does anyone else hate to fly?

I'm afraid I love flying. I hate that feeling you get when your stomach seems to rise, during a sudden drop. It's the reason I avoid a great many amusement park rides.

That said, I love flying. I love airports, I love airplanes, I love going places and doing things. I adore international airports (like LA, St. Paul, New York) where you get this huge mishmash of fascinating, and generally friendly people all together.

Sorry, I'm no help. I'll gladly fly anyhwere you want in your place though.

I hate it because I'm forced to sit next to a human being. A human being that I don't know.

And my skin gets dry.

I used to fly everywhere, but then I ran out of faerie dust.



Seriously, though, I've only ever flown on an airplane once. Well, twice, since it was a round trip. I was freaked out during take off and landing both times. This was seven years ago. I haven't had to fly since.

I love to fly however, I've never flown for longer than 3 hours at a time.

There were these little sea-planes which went between St. Croix and St. Thomas, and Puerto Rico. Since there's not much on an island like St. Croix, you have to make that trip fairly often.

Sea Planes are hazardous little things, lightweight and entirely victim of the wind. Usually, privately owned by a toothless guy who was tokin' up in the cockpit instead of actually flying the plan. If they included them in those statistics that deem airplanes the safest way to travel, those statistics would put flying on an airplane somewhere just below hitting your head with a break in terms of things to do safely.

After those, I just don't worry about flying....

(although I'm more comfortable flying over water than over land, hands down)

writerly said:

I hate it, I do. I didn't use to. But now I avoid it, which is kind of unfortunate and kind of not.

what say you?

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I can't stand flying, not being in control, stuck next to an annoying person, or kid. They see me coming, “here, sit next to this stinky person, or let the kid constantly kick your seat.”

I was on a horrible flight back in 1999 the airline grounded while we were in mid-air.

What ever happened to the nice meals? Price of gasoline.

I like flying. I hate the bs with the airport since the Sept 11th stuff came on from the cargo areas not the passengers from the reports I read. I don't think my underwire is going to take down a plane. But that small child screaming from the pressure of flight may cause something to explode.

Longest on airplane was Los Angeles to Indonesia with a stopover in Hawaii for a few hours. Tons of water. Weird to know that much water is out there.

I hate the boredom of flying. sitting there, crammed next to people you don't know, who smell funny. And there's always an 8 year old in the seat in front of me who turns around, stares at me for half the trip, and digs for boogers.

I hate that.

I really hate the airport security after 9/11, yeah. Silly crap. I tend to get a bit...snarky. Which is not wise when you're confronted with a seven hundred pound grid-iron gorilla woman with one eyebrow which could have otherwise met the eyebrow quotient on eight other hairy men.

I don't understand how I can be afraid of heights but not be afraid of flying.

psy7ven said:

I don't understand how I can be afraid of heights but not be afraid of flying.

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That's easy. Because when flying you are not in control and you like control, so going to the top of a mountain an looking over the side is your self-controlled side saying it is a long way down to the ground.

Physc 2202

P.S. The study of human behavior is essential to writing the thriller, suspense, and horror genres.

Vertigo?

but, if I like control then I should still be more miserable in the plane because I am not in control.

psy7ven said:

but, if I like control then I should still be more miserable in the plane because I am not in control.

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Control of mechanical devices doesn't mean the same as free choice. When you are in the plane, you know who's in control, and relinquish authority to someone who is better at flying the airplane. You have faith and the issue of control is not so important (just as long as you have confidence in the person controlling the plane) and so you can sit back and manage to get through the ordeal.

Big difference is that if you had to and needed to climb a tall mountain, while fearing heights, you would decline.

Watch the movie Vertigo!

Ah, yes that is true. I do not mind giving up control to those I believe to be competent.

Watch the movie Vertigo!

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I'll check it out. Thanks

I started a thread about this very thing last fall, because I have hated flying for about 18 years now, and I had a trip to Europe to take.


What I did was: I bought some fear of flying CD's by a woman pilot - can't remember her name offhand.
There were 2 cd's and I think the set was about $60. I listened to the cd's several times, and they really did help. The tapes go into why people are scared and why they shouldn't be scared.


It was money well spent.

But, a few days before my trip, I felt myself starting to freak out again, so I said a rare prayer and asked for some assistance with overcoming my stress and fear, and guess what? It worked and I was able to get through 6 very long flights without freaking out, one of which had serious turbulence.

I'm with everyone else, though, on the airport crap.

The security lines in this country are a pain in the rear, and then you go to foreign airports with NO security - and you worry about that.


It's shuffle on, shuffle off .........wait, walk, sit down. Show passport and ticket, sit down. Take off shoes. Walk a few feet.

London Airport (Heathrow) was annoying as hell. You wait in the terminal to find out which gate you'll have, then they finally announce it and you get in a huge crowd and wait. People check your tickets and you go sit down in an area, and you think you are at the gate. HA. Finally - they get you walking out a door and down a ramp and start loading passengers on buses, and they drive you down runways and in between jets and through back alleys and finally - to your plane to board from the runway.

And everyone just follows the leader. I kept wanting to say "This is the bus to the game, right?" But, nobody has a sense of humor.

I haven't flown a lot, and nothing since 9/11, but I love flying (my wife, not so much). I enjoy the taking off, the landings...actually my favorite part was the turbulence. Seriously. No joke. It made the flight so much more fun - of course, I know I'm in the minority on that one.

I love flying, except coach on transoceanic flights -- torture! Once you've flown business/first class on those 20-hour mothers you wouldn't want to fly coach anymore. In the past 8 years I've probably flown about 700 times. When they reopened the airports after 9/11, I was one of the firsts to fly -- it was eerie. There were only 6 people on a normally-packed flight.