Control and Escape

Just a quick extra note to you about some thoughts on my 90th birthday. It’s odd to be this old because everyone I used to know when flying airplanes or racing cars is gone. I’m ahead of the game - if not by winning - by outlasting the other guys. I’m sorry they are gone. They were pretty amazing.

Looking back at 45 years of work on fear of flying, I realize pilots and fearful fliers want the same things:

• to be in control

• to to escape if something goes wrong.

Pilots have the control they need. Pilots have escape via back-up systems. With everything they need, pilots are masterfully in control in the cockpit.

Passengers have no control and no way escape. Some naturally feel uncomfortable. Some don’t feel comfortable.

We all started the same. We all were born dependent. Some of us learned we could trust those we were dependent on. Some of us learned to not trust.

If some situations with others in control were life-threatening, it naturally goes against the grain to trust others now.

Air travel is uniquely different.

Regardless of how you learned not to trust, this is different because your pilot can’t get back on the ground safely without getting you back on the ground safely.

But there is another question. What if your pilot makes a mistake? Let’s look at that. First, there are warning systems to warn pilots of mistakes. Second, do you make fewer mistakes than pilots? Or do you just feel better believing you won’t make a mistake?

I’m willing to bet - because I have literally bet my life on it - that pilots make fewer mistakes - a lot fewer mistakes - than non-pilots. I once told a psychiatrist I studied with that before I do anything, I second-guess myself. I check to see if I might be making a mistake. He replied, “That is an awful way to live.” I told him, “No. It is the ONLY way to live if you are a pilot. You learn you MUST live this way. You must always question yourself.”

So, what about you? Do you always question yourself before you act?

• If you do, then trust your pilots to keep you as safe as you keep yourself.

• If you don’t, then trust your pilots to keep you safer than you keep yourself.

Do you feel the way you want to when flying? If not, see this video.