6 ms·

I had a fear of flying, which I overcame completely by accident: I started playing a realistic flight sim for a while. Because it was realistic, I had to learn

by relix 8y ago

I had a fear of flying, which I overcame completely by accident: I started playing a realistic flight sim for a while. Because it was realistic, I had to learn the basics of how to actually fly a plane. It taught me two things: what some of the noises, the vibrations, and the movements were; and how hard it is to actually crash a plane. Once you made it in the air, you'll want to try crashing your plane in the game (explosions! fun!), and it will be undoubtedly harder than you imagine. I now have zero fear of flying. Before playing the sim, I knew rationally what you're also pointing out - that flying is extremely safe, yet I was still afraid. But after playing the sim, I actually believed it. It's been probably 10 years since I played the simulator, but the effects last.

Buttons840 8y ago
Similarly, you could also read about the physics of flight. I've been reading "Understanding Flight" (http://a.co/dSqr2dS http://a.co/dSqr2dS) and enjoying it. Imagine I asked you "Here's a 100 kg object, and it can produce 10 kg of thrust. Can it fly?" It seems miraculous that the answer is yes. I had always known this, but thinking about it anew was amazing to me.
- mynewtb 8y ago
  Unobfuscated URL: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002Q69B9M/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002Q69B9M/
  - Buttons840 8y ago
    Yeah. I got my link from the Amazon "share" button. Apparently "a.co" is Amazon, but it does look obfuscated doesn't it?
- DavideNL 8y ago
  I think this is a common thing in therapy against fears; the fear will decrease once the thing you are afraid of becomes more clear/detailed (as opposed to vague.) Like in all thriller/horror movies, the less you see of the "scary creature" (in a dark place, behind other objects blocking your view, etc.) , the more your imagination will process the scary thoughts and amplify things.
el_benhameen 8y ago
I had a somewhat similar experience. I had a long-haul flight on Singapore, and the entertainment system had a bunch of videos on the basics of the aircraft and how it flies. This included a few videos on what causes turbulence, how the plane and pilots handle it, and how it’s not particularly dangerous. Now instead of just telling myself that the odds are in our favor when I’m on a turbulent flight, I can think back to the concepts in those videos and rationalize to myself what’s happening and why it’ll be fine. Understanding what you’re experiencing is really helpful.
- schoen 8y ago
  That's neat! A popular online resource about these topics is http://www.askthepilot.com/questionanswers/turbulence/ http://www.askthepilot.com/questionanswers/turbulence/ (which also links to a number of other references).
soperj 8y ago
what was the name of the simulator?
- antsar 8y ago
  I'm not the person you're replying to, but I've had loads of fun with FlightGear. Its free & open source. The selection of aircraft and some of the graphics are not as nice as the alternatives, but I've heard the realism is hard to beat. http://home.flightgear.org/ http://home.flightgear.org/
  - soperj 8y ago
    Thank you :)
- patch_cable 8y ago
  X-plane is an excellent choice. It has a pretty generous demo and also works on Linux.
  - soperj 8y ago
    Nice! Thanks.
Zelphyr 8y ago
This is similar to my experiences with getting blood drawn. About two-weeks prior to the draw I would watch a couple of videos on YouTube of blood draws each night. By the time the day came, I was still anxious but fine. I've been told that the anxiety was created by my nearly passing out when getting blood drawn but the mechanism for nearly passing out is different from panic or anxiety. Still, my "exposure therapy" worked. The last time I had my blood drawn I watch a couple of videos the night before but probably didn't even need to.
- sreyaNotfilc 8y ago
  OK, so I just saw Tom Cruise and James Corden jump out of a plane. Before I saw Will Smith do it. It looks like so much fun, but its so scary. I wonder if the visualization aspect of jumping out of a plan would also help my nerves. Maybe set a date and then watch YT videos for a few minutes a day on tandem jumping.
  - Zelphyr 8y ago
    That is, in fact, a facet of ACT. Do things to expose yourself to tiny amounts of fear an anxiety, then progressively increasing that exposure that until you either don't feel them or don't perceive them as bad. Put another way; you become comfortable with being uncomfortable. Believe it or not, you can actually enjoy those feelings.
    - alexpotato 8y ago
      I remember watching an episode of MTV's True Life where they profiled people with OCD. For 2 out of the 3 people profiled, the OCD stemmed from a fear of something bad happening and that was their way to cope. For one specifically, her mother had a surgery gone wrong and almost died. The therapy was to have a mock funeral for her mother, go to the hospital and watch her mother have blood drawn and essentially go through all of the motions of having her mother die so that she could process it. By the end of the treatment (which seemed to be a little ad for only a few weeks) her symptoms were drastically reduced.
zbrt 8y ago
Any recommendation for a flight sim? Always been interested, I think we owned a copy of the MS flight sim back in the 90s, never played as an adult.
- MrMember 8y ago
  The civilian flight sim market is a bit thin these days unfortunately. X-Plane is quite good and gets a lot of developer support. It also runs on Linux! Flight Simulator X is more than a decade old but it's still decent and has an unbelievably large third party library of aircraft, scenery, and other add-ons. The Lockheed Martin developed Prepar3d is an attempt to update the FSX code base and by all accounts is quite good but i haven't tried it myself. A proper flight sim isn't much fun without at least a stick and it's worth buying one even if it's cheap and doesn't have a throttle.
  - TylerE 8y ago
    Prepar3d has really come a long way, and IMO is the best of the bunch these days. Starting with v4 it's even a proper multi-threaded 64bit application which solves a _lot_ of issues (Run ALL the addons...)
Patrick_Devine 8y ago
