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Free Group Phone Counseling With Capt Tom Wednesday 10 PM - 11 PM Eastern Time
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when asked, enter the conference ID 9352101 followed by the # sign
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Turbulence
Turbulence is not a safety issue. No matter how many times a person is told this, they still have trouble with turbulence. The problem is not physical safety but "emotional safety". Here's why.
To deal with anxiety, a child who developed secure attachment to its primary caregiver - usually the mother - in the first 18 months of life, transfers that sense of security to the world in general. Also, when there is secure attachment, the child learns to regulate emotion naturally. When there are changes, and when there is uncertainty, the person who had secure attachment as a child may not like it, but the emotions related to the situation are not a problem.
On the other hand, a person with insecure attachment, transfers insecurity onto the world in general. Change causes anxiety,so the person tries to control situations. Situations that can't be controlled cause emotions that can't be very well controlled. If a situation can't be controlled, there needs to be a way to escape.
There are two ways to escape a situation that will give relief from the emotional distress: 1. physically; 2. psychologically.
You can't physically escape the plane. But you can psychologically escape. You can isolate yourself from what is happening on the plane. This doesn't work when taking off and when in turbulence. Takeoff and turbulence are very dynamic. Movements and noises intrude. They defeat the person's ability to isolate, and keep the flight out of mind. When those situations intrude, since psychological isolation was the last hope for controlling emotion, there is no way to control emotions.
Thus, when taking off and in turbulence, you can't escape psychologically, and that leaves you no way to control the feelings.
What we do in the SOAR program is train the part of the brain that triggers stress hormones (the hormones that cause the stress and anxiety and fear) to NOT react to takeoff and to turbulence. If you are in the SOAR Program and are still having trouble with takeoff or turbulence, set up a counseling session so we can fine tune the exercise so feelings are automatically controlled.
To set up a session, go to: http://soar.genbook.com/
If you are not in the SOAR program, enroll in Complete Relief which is at www.fearofflying.com/relief
But what about landing? Isn't landing also dynamic? Yes, but the feelings during landing are controlled by anticipation of being on the ground. The same people who hate the dynamics of takeoff have no trouble with the dynamics of landing.
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Response To An Email About Automatic Landing Concerns
Automatic landing has evolved for many years. When I first flew with Pan Am in 1965, we thought the equipment on the 707 and the DC8 was pretty amazing. It had CAT II landing capability, which mean the plane could descend on autopilot to as low as 100 feet above the runway. If the runway did not appear by then, a go-around was required. If the runway was sighted - or the high intensity approach lights leading to the runway were sighted - the captain clicked off the autopilot and landed visually.
Prior to CAT II, planes could descend only to 200 feet above the runway, receiving both left-right guidance and up-down guidance to keep the plane on the proper glide angle to the touchdown point on the runway, the signals coming right from the runway.
Then, with the 747 (and some earlier planes in the UK where fog in London required it) the runway needed to be sighted by 100 feet above the runway, but instead of clicking off the autopilot, the plane remained on autopilot to prevent pilot error. Why? Let's go back to the 707. If the pilot sighted the runway in a vague way, the pilot might be tempted to lower the nose a bit to get a better view. This impulse to go lower to see the runway resulted in some accidents landing short of the runway. At Pan Am, every year we were required to view a number of landings in foggy conditions, as part of training to teach us to resist the impulse to go lower. But by leaving the plane on autopilot so the autopilot landed the plane, this impulse was taken out of the situation because the autopilot simply followed the electronic signals; it "saw" all it needed to THROUGH the fog. This was a great safety improvement!
But, for a while, the pilot still needed to verify the positioning of the plane as correct in order to allow the autopilot to perform the landing. As the equipment became more sophisticated, more tested, and the signals more carefully monitored, it finally became unnecessary for the pilots to see the runway before the autopilot did the landing.
Pilots like to be in control, too. It does feel good to know that the autopilot can put the plane on the ground perfectly. It takes pressure off the pilot. But to actually ride through an automatic landing in foggy conditions is a weird experience. If I had done more of them, I might have gotten used to them, but in my entire career, conditions were rarely foggy enough to require landing without seeing the runway first. Only twice, once going into Paris and once going into London, did I ride through an automatic landing and not see the runway until the plane touched down on it. It is, as I said, weird to simply be "along for the ride" as the autopilot controls you, as it were, instead of you controlling the plane. It is rather unreal to simply watch the plane PERFECTLY following the signals from the runway. I say "perfectly" because when it is foggy, there is no wind, and it seems as though the plane - looking at the instruments - is frozen in place on the correct path to the runway. The airspeed doesn't change (the autothrottles make adjustments to maintain it). The position on the glide path doesn't change (the autopilot maintains the perfect position). The only thing that changes is the height above the ground. You simply see no change other than the number of feet above the ground unwinding.
