Soaring With Sagar - August 2010
Fear of Flying
By Sagar Pathak
As pilots we often take for granted the luxury of being able to jump in a plane and taking off on a whim. What we believe is a sense of freedom is a grip of fear to others. While physics and science reassure us that our steel bird will stay airborne, to others it’s a steel cage of death waiting for gravity to take over and plummet to the ground.
Even to this day, when I am lined up on the center line, barreling down the runway approaching my rotate speed, I pull back on the yoke and for a split second wonder if we are going to leap towards the sky or stay locked to the earth. But for many, this fear is more pronounced and a lot more debilitating. A few weeks ago, I had a chance to help a friend and fellow writer, Jean Dupenloup, out with his own fear of flying. I asked if Jean would be kind enough to share his experience with our readers in the hopes that others who are afraid can use this and overcome their own fears.
“It’s been four years since I last flew. A lot of therapy, virtual simulators, and a fear of flying clinic later, and I am back where I started. I am flying today, and the fear is intact.
The usual symptoms appear as I walk onto the tarmac. Sweat, twisting stomach, and the temptation to bolt, Forest Gump style. The pilot, Sagar, shows me his airplane, a four-seater. “We’re going to be flying a square,” he tells me, using his finger to trace our flight pattern on the wing. “We’ll be in the air for five minutes.” He takes his place in the cockpit, and my turn comes to sit down. A familiar mental wall fills my mind. My body is stuck as I feel the full weight of my fear: I cannot do this. A year ago, the same feeling pushed me to get off a commercial flight minutes before take-off.
“Just sit down,” Sagar says. “I’ll go through my checklist while you take a couple minutes.” I sit down, and he seals the door. Sagar starts down his list, and I think that I will yell if we start moving. He warns me that he is about to start the engine and I prepare myself. The propeller roars to life and the entire plane shakes. We taxi towards the runway. Everything inside me is screaming, but I manage to keep my mouth shut. And all at once, the mental wall melts, replaced by a dim sense of well-being. Suddenly, there is no place in the world I would rather be than in this cockpit. The plane speeds down the runway and transitions smoothly into the air. Soon, we are soaring over the bay. “We’re going to do a lazy turn,” Sagar explains, and the wing tips over the green water. “Now I am turning down the engine.” The noise of the engine lulls, and my heart skips a beat without the reassuring roar. But the plane flies on. We cut another turn, and already, we are landing.
By the fourth take off and landing, the fear has gone. We fly over the red roofs of Stanford University and its famous tower, and I spot the soccer stadium. Sagar points out shoreline park, where I rollerbladed as a kid. Farther west, the gray filament of the highway wraps around golden hills. We climb higher. Beyond rows of mountains, the pale sheet of the ocean opens without a ripple. At that moment, I think that I will fly to France and visit all the relatives I have not seen in four years.
If you’re a fearful flyer, don’t wait; push through that wall. The beauty of the reward matches the difficulty of the obstacle.”
That fear is in all of us. Man was not meant to sit in a metal box and leap towards the sky. But gravity could not hold dreams and ambitions to the ground. And as human beings have done for ages, we identify our fears and set out to concur them just as Jean did.
