IT'S WEDNESDAY, SO THE CHAT IS TONIGHT

9 PM until 11 PM Eastern time.

Want to join us? Go to:

http://www.fearofflying.com/chat/

or just go to:

http://www.fearofflying.com

and click on 'chat'.

Make us some fictitious or fanciful name to call yourself and just
hang out and see what others say, or ask questions of your own.

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DOES THIS HELP?

The average number of people airborne over the U.S. in any given
hour: 61,000

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THIS WEEK'S HOPEFULLY INSPIRATIONAL EMAIL

Hi Captain Tom.

My flights to and from Tampa from Kennedy were very successful. You
are right! The strengthening exercises kick in wonderfully once on
board the plane. I met the pilots on both flights and they were friendly
and supportive. They both invited me into the cockpits and we chatted
about all kinds of things. The flight attendants were great too, and we
chatted during the flights also. Getting bulkhead seats and being allowed
to board before the others made me feel like a VIP, and I thought about
one of the chat room members from the other evening who thought she
would be embarrassed to speak to the pilot. I can reassure her that they
are very open and smiling and understand how we feel. In fact, on the
last flight, the pilot told me about his father in law who had to stop taking
the subway because of his claustrophobia, so he fully understands
where I'm coming from. All in all, both flights were great. The most difficult
part for me is waiting in the lounge before getting on the plane, but I use
all the tools and information you provided and of course the 5,4,3,2,1 and
they keep me at a liveable level of anxiety. I brought along a photo album
of my beautiful grandchildren, a DVD player with movies, my crossword
puzzle book, some magazines, and I was set for anything. All in all, I
want to thank you again for all your support.

In fact, I'm looking forward to flying again soon. And I will try to remember
that feeling some anxiety is normal and that it will pass when I get on the
plane.

Sincerely,

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THE SOUTHWEST ACCIDENT AT MIDWAY REVIEWED

Last week, articles appeared about the accident at Chicago's Midway
Airport which were confusing. Let's clear up the confusion. In my
opinion, the pilots should not have landed and should have known better.

Flights are planned by a licensed dispatcher. In planning a flight, the
dispatcher must check everything to make sure the flight can be con-
ducted safely. The captain checks the dispatcher's work and either
confirms it or contacts the dispatcher if there is a need for changes.
Both must agree on what it takes to insure the flight's safety.

One of the things the dispatcher checks is the ability of the plane to
stop on the runway at the destination considering winds, weather,
and runway condition. The dispatcher is NOT allowed to consider
reverse thrust; reverse thrust doesn't always work. So calculations
must prove the plane can land and stop safely without use of the
reversers.

If conditions deteriorate en-route, the pilots should again reassure
themselves that the changed conditions do not make landing unwise.

Ordinarily, when there is a strong wind, a runway is chosen which
allows the plane to land headed into the wind, or - at worst - with
a crosswind. But the weather was worse than expected; clouds
were too low for a landing on the runway which provided a
headwind. A different runway allowed the flight the legally
descend lower - thus below the clouds - for landing. But - this
meant landing with a 13 knot tailwind.

I know it is bad form to criticize other pilots, but sometimes stupidity
rises to outrageous levels. Every airline I worked for (and I checked
with a pilot who worked for some other airlines) never allowed a
pilot to ever land with greater than a 10 knot tailwind.

Apparently Southwest has no such restriction. Even so, to me, it is
at least questionable to land with a 13 knot tailwind on the relatively
short runways at Midway with a dry runway. It is unimaginable to do
so with an icy runway!!!

But in this case, the pilots - facing deteriorated weather conditions -
'improved' the calculation to justify doing something monumentally
stupid using data in their laptop computer.

The data was provided by Boeing based on test flights with a brand
new airplane in top condition and flown by test pilots. It is not perfor-
mance which can reliably be duplicated with an average airplane
with average pilots . . . if ever. It is like reading in a sports car maga-
zine that says a certain car will go zero to 60 in 5.4 seconds. Maybe
so when brand new, perfectly tuned by factory specialists, and then
placed in the hands of a several talented test drivers. each of whom
gets to try it a dozen times. Then, they publish the best time as what
the car is capable of. Well, it is, but the average Joe will never
match those numbers.

There is another reason the 737 pilots should have known better.
When you need reverse thrust and try to get it too quickly, it locks up
and won't let you. This isn't easy to explain to a non-airline pilot, but
after landing, you have to let the engines completely spin down to
idle in forward thrust before trying to get the engines to go into reverse
thrust. This is as it should be, for it is intended to prevent the plane
from going into reverse thrust inadvertently.If you hurry the process,
the reverse thrust selection system locks up, and stays in forward thrust.

It appears that's what happened to this crew. The captain - knowing
this was a marginal situation at best - rushed to get into reverse thrust
too early and locked up the reverse thrust selection system. So he
abandoned trying to get reverse thrust and concentrated on using
the wheel brakes. The copilot grabbed the throttles and they went
right into reverse thrust, just as they would have if the captain had
not rushed.

But the copilot's success with reverse thrust came to too late to get
the plane stopped without running out of runway. It is even question-
able whether the plane could have stopped even if they had done
everything perfectly. The numbers in the laptop computer reflect test
performance - not real world performance.

In addition, the news reports incorrectly state there was a small
tailwind. It was NOT a small tailwind. It was a tailwind greater than
any I ever landed in during my entire career as an airline pilot.

