The Fear of Flying

The Fear of Flying
by Oliver Butterick

I’ve probably flown more than most people my age…maybe more than most people of any age. I started flying when I was fairly young, when my parents got divorced and my mom, siblings, and I moved to California. Add in some trips to visit friends once I got a little older, numerous leadership conferences during college, traveling for work—including a ten-week period when I made a round-trip flight each week—and my international explorations of late, and you’ve got somewhere around 50-60 flights. So how could I possibly be afraid of flying?

When I was a kid, I loved to fly. I don’t know what it was exactly, but it was so intriguing—being able to get from one place to another so quickly. At a young age, I had some sort of understanding about the geography of the United States, since I went by car from Nebraska to California when I was only 7. Being able to make that trip in only a few hours instead of two days was mind-boggling to me.

I remember the first time that I flew by myself. I was in the fifth grade, and went to visit my dad for Christmas Break. It was amazing. I changed planes in Denver, all by myself. I was such an experienced traveler by then that I refused to let the airline babysit me like the other kids—the ones who DIDN’T know how to fly. So, in order to keep an eye on me, the flight attendants had to trick me into accepting their offer to sit in first class. I was too excited to turn it down, and to date, it is the only time I’ve flown any class other than economy.

So, understandably, I used to LOVE flying, but not any more. It isn’t the long wait-times, the threat of terrorism, or the incontinent (and ever-changing) regulations of the Transportation Security Administration. As a side note, one of their more recent rules is that you can’t bring a lighter (or even matches) through the security checkpoint. Well, in Las Vegas, there is a bar past the check-point where you can get a book of matches, and at LAX, the attendants didn’t notice that there was a lighter in my carry-on bag. My frustration with situations like these will have to wait for another article.

My fear seems to be a disease that I caught from someone else. Sometime in my mid-20’s, I became aware that my brother’s best friend, and a good friend of mine, was afraid of flying. We’ll call him “Rik” for anonymity’s sake. I dismissed it at first, but this idea grew like cancer in my brain until I myself became afraid of flying. The problem is that I have this habit when it comes to people who I think are really smart, which is how I view "Rik."

When someone smart sees something differently than I do, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt since, after all, they’re smart people. That’s not to say that I’m going to automatically accept their view. For example, I have a smart friend who is very religious, and because of his religious beliefs, he thinks that being gay is a sin. He could be Einstein and I’m not going to follow him down that line of thinking. However, when my dad explained to me his belief in some sort of ESP and that memories can somehow be transmitted genetically to offspring, I initially thought he was crazy. But, giving him the benefit of the doubt since he’s a smart guy, I did some research and learned that his theories are in fact plausible. So instead of viewing him as crazy, I just think of him as one of the kids who wore Hush Puppies before they were cool.

So, anyway, I started to give more credibility to Rik’s fear, and eventually took on the view myself. Fortunately, however, my fear is fairly mild. In fact, there are only about 30 seconds during the entire flying process when I feel actual fear—during the landing. From the moment the tires touch the tarmac until we’ve slowed to a speed that feels manageable, I experience a tightness in my stomach. I clench the armrests and close my eyes as my conscious mind regulates my breathing: “Breathe in…breathe out,” I tell myself.

Why landing? Well, have you ever seen how tiny the tires are on airplanes??? How can they possibly manage to keep the airplane stable as it rapidly decelerates? Anyway, I have the irrational fear of the airplane somehow malfunctioning and shifting sideways, then rolling over, breaking the wings off, and slowing to a stop just as it explodes. Yes, very Hollywood, but I’m a product of my environment. So that’s the one thing that I really don’t like about flying—landing. The rest I can deal with, even delays. Hmmm… a recent flight of mine was delayed for an hour and a half because they needed to change the tires on the plane. I wonder why that extra time in the airport didn’t really bother me that much…

Oliver can be reached at oliver@babblog.com.