Fear of flying: just common sense!

Flying is terrifying: trust me, I’ve tried it. And don’t bother trying to contradict me, because how could sitting in a metal can 30,000 feet up in the air not be scary?

Don’t get me wrong though. I’m a Physicist and a firm believer in both Bernoulli’s Principle and Newton’s Second Law (indeed I have no objection to any of Newton’s laws). I know that the plane should stay in the air. And I’m reliably informed that I’m more likely to meet my end in Lapland, ravaged by kangaroos, than be involved in even the most minor of aviation incidents. This doesn’t reassure me, but instead just increases my wariness around those unusual marsupials.

Flying is scary because you have absolutely no control over what is going on. If and when something bad happens, the chances of escaping alive are slim. In addition, you can do nothing to maximise your chances of survival – you’re all in the same boat, so to speak. Surely all humans feel this helplessness when they fasten their seatbelt, ready for take off?

So why is it that I find myself in the minority ‘fear-of-flying’ camp? Why am I the only one who cowers under their blanket during take off? Why doesn’t everyone else, like me, try to find the airline with the best safety record, as opposed to the one easiest on the pocket? And why on earth do some people claim to enjoy flying? I mean, supposing they’ve conquered the whole scary bit with the plane in the sky, surely they can’t find zero leg-room, a barely audible film and dubious food pleasurable? “Perhaps they’re business class people?” I hear you say. No way – they’re the ones who always look the least happy on the flight. When you catch your two seconds’ glimpse of them sipping their champagne, they’re never smiling. Indeed, if any of these economy class people who claim to enjoy flying actually genuinely do, I’m going to find them and ask them to judge my thesis – they must be extremely easy to please.

I expect that in the early twentieth century when commercial aviation was just taking off (no pun intended) people would have given flying a bit more thought. Flanders and Swann certainly understood where I was coming from, exemplified in their witty piece “By Air”: “If God had intended us to fly, He would never have given us the railways.” But the truly frightening thing is that, whilst Flanders had to get his head around flying, we’re going to have to embrace rocket travel. Indeed, some already are. Sarah Brightman, the singer, is heading off to the International Space Station in 2015. And the entrepreneur Elon Musk wants to go to Mars. He co-founded PayPal, so he’s surely capable of making it happen. Space tourism will soon be all too real and, as with flying, you’ll be missing out on lots of adventures if you don’t hop on board.

So, next time you fly, fasten your seatbelt, put your rug over your head, sit back (though not too far, your seat-back must remain firmly in the upright position) and (try to) relax. And if it all seems too awful, then count your lucky stars that you don’t (yet) have to endure space sickness and bone loss just to become well-travelled.