it
  • I think meditating and reading stoic philosophy will also help you
 
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