Shell
Premium Platinum
Noooo screw the window seat. Im tiny and even i hate that seat. Aisle seat FTW. And you dont have to climb over anyone when you need to get up.
Even better exit seats.
Fear of Flying
- Thread starter Bennett.
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Noooo screw the window seat. Im tiny and even i hate that seat. Aisle seat FTW. And you dont have to climb over anyone when you need to get up.
Even better exit seats.
standingroomonly
Club Legend
Don't know why but i love staring out the window, particularly during landing. Although the last few flights i've been on they've had an option to look at a plane nose mounted camera on the in flight entertainment screen. Awesome for during landing.
TheStinger
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I can't sleep on a plane, so long haul flights are a little bit tiresome but I love flying. Takeoff and landing are obviously the best bits but I do enjoy (some might say sadistically) the rollercoaster sensation from big turbulence. Flying over the Bay of Bengal on the way to Europe was awesome. There was a massive storm over the bay and we had to fly through it. I could see quite a number of people were quite nervous during it, but I loved it.
It depends which metric you use. In terms of hours or kms travelled, it's one of the safest if not the safest. But that skews the statistics significantly because plane trips are mostly further and longer than other forms of transport, and most of the risk is in takeoff and landing. If you look at deaths per number of journeys, air travel is more than two and a half times as risky as car travel.
It's easier to be scared when travelling on a plane than other forms of transport because:
a) if there's an accident, it's probably going to be catastrophic
b) you have no control over the situation, and
c) you are far less familiar with it than other forms of travel.
Even if I am in a car with somebody I don't know, I'm still familiar with the process of driving and so I can relate to the risks the driver is taking. Most of us can't fly planes (let alone jumbos) so we can in no way relate to the risks that the unknown and unseen pilot is having to deal with on our behalf.
I fly a lot with work and have no particular fear of flying. But you can bet that if I am in a small plane in a third world country, I am going to be a bit nervous.
Bennett.
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I'm not convinced on that one! we flew with Emirates, and coming into dubai I watched the pilot land sideways and start to veer off the runway, and then coming into Toronto in an A380 I watched the pilot line up wrong and basically drop the plane on the tarmac. VERY average!
Bennett.
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Definitely in part a control issue for me. I think if I knew everything that was going on, or was up the front driving, I wouldn't be so bad.
JuddsABlue
Norm Smith Medallist
Flying into Phuket is pretty wild, you're 99% convinced you're taking a water landing and then somehow ground appears under you just as the wheels touch the ground
LA is great I think, especially coming in around 6am in the dark with all the freeways lighten up and the surrounding area, then doing the loop over the coast and around over the below land and descend over the freeways. Another landing where you can get pretty nervous about how close you're getting to the freeway below
LA is great I think, especially coming in around 6am in the dark with all the freeways lighten up and the surrounding area, then doing the loop over the coast and around over the below land and descend over the freeways. Another landing where you can get pretty nervous about how close you're getting to the freeway below
GOAUS!
Norm Smith Medallist
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I really don't have a problem with the main jumbo jets, it's the light aircraft that I'ld be worried about getting into.
Went to Europe six weeks ago and it was a first time I had ever been on a plane, so I jumped straight into the deep end.
Didn't really have any issues, just found the plane hot/stuffy.
Didn't really have any issues, just found the plane hot/stuffy.
The Air Crash Investigation shows should give you confidence. Every one of those incidents makes flying infinitely safer, not to mention some of the amazing efforts by the crew when the s**t hits the fan.
I.e. United 232, basically they had the equivalent of driving a car with a stuck open throttle, no steering wheel, no ignition switch and no brakes from a desert into a thick forest and still managed to save the lives of 185 people. Pretty amazing effort.
There's a speed called 'V1' which is calculated before every takeoff taking into account the specific runway/intersection being used and the ambient conditions that is the 'decision speed', or the speed at which you can decide to discontinue the takeoff and have enough runway to stop.
If an engine fails at V1 there is still plenty of thrust available to accelerate through VR(rotation speed) and V2 (the speed at which once getting off the ground the aircraft must be at to be able to continue a climb out with one engine failed in takeoff configuration [with the wheels still hanging out causing drag]) and climb away happily.
Here is an example of how much of a non issue an engine failure on takeoff should be (this is close to the worst possible time to have an engine failure):
I have no fear of flying, I just dislike it a lot.
Can never sleep on a plane (or anything that moves really), every single time I seem to catch a cold and my ears never want to pop so by the time we land I sonetimes have an agonizing headache.
My desire to travel far outweighs the dislike of flying so I guess I'll just suck it up
Can never sleep on a plane (or anything that moves really), every single time I seem to catch a cold and my ears never want to pop so by the time we land I sonetimes have an agonizing headache.
My desire to travel far outweighs the dislike of flying so I guess I'll just suck it up
Swallow and your ears will 'unpop'
I try everything to get them to pop but usually only get one to go
Eventually it does after I've been on the ground for a while and it feels like the side of my head has blown out
Have you tried chartering a light plane and getting the pilot to climb/descend from 1500-6000 feet or so a few times?
You're able to build up a tolerance (or subconsciously learn how to open up your Eustachian tubes to allow the pressure differential to dissipate) fairly quickly.
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Yeah I understand all that, and realise that usually there needs to be a series of catastrophic failures to bring a commercial jet down, but the way my mind works is that I'll remember all the worst elements from those TV shows rather than what the crew etc were doing at the time.
