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Fear of flying

do you have a fear of flying

  • I have no fear of flying

    Votes: 46 70.8%

  • I'd sooner crawl there on my hands and knees on broken glass

    Votes: 3 4.6%

  • I'll fly but I hate it

    Votes: 16 24.6%
  • Total voters
    65
sawyerloggingon said:
I have control over it though, I'm not a white knuckle flier. The second I enter the plane I consider myself dead and then I am calm as anyone else and can be counted on if there was a crisis because I have nothing to lose, I have already accepted my fate.
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Thats a somewhat effective method of controlling fear in combat also.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
Yeah wind shear, that's what I meant. Nothing you can do but die if you are in one of those.
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You need to be worried about windshear but if you know it's around, and you usually do, it's easy enough to deal with.

I've flown through windshear dozens of times. Without getting all pilot geeky on you the problem with windshear is the affect it has on airspeed - and consequently descent rate. What matters to a plane is the speed that the air is moving over the wing - the airspeed which is a combination of the plane's motion and the motion of the airmass it's in. If a 20 kt headwind shears to a 5 kt tailwind it will seem to the plane that it's lost 25 kt of airspeed and its descent rate will increase. That could be a minor inconvienence or a major problem depending on how high you are, how much speed you were carrying to begin with and what kind of plane you're driving. Lighter planes recover faster because of less inertia. Piston engines respond much faster to throttle changes than jet engines so piston planes can recover faster.

Even so heavy jets encounter windshear regularly and deal with it without too much problem.

Microbusts are a bigger problem but they're really associated with thunderstorms and most people try hard to avoid those.
 
Gaius46 said:
You need to be worried about windshear but if you know it's around, and you usually do, it's easy enough to deal with.

I've flown through windshear dozens of times. Without getting all pilot geeky on you the problem with windshear is the affect it has on airspeed - and consequently descent rate. What matters to a plane is the speed that the air is moving over the wing - the airspeed which is a combination of the plane's motion and the motion of the airmass it's in. If a 20 kt headwind shears to a 5 kt tailwind it will seem to the plane that it's lost 25 kt of airspeed and its descent rate will increase. That could be a minor inconvienence or a major problem depending on how high you are, how much speed you were carrying to begin with and what kind of plane you're driving. Lighter planes recover faster because of less inertia. Piston engines respond much faster to throttle changes than jet engines so piston planes can recover faster.

Even so heavy jets encounter windshear regularly and deal with it without too much problem.

Microbusts are a bigger problem but they're really associated with thunderstorms and most people try hard to avoid those.
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Microburst, that's what I meant. :lol:
 
Is that like the shear winds that push trees over instead of twisting them off? I was going full speed on a highway one time in my pickup truck and suddenly came to a complete halt as did the guy beside me, the trees were bent over and kinda compressed. Weird. I could see how that would crash a plane.
 
mak2 said:
Is that like the shear winds that push trees over instead of twisting them off? I was going full speed on a highway one time in my pickup truck and suddenly came to a complete halt as did the guy beside me, the trees were bent over and kinda compressed. Weird. I could see how that would crash a plane.
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I have seen the aftermath of such events where an acre or so of trees are all busted off about half way up. I can't imagine how a plane could stay up in caught in one of those.
 
mak2 said:
Is that like the shear winds that push trees over instead of twisting them off? I was going full speed on a highway one time in my pickup truck and suddenly came to a complete halt as did the guy beside me, the trees were bent over and kinda compressed. Weird. I could see how that would crash a plane.
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sawyerloggingon said:
I have seen the aftermath of such events where an acre or so of trees are all busted off about half way up. I can't imagine how a plane could stay up in caught in one of those.
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Could be. Microbursts can be strong enough to flatten trees and yeah close to the ground they're deadly. But the FAA has gotten very, very good at detecting them - doppler radar was developed specifically to measure wind velocity - so that aircraft can avoid them. I don't think there's been a microburst related major airline crash in the US in the past 20 or 30 years.

So sawyer get yourself a beer, or better a martini, get a window seat, sit back and enjoy the ride. :). 30 years of flying myself around and I am still enthralled by the view from up there. Even on an airliner despite the airlines attempts to make you think you're sitting in your living room. It's a privileged place to be.
 
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Gaius46 said:
Could be. Microbursts can be strong enough to flatten trees and yeah close to the ground they're deadly. But the FAA has gotten very, very good at detecting them - doppler radar was developed specifically to measure wind velocity - so that aircraft can avoid them. I don't think there's been a microburst related major airline crash in the US in the past 20 or 30 years.

So sawyer get yourself a beer, or better a martini, get a window seat, sit back and enjoy the ride. :). 30 years of flying myself around and I am still enthralled by the view from up there. Even on an airliner despite the airlines attempts to make you think you're sitting in your living room. It's a privileged place to be.
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My wife was in a plane crash once of sorts. It was on the ground and the wing of another plane hit hers. These things are not even safe on the ground! :lol:
 
Hey, I just realized this thread has been going on for days, are you dead yet? I have not heard of any plane crashes but one guy did fall out of a plane.
sawyerloggingon said:
I just found out I have to jet out tomorrow for a family emergency and I'm not happy about it. I hate flying! Jet engines mounted to a flimsy bunch of sheet metal with drunk or sleepy pilots, down drafts, ice on wings computers grouchy flight attendants and 100s of people packed into a sardine can, What can possibly go wrong? Anyway I'm curious how others in here feel about flying. By the way if a airliner goes down tomorrow just assume I'm on it!
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mak2 said:
Hey, I just realized this thread has been going on for days, are you dead yet? I have not heard of any plane crashes but one guy did fall out of a plane.
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Good question.
 
Safe my ass!


Reuters) - A Boeing 737 airliner crashed on Sunday in the Russian city of Kazan, killing all 50 people on board and spotlighting the poor safety record of regional airlines that ply internal routes across the world's largest nation.

Boeing airliner crash - Yahoo Search Results
 
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