Reverse thrust is a good thing, because it lets the wheel brakes
last longer. When you have a long enough runway, you can use
reverse thrust to slow down almost to taxi speed. You need to use
the wheel brakes only a bit. But you can't depend on it. Sometimes
the linkage gets out of adjustment and it just doesn't work, and
sometimes, it takes several seconds to get it to work, as explained
above. Reverse thrust is the icing on the cake - not the cake.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it perfectly: when
predicating being able to stop on having everything go your way
perfectly, 'a single event, the delayed deployment of the thrust
reversers, can lead to an unsafe condition, as it did in this accident.'

The fact remains that Southwest has never had a passenger fatality,
has a pilot's union which supports the captain's safety-oriented
decisions, and is an excellent choice for you to make when flying.

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ABOUT AIRPORT SECURITY

Consider this: prior to 9/11, airport security was a facade, and everyone
in the airline industry and the FAA knew it, The FAA 'Red Team' was
reliably able to slip simulated guns, etc. through security prior to 9/11.
But nothing ever changed. People hired to do screening were payed
McDonald's wages. Turnover was high. It was just a joke.

After 9/11, suddenly people were interested in airport security. Now we
have fairly good security, not like El Al, but certainly enough that 9/11
could NOT happen today.

Our new cockpit doors - alone - would prevent 9/11. Cockpit doors prior
to 9/11 were designed to be easy to break, so that in case of a crash,
pilots were not trapped in the cockpit; they could break the door.

- Strategy For Managing Anxiety About This -

It is easy it 'picture' something slipping through the gaps in security. If
you let that picture form, it will cause anxiety. It is better to think that if
there were no security at all, still the chance of any one person being
on a flight with a terrorist is incredibly small.

I think if I were to figure my chances of being involved with a terrorist
attack today, I would figure I'm much safer being on an airplane than
being at Disney World, or in a stadium watching a sporting even. I
would bet the airplane is far safer from terrorists than those other places.

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THE CONTAINER

This essay is an attempt to provide an understanding of a rather
complex concept in psychology. It may help to read it more than
once, perhaps with some time between readings. If you can really
grasp this concept, it will lead to important understanding of your-
self.

If you go over to your kitchen sink, place a pitcher under the faucet,
and turn the water on, water flows into that container. Let's imagine
you turn the water off when the pitcher is half full. Clearly, the water
is contained inside the pitcher.

Now think of yourself as the pitcher, as the container, and as the
water as something being experienced by you-the-container.

That's pretty comfortable. But let's try it a different way. Imagine
the container back under the faucet, and turn the water on full
blast so the container fills, then overflows.

Now, the water overflowing the pitcher can obscure it, so you
can't completely see the pitcher. Psychologically, this is where we
get into difficulty; our identity is the pitcher. But we can make a
mistake. We can believe our EXISTENCE is the pitcher.

Here's the problem. Some of us are comfortable when flying and
are unable to see the ground because we really know it is still
there even if we can't see it. Others of us become distressed when
unable to see the ground; it is as if its very existence is in question.

Similarly, some of us can have experience which fills us and over-
flows because we can't contain it all and process it all and organize
it all and remember it all. And in those moments of being overwhelmed
by the volume of experience (represented by the water overflowing
the container), our identity may be obscured. So what! We know that,
even if our identity is not obvious to us, we nevertheless do exist.

This is not true for everyone. For some of us, just as when the earth
is no longer visible, it is experienced as no longer existing, when
our ability to be aware of our identity is overwhelmed, we - mistaking
our identity for our existence - panic.

We are so used to equating identity with existence that we fear we
are in the throws of death.

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PATRICK'S SALON BLOG THIS WEEK

. . . discusses why airlines are such poor communicators, which in
turn, leads to distrust and even terror.

http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2006/01/27/askthepilot171/

Readers may gain free access to Salon.com by watching a short
advertisement. Look for the 'Site Pass' option. When the ad is finished
playing, an 'Enter Salon' link will appear.

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ANXIETY AND SPANKING

Spanking Linked With Child Aggression and Anxiety, Regardless of Cultural Norm

See:

http://cdwire.net/cgi-bin/pub9990191738814.cgi?itemid=9990214943108&action=viewad&categoryid=9990191738814&page=1&placeonpage=25&totaldisplayed=50

Children who are physically disciplined with spanking are more likely
to be anxious and aggressive than children who are disciplined in other
ways, according to research published in the November/December
2005 Journal of Child Development.

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WANT TO TRAVEL SOMEPLACE WARM?

Start now and the results you get will be solidly in place for your trip. We
get good results in just a few days, but excellent results when you have a
couple of weeks to practice the exercises that provides automatic control
of high anxiety and makes panic impossible.

To get started, please just go to:

http://www.fearofflying.com/store.shtml

For almost everyone, the best set of DVDs to get started with is 'The Control
of Anxiety'. If you would like to talk it over first to be sure what is right for you
please call me at 877 332-7359 or 203 258-4803. I'm available from 10 AM
until 7 PM Eastern (same as New York) time.

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LAST MINUTE HELP IS ALWAYS AVAILABLE

Even if you are flying TODAY (!!!) we can provide a lot of help. Don't risk not
being able to take the flight.

Just call. It will help. 877 332-7359 or 203 258-4803. Available 10 AM until
7 PM Eastern (same as New York) time.

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