I had a similar experience. I used to get somewhat anxious about flying because I'd had a bad experience in a Cessna 152 when I was a teenager. I overcame that in my late 20s by playing a lot of MS Flight Simulator, and then actually going out and getting my pilot's license. My first demo flight in a real plane, the flight instructor told me to do the takeoff. My hand was literally shaking as I advanced the throttle (this was in a Piper Cherokee). I don't think I even got us to full power, but it was enough for us to take off. Then we just buzzed around the Santa Cruz mountains (in the Silicon Valley) and I was pretty hooked after that. I don't even get fazed by big jolts on turbulence any more.
GraffitiTim 8y ago
We're building a VR simulation of flying specifically for the purpose of overcoming fear of flying. It uses some of the same principles you mention: -Repeated exposure to a realistic flying experience (in our case, it goes gradually since it's designed for people with a fear) -Specifically learning about some of the different noises planes make -Getting exposure to the vibrations, noises, turbulence, etc that you'll encounter on a real flight And on top of that, we teach various techniques for overcoming the fear, give new logical/rational approaches to reinforce how safe flying is, understanding the underlying anxieties and emotions involved in fear of flying, etc. But we don't teach you how to fly! That would be a very neat addition. The company is called Fearless. I put up a little Fearless for Flying survey here for anyone interested: https://goo.gl/forms/11dINvQlgSnvOaQE2 https://goo.gl/forms/11dINvQlgSnvOaQE2
- eblanshey 8y ago
  I've been thinking about the huge potential of VR to help overcome the fear of flying for years, no joke. Glad to see someone has taken up the task! Good luck to you!
  - GraffitiTim 8y ago
    Thanks eblanshey. Let me know if you have any ideas about it!
    - eblanshey 8y ago
      I think that, if properly executed, you could definitely get huge traction with proper marketing and I have some ideas there. You can integrate and partner with airlines, selling fear-specific software via app stores, etc. Another major marketing platform is becoming a sponsor of height-based sports, such as rock-climbing and paragliding competitions, or their respective national organizations (such as USHPA). Hell, some organizations like USHPA may even want to partner with you instead of necessarily you becoming a sponsor. A lot of these organizations could bolster their memberships using new methods of outreach with your help. USHPA is one of the many organizations that I can think of that has a hard time getting peoples' new interest because people think of hang gliding and paragliding as "crazy". Most people, when asked why they don't want to do it, have fear of flight or heights as the main reason. In short, look to the industries that would benefit from people overcoming their fears. Partner with them, sponsor them, whatever. Create outreach material with them, such as brochures or videos about their sport or niche, and have a plug for your software. Offer a free x-month subscription to your VR app with all new organization memberships. Or do it the other way around: getting a subscription or purchase to your VR app automatically gets you X% discount with partnered trainers in multiple sports: paragliding, hang gliding, sky-diving, GA, etc. Have partnerships with trainers where you send referrals to each other. Use marketing terms like "Always wanted to try X but were always too afraid? Start living life!" I could see that being a successful Facebook or Instagram ad. I just recalled I wrote an article[0] about my vision of the future in which I mentioned using VR for overcoming fears. If you ever want to chat feel free to reach out to me via the contact details there. Good luck! [0] https://medium.com/@eblanshey/the-world-is-undergoing-massive-change-and-ive-never-been-so-excited-in-my-life-cca5666827f0 https://medium.com/@eblanshey/the-world-is-undergoing-massiv...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
cranjice 8y ago
Getting used to the normal phases (and sounds) of flight was the biggest thing for me. For instance, once I realized it was normal to bank for a turn shortly after take off (and that the sensation was not us falling out of the sky) I stopped freaking out internally about it.
Thiez 8y ago
> It taught me two things: what some of the noises, the vibrations, and the movements were; and how hard it is to actually crash a plane. Once you made it in the air, you'll want to try crashing your plane in the game (explosions! fun!), and it will be undoubtedly harder than you imagine. It's a good thing you didn't try flying a virtual helicopter then, those things are deathtraps. I have some experience flying the KA-50 "Black Shark" in DCS and before you get a feel for it is very easy to make your rotors bump into one another and break (mostly due to its weird double rotor), get in a vortex ring state, or simply bump into stuff horizontally while landing. Crashing is still fun, it just waaaay easier than with a plane. At least the board computer will whisper sweet nothings to you after you've lost most of your rotors and are once again falling like a brick... "watch EKRAN".
- sporkologist 8y ago
  Also, landing on an aircraft carrier, flying the space shuttle, and piloting the SR71 are pretty dangerous. All of which have nothing to do with OP's flight anxiety.
- relix 8y ago
  You know what they say, planes stay in the air through lift generated by physics; helicopters stay in the air because they're so ugly the earth repels them. I'm OK with flying in fixed-wing craft, but you wouldn't be able to get me into a helicopter.
Gustomaximus 8y ago
Side point, there is a book Hagakure (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagakure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagakure) which is collected comments of a samurai during the end of this samurai/retainer period for Japan. This passage stuck with me and talks about overcoming fear of death through meditating about dying in all sorts of horrible ways. I guess you did the 21st century version; "The Way of the Samurai is found in death. Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day, when one’s body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears, and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one’s master. And every day, without fail, one should consider himself as dead. This is the substance of the Way of the Samurai."