My fear certainly wont and hasnt stopped me getting onboard flights, and if my mind does start to wander I'll just remind myself how many flights take off & land each day around the world without incident.
In saying all of that I am having my first A380 flight early next year and am kind of looking forward to the experience.
As for helicopters, well... An idiot pilot in Queenstown thought it would be funny to come over the top of the mountain and send us nose diving for the ground. Changed my jocks afterwards that day and havent been on one since.
dales.girl38
Brownlow Medallist
Easily the most excruciating pain I've ever had was on a flight from Florida to LA, I'd had a bit of a cold so wasn't feeling 100%, but towards the end of the flight my head felt like it was about to explode and for about 10 minutes I was bawling my eyes out. Has to be one of the worst feelings.
Fair enough.
Say no more about eggbeater drivers. The things will eventually spin out of control and crash if you don't constantly fight it, takes a strange sort of person to fly them...
Indeed. As far as I know all modern airliners are certified to be able to take off with one engine inoperative. A twin jet can lift off safely on one engine, and a quad jet can lift off safely on three.
Correct.
CAO 20.7.1b
7.2 In the take-off configuration that exists with the critical engine inoperative and
the landing gear fully retracted, the aeroplane at speed V2 must be able to
achieve a gross gradient of climb of at least:
(a) if the aeroplane is a commuter type aeroplane — 2%; and
(b) if the aeroplane is not a commuter type aeroplane:
(i) if it has 2 engines — 2.4%; and
(ii) if it has 3 engines — 2.7%; and
(iii) if it has 4 engines — 3%.
Also, some quad jets like the BAe-146 actually have what they call a '3 engine ferry' procedure where they take off and fly back to base on 3 engines when one of them fails on the previous flight.
Gough
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/2786289.stm
I witnessed the crash they are talking about in this article. It was almost surreal watching it fall out of the sky. Wouldn't catch me in chopper for quids.
Not particularly fond of planes - I normally have to chew gum incessantly to stop my ears from hurting - I also tend to get a little nervous whenever the plane comes into land -
Our band played in Brisbane the other weekend, and my brother left to come home a day earlier than I did - He told me how on his flight back to Melbourne on the landing the plane hit the ground but then suddenly took off again!! Captain apologised and said they got a gust of wind so had to have another go - They then had to circle around the airport for another 15 minutes before landing a 2nd time!
If I was on that flight, I would have lost my s**t -
Our band played in Brisbane the other weekend, and my brother left to come home a day earlier than I did - He told me how on his flight back to Melbourne on the landing the plane hit the ground but then suddenly took off again!! Captain apologised and said they got a gust of wind so had to have another go - They then had to circle around the airport for another 15 minutes before landing a 2nd time!
If I was on that flight, I would have lost my s**t -
Not really a fear as such, but as I get older I find myself more and more in the minutes before takeoff wondering just how the * something that big and heavy gets off the ground.
Shell
Premium Platinum
Yeah Qantas have that. Was pretty cool.
You can also do a virtual tour of business and first class. Yeah i dont recommend doing that.
Apparently if you have a tooth ache/pain it is way worse in a plane too. 10 years ago on my last OS trip I had my wisdom teeth out no less than a week before I flew to America. But yeah, lucky for me the pain wasnt that bad.
But yeah cold is the worst. Ears not popping, massive pain on descent. Spent the next 24 hours feeling like I was underwater too, i was completely out of it. (and that was only a flight Denver - Miami)
I absolutely loved it as a younger bloke.
Now I absolutely hate it. It seemed to pop up out of nowhere. I boil it down to working in the engineering industry and having way too much hands on experience with machines like this. I know way too much about how things work/don't work, shortcuts, service quality, time restraints in manufacture, and the people who work on these things, and probably the clincher, I know the limits of materials and parts and methods of joining. Seals, hydraulics, cracks in parts, pressure vessels, all these frequently fail. Sure, inspection and quality control is paramount in these factories but, you never know. Problems are often ironed out after years in service. Prototypes flying everywhere.
I'm fine while it's smooth, but any noise and or bump and I'm white knuckling it hard.
Add to all of this the fact I'm like a frog in a sock in any confined space for a length of time iand it's an awful experience.
Now I absolutely hate it. It seemed to pop up out of nowhere. I boil it down to working in the engineering industry and having way too much hands on experience with machines like this. I know way too much about how things work/don't work, shortcuts, service quality, time restraints in manufacture, and the people who work on these things, and probably the clincher, I know the limits of materials and parts and methods of joining. Seals, hydraulics, cracks in parts, pressure vessels, all these frequently fail. Sure, inspection and quality control is paramount in these factories but, you never know. Problems are often ironed out after years in service. Prototypes flying everywhere.
I'm fine while it's smooth, but any noise and or bump and I'm white knuckling it hard.
Add to all of this the fact I'm like a frog in a sock in any confined space for a length of time iand it's an awful experience.
JuddsABlue
Norm Smith Medallist
Ive had an aborted landing once, its a bit of a shock
we were descending and the weather was pretty shitty with a lot of clouds, the pilots were going to attempt to descend to a certain level to see if they could get a visual of the runway. we had been circling for about an hour and pretty much everywhere within an hour of flying time was in bad weather so we would of had to turn back to where we left from (melbourne)
but yeah at the time we didnt know it was an 'attempt' so as we were descending and expecting to land at any minute all of a sudden the engines fired up and we took off like a rollar coaster back into the air
