Fear of flying Blog helpful to fearful flyers

It seems that there has been nothing of great importance in the last few months that has been of significance to fearful flyers.

As a result this blog has been rather quiet. With the introduction of the new on line course our attention has been focussed on the glitches that occur on any new website. However much we have tried to make the experience problem free, there have been some unexpected out turns.

Until the next time we’re confident that the site is running as we planned.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with the on line course, here are a few details.

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The website, Forum and on-line course - Flying without Fear

When I started the flyingwithoutfear.com website over thirteen  years ago it was called scared of flying.com

We were the first website helping fearful flyers to post videos and we were the first to have extensive,  free help.  It ran into over 150 pages of information. We were so successful that most of what we did was copied*. Unfortunately for our competitors just para phrasing and reworking sentences doesn’t work. A statement of fact is a statement of fact but to help a fearful flyer it has to be in context, it shouldn’t be dumbed down and it should be free of mis interpretation.

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Human Factors and aviation safety

This evening an independent UK television channel broadcast an interesting and generally accurate programme about the crash of a British European Airways Trident aircraft at London Heathrow in the early1970′s.

At the time of the crash I was a co-pilot with the company flying out of Scotland. As an experienced pilot I was allowed to fly a two pilot aircraft even though it was less sophisticated than the modern Trident jet that crashed. To compensate for the lower experience levels of the jet co-pilots, the trident carried two co-pilots. Well known to those of us in the airline at the time was the fact that there had been a  very very heated argument in the crew room in London before crash. The argument involved the Captain of the ill fated flight.

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Air Show Crash Shoreham UK

Flyingwithoutfear.com and its associated websites has always maintained the principle of factually correct and unambiguous information to help fearful flyers. We strive to use language and descriptions that is consistent with those values and also explains aspects of aviation in a way that helps fearful flyers to overcome their fears.

The descriptions and eye witness accounts of the crash of the 1960′s fighter jet at a flying display are the opposite of what we try to do. It is inevitable that witnesses to an accident of any type are likely to be in a state of shock and their recall of events is going to be influenced by ignorance, emotion and the the views of other witnesses.

There was an experiment many years ago where air accident investigators were taken on a boat trip and by chance during their excursion witnessed the ‘antics’ of an aeroplane which flew near them. Some of those on board were subsequently told that the plane had crashed while others were just told that it had landed safely. Despite the fact that they were all qualified air accident investigators their reports were wildly different.

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The personal fear of flying course

I never ask people for testimonials and neither do I take’ before and after’ videos. To me, helping people to overcome their fear of flying is a private contract between me and my customers. Some people may want to keep their fears private and not advertise to friends and workmates this part of their life.

Nothing would promote this course more than smiling faces telling the world how wonderful they feel and how they now plan to see the world. But that’s not our style, we’ll leave the bragging to the big brands.

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Trains, planes, the Great Barrier Reef and Woodstock

It was a bank holiday and we took the grandchildren on an old steam railway train. With my new f2.8 super dooper lens I rattled off dozens of pictures.

It was as I was taking this shot that it occurred to me that there is a lot in common with trains planes and a fear of flying. It was said that in the early days of the train sceptics  worried that travelling at such speeds (faster than a horse could run) would upset the brain and cause the eyes to bleed. We can laugh now, but  without evidence to the contrary why should anyone not have believed the critics?

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