A NEW TIP FROM A SOAR GRAD

I always felt that Captain Tom's advice to see flying for what it is,
not what you imagine it to be, is the key to successful flying. I have
found that sitting at a window seat viewing the takeoff through a camera
(video or still, it doesn't matter) brings this into sharp focus. When
taking pictures you focus on the subject through the viewfinder and do
not deal with other things outside the camera's eye. I find this helps
me focus on seeing things for what they are. My imagination never runs
wild through the camera's eye.

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MORE ON NEITHER ADDING OR SUBTRACTING

SOAR turns flying around by increasing your ability to experience flying
just as it is, without 'adding' anything or attempting to 'subtract'
anything.

Without adding: what that means is, you don't add imagination; instead
you stay with WHAT IS rather than WHAT IF.

Without subtracting: what this means is, you don't try to 'feel nothing'
nor do you try to keep things that are really going on out of your mind.

Your mind needs WHAT IS rather than WHAT IF.

Now, if YOU were in charge of the plane, then you should cover all the
'what ifs'; that's the captain's job. If you take on that job, what
good is it; you really don't know what you are doing when it comes to
aviation, so why even get started.

Stats clearly tell you that you are safer with a pilot taking care of you in
an airliner when you (thank God) are not at the controls of the plane
(unless you were trained, and then - being a control freak is very
healthy; pilots are control freaks; that's a good thing), even safer
than you are in control of the steering wheel of your car. I say in
control of the steering wheel, because you are NOT in control of the
steering wheel of the cars that are coming at you.

So it is a 'no brainer' . . . that is, it is a 'no LEFT brainer'. You
are hundreds of times safer in the plane.

But the problem is the right brain where images and emotions are processed.

Images cause the problem. Images about WHAT IS are not going to cause a
problem. Images about WHAT IF will cause a problem.

You need to get rid of them. That's what the Strengthening Exercise is
for. But that is for on the plane.

Anticipatory Anxiety: you still need to get rid of them (the what ifs).
Here you use the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

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OUR OBSESSION WITH ABSOLUTE SAFETY

Maybe mom and dad guaranteed to you that you were safe if you did what
they said, and in danger if you did otherwise. Maybe you - naively -
figured the world was divided up into absolute categories: a. safe; b.
unsafe.

If is not that simple. Maybe mom and dad were right to guarantee to you
certain things when you were six, but now, as a grown up, you need a
grown ups way of looking at the world. It is not simple. There are no
absolutes. Nothing is totally safe. Nothing.

So, you have to take a risk every moment you breathe that it may be your
last moment. Life is like that.

That also means you may not make it through your flight. That is
something you need to recognize. It is a maybe. But that maybe is a
small maybe.

On the other hand, if you do not go, you need to recognize you may not
make it through your week doing your usual routine. Just because you
always have in the past means nothing; you may not make it through if
the week if you stay home. That is something you need to recognize. It
is a maybe.

So, of the two maybe situations, which is safer? The flying maybe. You
are safer flying than if you stay home.

If you stay home for the week, how many times will you be driving 5.4
miles (that is equal in risk to a flight to Tokyo). Once you have
driven 10.8 miles, you have evened you chances of survival for the
week. Any additional driving of 5.4. makes your staying home more
dangerous.

It is a no brainer. Get on the plane. It protects you. You are safer
there than on the ground.

The airlines provide for your physical safety. SOAR provides everything
you need for your emotional safety.

If you are putting off getting control of your life, is there a better time to
start than now?

Go to www.fearofflying.com and get started.

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“AIRLINE” IS (AGAIN) ASKING FOR VOLUNTEERS

The producers of Airline are looking for people who have a fear of flying.
We are keen to follow someone who needs to get to a major event
i.e. honeymoon, a dream job, or a reunion, but just can't get over their fears.

If this sounds like you, you can contact Jo Inglott at
jo.inglott@granadamedia.com
or 213 210 4405.

I look forward to hearing your stories

Jo Inglott
Producer
Airline

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I’VE OFTEN SAID YOU ARE SAFER IN THE AIR . . .

. . . than sleeping in your own bed at night. People challenge that by asking what could go wrong, and I reply that – though disasters are extremely rare – they do happen, and that fires, earthquakes, and tornados are more a risk than flying.

I never mentioned tsunamis, but this email does.

After finally arriving in Bangkok and staying for a few days we were off
to Phuket, Thailand. We boarded the plane. I was fully prepared to take
the flight without medication. We sat at the gate for a long time which
did not help my anxiety level. I tried to read a book, but did the 5-4-3-2-1
exercise instead.

Then, the flight crew said in Thai “Phuket is closed. Get off the plane.”
My family and I missed the Tsunami by 1 hour. As we sat in that plane,
the waves were hitting the island. We are very fortunate to be alive.
Our hotel that we were supposed to stay at suffered severe damage as
well as loss of life.

My vacation lasted a couple of more weeks. After all of the horrible
things that happened over there as well as the very dangerous modes of
transportation, I was almost happy to get on a plane and relax! Ok, not
completely relax, but knowing that it was the safest place I could be
was extremely comforting.

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FROM AN EMAIL

When a plane fails (which is rare I understand) you fall from fourty
thousand feet to your death. A slow death, falling, waiting to die.
Imagine what it feels like for a death row convict who has only second,
minutes to live. I don’t want to die like that. I want to die in an
instant, hit by a drunk driver and killed instantly, not falling to my
death, waiting to hit the ground.

MY REPLY

That is imagination about what it would feel like to be in that
situation. Paradoxically, though that is what everyone imagines, when
actually in that situation, people's experience is quite different, as
many documents have shown (men surrounded in battle, knowing they are
going to die in a day or so; 9/11 when people in hijacked airplanes
calmly phoned their families.

People suffer from expectation of something that never occurs EXCEPT in
imagination.

When facing certain death, people - on a scale of zero to ten - go to two; that is just the way all of use are wired up by genetics. The reason people go to ten in some situations is that the
situation involves - not just one thought/image of disaster - but
several, and the thoughts run one after another, each causing the
release of a carefully measured amount of hormone (enough to take you
from zero to two, but if you are already at two, will take you to four,
and if at four, will take you to six, etc.).

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FROM PATRICK SMITH’S “ASK THE PILOT” SALON.COM BLOG

When the 747 debuted with Pan Am in 1970, it was over twice the size
the Douglas DC-8 and Boeing 707, and was able to carry three times the
number of passengers. By comparison the A380 will outlift the 747-400,
its closest rival, by only about 30 percent. Unlike the venerable Boeing,
or for that matter the Concorde, there's nothing so fundamentally radical
about the A380.

The plane's most impressive aspects aren't its girth and power, but its
architecture and onboard systems. With dual auxiliary power units and
multiple fail-safe components, Airbus has built an aircraft almost
guaranteed never to cancel or divert. With several hundred passengers
aboard and a limited number of airports able to accept A380 operations,
near perfect reliability will be crucial.

The A380 order book (Airbus list price of $280 million per aircraft):

Emirates: 43
Lufthansa: 15
Qantas: 12
Singapore Airlines: 10
Air France: 10
FedEx: 10
Malaysia Airlines: 6
Virgin Atlantic: 6
Thai Airways: 6
Korean Air: 5
Etihad Airways: 4
Qatar Airways: 2

If you would like to order Patrick’s excellent book, “ASK THE PILOT”
through Amazon.com, click here:
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