Then, at about 45 feet above the ground, a light comes on, signaled form the autopilot that says, "OK. I've got all the proper signals and all are crosschecked; everything is fine so far." And then at about 30 feet, another light comes on that verifies the radio altimeter is locked onto the ground to measure the distance above the ground, and is ready to "flare" the plane (reduce the descent rate before contact with the runway, so as to make a smooth landing). Then at about 25 feet, the nose starts to rise, and it continues to rise slowly to reduce the descent rate, and . . . just as the plane goes onto the runway, you see the runway.
Amazing! And, yes, it works. Amazing to believe, but this technology has been evolving for many years, and it makes landing safe by preventing pilot error. Because it is the psychology of the pilot that, potentially, can cause an accident. Automatic landing takes the psychology out of the equation and makes landing truly safe.
Though your computer runs into trouble and locks up, consider that it is made to run applications by thousands of different companies, and that the operating system is changed and still must run those applications. But the computers that land the plane have only one operating system and only one application. Those compatibility issues don't arise. And, instead of just one computer, there are two or three, and each must match what the other computer says, or a light comes on telling the pilot that an automatic landing is not allowed.
Now take all the above and consider that, as a 747 copilot, I was able to witness - and to "install" in my memory - thousands of perfect approaches to the runway, perfect because it was done by the autopilot. Then, as it is in the airline industry, when a pilot goes from copilot to captain, the pilot goes from copilot on large planes to captain on small planes. So I went from 747 copilot to 727 captain. This meant being thrown back to 707 era technology. The 727s didn't do automatic landing. So, in crummy weather conditions, it was up to me to put the plane on the runway. Fog, by itself, wasn't a problem. But add flying into heavy rain. Heavy rain at 140 MPH floods the windshield, and with the wipers running full speed, the view of the runway is strobe-like. The view is intermittent, with the runway in sight only for a fraction of a second after the wipers clear the water until rain puts it back. In such moments, I longed for the 747's automatic landing capability. But it was my automatic landing capability I had to depend on. And I mean that literally, because - like a good serve in tennis - a good landing under these conditions cannot be done with intellect; it has to be done by the subcortex of the brain, and the subcortex can only do what it has been trained to do. And - and this is important - it can only do the job if the intellect lets it. Just as in tennis, or golf, or bowling, or any sport, if you think too much, you screw it up. Thus, trust in ones own innate, intuitive ability, is required. And it was those thousands of perfect landings by the autopilot, carved into the memory of the subcortex's "unconscious procedural memory" that made my landings work. That is why I say, in truth, I landed on MY autopilot.
That's fine for a highly experienced pilot, but it takes - as I said - thousands of perfectly executive landings for the subcortex to be trustworthy. That's why experience counts, when it comes to hand-flying an plane in crummy weather. But that is why I trust, much more, the autopilot. I's psychology doesn't get in the way, ever.
Automatic landing has evolved for many years. When I first flew with Pan Am in 1965, we thought the equipment on the 707 and the DC8 was pretty amazing. It had CAT II landing capability, which mean the plane could descend on autopilot to as low as 100 feet above the runway. If the runway did not appear by then, a go-around was required. If the runway was sighted - or the high intensity approach lights leading to the runway were sighted - the captain clicked off the autopilot and landed visually.
Prior to CAT II, planes could descend only to 200 feet above the runway, receiving both left-right guidance and up-down guidance to keep the plane on the proper glide angle to the touchdown point on the runway, the signals coming right from the runway.
Then, with the 747 (and some earlier planes in the UK where fog in London required it) the runway needed to be sighted by 100 feet above the runway, but instead of clicking off the autopilot, the plane remained on autopilot to prevent pilot error. Why? Let's go back to the 707. If the pilot sighted the runway in a vague way, the pilot might be tempted to lower the nose a bit to get a better view. This impulse to go lower to see the runway resulted in some accidents landing short of the runway. At Pan Am, every year we were required to view a number of landings in foggy conditions, as part of training to teach us to resist the impulse to go lower. But by leaving the plane on autopilot so the autopilot landed the plane, this impulse was taken out of the situation because the autopilot simply followed the electronic signals; it "saw" all it needed to THROUGH the fog. This was a great safety improvement!
But, for a while, the pilot still needed to verify the positioning of the plane as correct in order to allow the autopilot to perform the landing. As the equipment became more sophisticated, more tested, and the signals more carefully monitored, it finally became unnecessary for the pilots to see the runway before the autopilot did the landing.