by relix 8y ago

Buttons840 8y ago

Similarly, you could also read about the physics of flight. I've been reading "Understanding Flight" (http://a.co/dSqr2dS http://a.co/dSqr2dS) and enjoying it. Imagine I asked you "Here's a 100 kg object, and it can produce 10 kg of thrust. Can it fly?" It seems miraculous that the answer is yes. I had always known this, but thinking about it anew was amazing to me.

mynewtb 8y ago
Unobfuscated URL: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002Q69B9M/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002Q69B9M/
- Buttons840 8y ago
  Yeah. I got my link from the Amazon "share" button. Apparently "a.co" is Amazon, but it does look obfuscated doesn't it?
DavideNL 8y ago
I think this is a common thing in therapy against fears; the fear will decrease once the thing you are afraid of becomes more clear/detailed (as opposed to vague.) Like in all thriller/horror movies, the less you see of the "scary creature" (in a dark place, behind other objects blocking your view, etc.) , the more your imagination will process the scary thoughts and amplify things.

el_benhameen 8y ago

I had a somewhat similar experience. I had a long-haul flight on Singapore, and the entertainment system had a bunch of videos on the basics of the aircraft and how it flies. This included a few videos on what causes turbulence, how the plane and pilots handle it, and how it’s not particularly dangerous. Now instead of just telling myself that the odds are in our favor when I’m on a turbulent flight, I can think back to the concepts in those videos and rationalize to myself what’s happening and why it’ll be fine. Understanding what you’re experiencing is really helpful.

schoen 8y ago
That's neat! A popular online resource about these topics is http://www.askthepilot.com/questionanswers/turbulence/ http://www.askthepilot.com/questionanswers/turbulence/ (which also links to a number of other references).

soperj 8y ago

what was the name of the simulator?

antsar 8y ago
I'm not the person you're replying to, but I've had loads of fun with FlightGear. Its free & open source. The selection of aircraft and some of the graphics are not as nice as the alternatives, but I've heard the realism is hard to beat. http://home.flightgear.org/ http://home.flightgear.org/
- soperj 8y ago
  Thank you :)
patch_cable 8y ago
X-plane is an excellent choice. It has a pretty generous demo and also works on Linux.
- soperj 8y ago
  Nice! Thanks.

