Question for the board

[tonyw]

[ QUOTE ]
But like everyone else said, go slow, no pressure. Go up with her on a calm day for 20 minutes. Go through a pre-flight etc. Explain everything. Most fears are caused by a lack of knowledge. If you educate her chances are the fear will wane.

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I actually think that taking someone up in a small plane, doing the preflight, and everything like that would help tremendously. While you're doing the routine preflight checks, you could constantly reinforce the safety aspect of the whole thing. And then say something like, if I do this for a little airplane, what do you think the guys who fly the big ones do?

And you'd be amazed at who gets scared of flying. On one flight, some guy who could have snapped any of us in half was sitting next to me. He was gripping the armrests so hard that his knuckles were turning white. I asked him if he was okay and he said that he was just afraid of flying.

 

[FL270]

I was coming back from PIT a few weeks ago and there was a guy holding his wife during boarding ... I caught his eye and asked if the wife was scared, he said she was petrified.

My stepmother used to be scared to death to fly, then in 1994 she took a Fearful Flyers class through US Airways. It was great ... she flew several times without incident. Then that American MD-80 ran off the runway in LIT a couple years ago ... several employees of Mom's company were aboard and, while none were killed, the fact that she knew them (and had been to LIT on business just a couple months before) did her in ... she won't go near airplanes any more.

The F.F. class, which had over a 90% success rate, was team-taught by a psychologist/social worker whose name I've forgotten and a retired DC-9 captain named Frank Petee. They wrote a book you might be able to find on amazon.com that would be helpful. Basically, it combined relaxation techniques and education about flying to make people comfortable.

I don't like riding in the back on the airlines and not knowing what's going on ... but I deal with it. I've gotten good at recognizing cities and airports from 330!

FL270

 

[TheWife]

[ QUOTE ]
I think the trick to dealing with fear is to approach it slowly, in small bites. For instance, can you take your wife to the airport one day, and just sit in a plane? Maybe start it up and taxi around, but let her know that you are not actually going to fly that day. Slowly build up a tolerance to planes, and then when she's up to it go do one turn in the pattern, then a little more, and a little more until the fear is a little more managable.

[/ QUOTE ] That is exactly how fears are dealt with. Fears of anything. You start by showing a picture of the fear, then the real thing from far away, then closer, then close enough to touch, etc. I am sure the same would work with planes. Just sit in the plane. Then turn it on. Then drive around the runway. Then do one take off and land, etc. till it becomes easy.

 

[TheShortOne]

[ QUOTE ]


And you'd be amazed at who gets scared of flying. On one flight, some guy who could have snapped any of us in half was sitting next to me. He was gripping the armrests so hard that his knuckles were turning white. I asked him if he was okay and he said that he was just afraid of flying.

[/ QUOTE ]

heh, I flew out to New Hampshire earlier this summer with my mom to visit my grandparents, and the plane was all boarded except for two bikers who were going out for a harley convention in NH who were afraid to fly. They finally got on the plane and one sat inbetween us. He sat there and looked like he was about to puke the whole time. Said they were late getting to the plane cause they had been in the bar getting relaxed (it was like 9am) put on his CD player as soon as they would let him and then fell asleep...CD player died before we landed so he was freaked out the whole decent and landing.

man it makes me glad that i started flying when i was like 2 months old so its no big deal for me.

 

[tonyw]

There must be something wrong with the scoreboard sign that you've got up there. Bo Schembechler is kicking something right now and Woody Hayes is turning in his grave.

Look at the passing/rushing yards. Those two guys would have puked if they saw that.

So much for three yards and a cloud of dust, huh?

 

[TheShortOne]

haha yeah.

though ohio state was doing decent with rushing yards till we came along...they had only allowed an avg of 50 a game with no more than like 57 or something like that in one game...we managed to destroy that in the first half