I recently decided I need to fight the fear of flying on planes. I did it in a non-obvious way, I'll tell you how.
Basically, I read somewhere that fear of flying is actually several different fears. Someone's afraid of noise, someone of the fact that, essentially, there's no control (lack of trust). Well, and there's someone who just doesn't understand from what magic ten-ton pieces of iron don't fall.
My thoughts about aerophobia in video form:
I don't even know what exactly I was afraid of, but somewhere in the fucking internets I read that what can help is if you sit in a small plane and try to control it. If you still haven't shit yourself from fear, I'm telling about my experience :)
I bought on slevomat a voucher - half an hour as pilot with instructor, and 2 people as passengers in back. I bought it long ago, back in April, but reserved time exactly for end of July. They only fly on weekends or at inconvenient times.
Day X came and we went - the museum and hangars were in the city Mladá Boleslav (of course, I'll tell about the city later too). Already approaching the city everyone laughed - planes started to be visible, and instead of runways some pure field.
By that time we had laid a few bricks (especially many were laid by the author of blog about anything except mathematics, because she had to fly in the back seat). At the appointed time I called the dispatcher, and we were led to the plane.
First we wrote our names on paper, didn't even sign anything. In the room hung instructions on how to clearly pronounce each letter.
And so, we were led to our plane. Inside sat dudes who just finished flying. We got in the plane, and the guy started instructing me. Showed 3 gauges and says like: "Well, put on headphones and let's go".
Having laid another brick, we started taking off. Takeoff from pure field, over bumps. The takeoff went, by the way, more calmly than on a big plane.
Two minutes passed, and he says - well, take the yoke, steer. And buried himself in his phone. I'm freaking out here, what to do. Well okay, flying, what.
Generally, controlling a plane is very intuitively understandable. I quickly figured out how to keep the plane in the right plane, quickly figured out how to react to turbulence. By the way, in a small plane turbulence feels completely different - like a pothole you dive into. But, again, you feel the whole plane, so you don't even worry.
It's harder to operate altitude - the data on instruments isn't quite clear. And generally, it's unusual that when moving a 3rd dimension is added - up-down. The brain gets used to it only after about 10 minutes.
Basically, we flew for 20 minutes, saw Kost castle from above (saw approximately such views, photo isn't mine, because I stupidly forgot the camera at home, and left my phone in my pocket instead of giving it to passengers):
Well, in total we flew for about 20 minutes. And then the guy says - well, fly to that hill, into those trees. I'm like, what? Right into the hill? He's like - yes. Well okay. Flew to the hill, and then he took his yoke and landed. The landing looked quite simple.
Well, that's it. Unfortunately, because of the brick factory under me I forgot to photograph both the plane and myself against its background.
Although I photographed from the side - here it is, Cessna 172, which I controlled for half an hour.
What's interesting, briefly:
- flying is worth it, and it really becomes less scary to fly
- want to fly more, afraid I'll become a regular reader of http://blog.simakhin.com/
- from the bricks laid before the flight you can build an average Czech castle
- when you fly, you hear all communications. This, in my opinion, was almost more interesting than the flight itself
- controlling a plane is pure bliss. I once in my life controlled a car, and I absolutely didn't like it. A plane is different
- if you want to fly, go as pilot. People in back claim they almost threw up when I confidently controlled the flight
- as soon as you learn Czech, immediately google "pilotem na zkoušku"
- and most importantly - thanks to Syutkin, girls love brave pilots (me) more than homebody boys (you)