Zelphyr 8y ago

This is similar to my experiences with getting blood drawn. About two-weeks prior to the draw I would watch a couple of videos on YouTube of blood draws each night. By the time the day came, I was still anxious but fine. I've been told that the anxiety was created by my nearly passing out when getting blood drawn but the mechanism for nearly passing out is different from panic or anxiety. Still, my "exposure therapy" worked. The last time I had my blood drawn I watch a couple of videos the night before but probably didn't even need to.

sreyaNotfilc 8y ago
OK, so I just saw Tom Cruise and James Corden jump out of a plane. Before I saw Will Smith do it. It looks like so much fun, but its so scary. I wonder if the visualization aspect of jumping out of a plan would also help my nerves. Maybe set a date and then watch YT videos for a few minutes a day on tandem jumping.
- Zelphyr 8y ago
  That is, in fact, a facet of ACT. Do things to expose yourself to tiny amounts of fear an anxiety, then progressively increasing that exposure that until you either don't feel them or don't perceive them as bad. Put another way; you become comfortable with being uncomfortable. Believe it or not, you can actually enjoy those feelings.
  - alexpotato 8y ago
    I remember watching an episode of MTV's True Life where they profiled people with OCD. For 2 out of the 3 people profiled, the OCD stemmed from a fear of something bad happening and that was their way to cope. For one specifically, her mother had a surgery gone wrong and almost died. The therapy was to have a mock funeral for her mother, go to the hospital and watch her mother have blood drawn and essentially go through all of the motions of having her mother die so that she could process it. By the end of the treatment (which seemed to be a little ad for only a few weeks) her symptoms were drastically reduced.

zbrt 8y ago

Any recommendation for a flight sim? Always been interested, I think we owned a copy of the MS flight sim back in the 90s, never played as an adult.

MrMember 8y ago
The civilian flight sim market is a bit thin these days unfortunately. X-Plane is quite good and gets a lot of developer support. It also runs on Linux! Flight Simulator X is more than a decade old but it's still decent and has an unbelievably large third party library of aircraft, scenery, and other add-ons. The Lockheed Martin developed Prepar3d is an attempt to update the FSX code base and by all accounts is quite good but i haven't tried it myself. A proper flight sim isn't much fun without at least a stick and it's worth buying one even if it's cheap and doesn't have a throttle.
- TylerE 8y ago
  Prepar3d has really come a long way, and IMO is the best of the bunch these days. Starting with v4 it's even a proper multi-threaded 64bit application which solves a _lot_ of issues (Run ALL the addons...)

Patrick_Devine 8y ago

I had a similar experience. I used to get somewhat anxious about flying because I'd had a bad experience in a Cessna 152 when I was a teenager. I overcame that in my late 20s by playing a lot of MS Flight Simulator, and then actually going out and getting my pilot's license. My first demo flight in a real plane, the flight instructor told me to do the takeoff. My hand was literally shaking as I advanced the throttle (this was in a Piper Cherokee). I don't think I even got us to full power, but it was enough for us to take off. Then we just buzzed around the Santa Cruz mountains (in the Silicon Valley) and I was pretty hooked after that. I don't even get fazed by big jolts on turbulence any more.

