03 Sep How to Cope with Fear of Flying
Ready for some irony? I’m a travel writer who’s afraid to fly. A few years ago, it got so bad that I decided to take a fear of flying course. While I’m still not overjoyed to travel 600 mph inside a metal tube, I’m doing much better.
I wasn’t always afraid to fly. For the first 35 years of my life, I rarely thought about aviation safety. Turbulence was no problem, and I often slept through takeoff and landing. Then I had had a couple of babies and two really turbulent flights, and suddenly I was a white knuckle flyer.
According to the therapist I worked with, either the kids or the bumpy weather could be the culprit. The brain of an expectant mother is flooded with hormones that cause her to become obsessed with safety. The hormones go away once the baby is born, but the behavior patterns can persist.
If hormones aren’t to blame, a bad experience can be the trigger too (severe and prolonged turbulence over the Pacific Ocean, in my case). Some flying phobias begin with a traumatic event that creates the feelings of fear. Neurons get used to firing sequentially and pretty soon every bump you feel takes you straight to terror.
While no blog post can ever be a substitute for treatment, here are five things I learned about flight safety – and especially turbulence – that help me stay calm at 30,000 feet.
1. Pilots use the restroom during turbulence
When pilots want to use the restroom, they have to push back their seats, take off their headphones, and remove their harnesses. They almost always do this during turbulence, because the first class cabin restroom is only guaranteed to be unoccupied when the fasten seat belt sign is on.
2. Airplanes are designed to withstand force
Modern jets are designed to withstand several times the amount of force that any turbulence can produce. The Air Force Reserve 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron regularly flies right into the eye of hurricanes and stays there for hours taking wind speed, temperature, and pressure readings.
3. The bumps are actually not that big
Even when it feels like the plane is dropping a hundred feet, most of the time it’s only moving inches. The plane’s instruments don’t even pick it up. Turbulence feels big because you’re traveling so fast. The best analogy is speed bumps. Hit one at 10 mph and you don’t even feel it. Hit one at 80 mph and your seatbelt will practically strangle you. Now imagine hitting it at 500 mph.
4. Flying is way safer than driving
Even in 1945 when navigation was primitive and airplane engines were temperamental, the chance of fatality when driving or flying from New York to LA was equal. In the 21st century, flying in modern jets is more than a hundred times safer than driving.
5. Planes are dynamically stable
Have you ever imagined your plane flipping over or dropping from the sky? Good news. It’s all but impossible due to the negative dihedral design (that is, the upward tilt) of the wings. Their shape gives planes something called dynamic stability, which means planes have the tendency to go straight and to require force to do anything else.
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