Aviophobia (fear of flying), Part 5

By Jack Brummet, Aeronautics and Travel Ed.


I'll never love flying.  But it seems to get me where I want to go and I've learned to live with it. I've gone in the last five years from being completely terrified, and needing to be knocked out like BJ Barackus, to barely ambulatory/seriously medicated walking down the jetway, to mostly OK with it. All those trips across the country and Europe I made for work a couple years ago (75 flights in one year alone), along with our own travels to Mexico, Europe and Asia, somehow have made it, at least tolerable.   On our recent trip to South America, between coming and going, and doing a couple of in-country flights, we were on nine flights.  That would formerly have left me as a basket case for the entire trip, not only for the actual flights, but the anticipation of them...

I still take a Zanax, but I am no longer really a white knuckle flyer.  I'm still sometimes feel as crazy as a latrine rat on flights, but somehow I've managed to modulate it.

In fact, I've actually come to love both taking off and landing (especially landing), which are, of course, two of the most dangerous things you do while flying.  I've even come to liking it when those white stripes (the takeoff zone) pop up as we turn onto the main runway. . .

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