GraffitiTim 8y ago

We're building a VR simulation of flying specifically for the purpose of overcoming fear of flying. It uses some of the same principles you mention: -Repeated exposure to a realistic flying experience (in our case, it goes gradually since it's designed for people with a fear) -Specifically learning about some of the different noises planes make -Getting exposure to the vibrations, noises, turbulence, etc that you'll encounter on a real flight And on top of that, we teach various techniques for overcoming the fear, give new logical/rational approaches to reinforce how safe flying is, understanding the underlying anxieties and emotions involved in fear of flying, etc. But we don't teach you how to fly! That would be a very neat addition. The company is called Fearless. I put up a little Fearless for Flying survey here for anyone interested: https://goo.gl/forms/11dINvQlgSnvOaQE2 https://goo.gl/forms/11dINvQlgSnvOaQE2

eblanshey 8y ago
I've been thinking about the huge potential of VR to help overcome the fear of flying for years, no joke. Glad to see someone has taken up the task! Good luck to you!
- GraffitiTim 8y ago
  Thanks eblanshey. Let me know if you have any ideas about it!
  - eblanshey 8y ago
    I think that, if properly executed, you could definitely get huge traction with proper marketing and I have some ideas there. You can integrate and partner with airlines, selling fear-specific software via app stores, etc. Another major marketing platform is becoming a sponsor of height-based sports, such as rock-climbing and paragliding competitions, or their respective national organizations (such as USHPA). Hell, some organizations like USHPA may even want to partner with you instead of necessarily you becoming a sponsor. A lot of these organizations could bolster their memberships using new methods of outreach with your help. USHPA is one of the many organizations that I can think of that has a hard time getting peoples' new interest because people think of hang gliding and paragliding as "crazy". Most people, when asked why they don't want to do it, have fear of flight or heights as the main reason. In short, look to the industries that would benefit from people overcoming their fears. Partner with them, sponsor them, whatever. Create outreach material with them, such as brochures or videos about their sport or niche, and have a plug for your software. Offer a free x-month subscription to your VR app with all new organization memberships. Or do it the other way around: getting a subscription or purchase to your VR app automatically gets you X% discount with partnered trainers in multiple sports: paragliding, hang gliding, sky-diving, GA, etc. Have partnerships with trainers where you send referrals to each other. Use marketing terms like "Always wanted to try X but were always too afraid? Start living life!" I could see that being a successful Facebook or Instagram ad. I just recalled I wrote an article[0] about my vision of the future in which I mentioned using VR for overcoming fears. If you ever want to chat feel free to reach out to me via the contact details there. Good luck! [0] https://medium.com/@eblanshey/the-world-is-undergoing-massive-change-and-ive-never-been-so-excited-in-my-life-cca5666827f0 https://medium.com/@eblanshey/the-world-is-undergoing-massiv...

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

cranjice 8y ago

Getting used to the normal phases (and sounds) of flight was the biggest thing for me. For instance, once I realized it was normal to bank for a turn shortly after take off (and that the sensation was not us falling out of the sky) I stopped freaking out internally about it.

Thiez 8y ago

> It taught me two things: what some of the noises, the vibrations, and the movements were; and how hard it is to actually crash a plane. Once you made it in the air, you'll want to try crashing your plane in the game (explosions! fun!), and it will be undoubtedly harder than you imagine. It's a good thing you didn't try flying a virtual helicopter then, those things are deathtraps. I have some experience flying the KA-50 "Black Shark" in DCS and before you get a feel for it is very easy to make your rotors bump into one another and break (mostly due to its weird double rotor), get in a vortex ring state, or simply bump into stuff horizontally while landing. Crashing is still fun, it just waaaay easier than with a plane. At least the board computer will whisper sweet nothings to you after you've lost most of your rotors and are once again falling like a brick... "watch EKRAN".

sporkologist 8y ago
Also, landing on an aircraft carrier, flying the space shuttle, and piloting the SR71 are pretty dangerous. All of which have nothing to do with OP's flight anxiety.
relix 8y ago
You know what they say, planes stay in the air through lift generated by physics; helicopters stay in the air because they're so ugly the earth repels them. I'm OK with flying in fixed-wing craft, but you wouldn't be able to get me into a helicopter.

Gustomaximus 8y ago

Side point, there is a book Hagakure (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagakure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagakure) which is collected comments of a samurai during the end of this samurai/retainer period for Japan. This passage stuck with me and talks about overcoming fear of death through meditating about dying in all sorts of horrible ways. I guess you did the 21st century version; "The Way of the Samurai is found in death. Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day, when one’s body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears, and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one’s master. And every day, without fail, one should consider himself as dead. This is the substance of the Way of the Samurai."