Pilots like to be in control, too. It does feel good to know that the autopilot can put the plane on the ground perfectly. It takes pressure off the pilot. But to actually ride through an automatic landing in foggy conditions is a weird experience. If I had done more of them, I might have gotten used to them, but in my entire career, conditions were rarely foggy enough to require landing without seeing the runway first. Only twice, once going into Paris and once going into London, did I ride through an automatic landing and not see the runway until the plane touched down on it. It is, as I said, weird to simply be "along for the ride" as the autopilot controls you, as it were, instead of you controlling the plane. It is rather unreal to simply watch the plane PERFECTLY following the signals from the runway. I say "perfectly" because when it is foggy, there is no wind, and it seems as though the plane - looking at the instruments - is frozen in place on the correct path to the runway. The airspeed doesn't change (the autothrottles make adjustments to maintain it). The position on the glide path doesn't change (the autopilot maintains the perfect position). The only thing that changes is the height above the ground. You simply see no change other than the number of feet above the ground unwinding.
Then, at about 45 feet above the ground, a light comes on, signaled form the autopilot that says, "OK. I've got all the proper signals and all are crosschecked; everything is fine so far." And then at about 30 feet, another light comes on that verifies the radio altimeter is locked onto the ground to measure the distance above the ground, and is ready to "flare" the plane (reduce the descent rate before contact with the runway, so as to make a smooth landing). Then at about 25 feet, the nose starts to rise, and it continues to rise slowly to reduce the descent rate, and . . . just as the plane goes onto the runway, you see the runway.
Amazing! And, yes, it works. Amazing to believe, but this technology has been evolving for many years, and it makes landing safe by preventing pilot error. Because it is the psychology of the pilot that, potentially, can cause an accident. Automatic landing takes the psychology out of the equation and makes landing truly safe.
Though your computer runs into trouble and locks up, consider that it is made to run applications by thousands of different companies, and that the operating system is changed and still must run those applications. But the computers that land the plane have only one operating system and only one application. Those compatibility issues don't arise. And, instead of just one computer, there are two or three, and each must match what the other computer says, or a light comes on telling the pilot that an automatic landing is not allowed.
Now take all the above and consider that, as a 747 copilot, I was able to witness - and to "install" in my memory - thousands of perfect approaches to the runway, perfect because it was done by the autopilot. Then, as it is in the airline industry, when a pilot goes from copilot to captain, the pilot goes from copilot on large planes to captain on small planes. So I went from 747 copilot to 727 captain. This meant being thrown back to 707 era technology. The 727s didn't do automatic landing. So, in crummy weather conditions, it was up to me to put the plane on the runway. Fog, by itself, wasn't a problem. But add flying into heavy rain. Heavy rain at 140 MPH floods the windshield, and with the wipers running full speed, the view of the runway is strobe-like. The view is intermittent, with the runway in sight only for a fraction of a second after the wipers clear the water until rain puts it back. In such moments, I longed for the 747's automatic landing capability. But it was my automatic landing capability I had to depend on. And I mean that literally, because - like a good serve in tennis - a good landing under these conditions cannot be done with intellect; it has to be done by the subcortex of the brain, and the subcortex can only do what it has been trained to do. And - and this is important - it can only do the job if the intellect lets it. Just as in tennis, or golf, or bowling, or any sport, if you think too much, you screw it up. Thus, trust in ones own innate, intuitive ability, is required. And it was those thousands of perfect landings by the autopilot, carved into the memory of the subcortex's "unconscious procedural memory" that made my landings work. That is why I say, in truth, I landed on MY autopilot.
That's fine for a highly experienced pilot, but it takes - as I said - thousands of perfectly executive landings for the subcortex to be trustworthy. That's why experience counts, when it comes to hand-flying an plane in crummy weather. But that is why I trust, much more, the autopilot. I's psychology doesn't get in the way, ever.
=========
Jamie Pearson who writes the Travel Savvy MOm blog is doing a series on fear of flying. The first is available at www.travelsavvymom.com/blog/family-travel/fear-of-flying-causes-and-symptoms/
==========
From The Message Board
Narelle:
I did it!!! I have made two flights in the last three days. Flew from Melbourne to Sydney on Friday and then back again today (Sunday in Aus). It went amazingly well. Thanks to the SOAR program I am confident that I shall fly again, and soon !!
Capt Tom:
Congratulations, Narelle! Great work. As as you continued, it only gets better.
Narelle:
Thank you Capt Tom, and to anyone who read this that is thinking of doing the SOAR program, do it !!! It is the reason I finally had the courage to get on a plane again. It feels so amazing to have actually got on a plane and know that I can control my anxieties. I am now looking forward to planning more plane trips. My teenage kids are extremelly excited at the prospect of a 2 hour plane trip as opposed to our usual 22 hour drive to Queensland.
Esprit12:
Congratulations, Narelle,
So glad all went well and that you're ready to fly again. SOAR does work.
Pam
Narelle:
Thanks Pam. And yes, it does.
Capn Steve:
Narelle, Congratulations! You have every reason to feel very proud of yourself.
Cheers.
Steve
Thank you Steve Yes, it is a feeling of great achievement. I'm sure I read someone else experiencing similar to this... it has also had a roll on affect to some of my other anxieties. ie my mind/I do not have any control over things that happen, no matter what my mind tells me... My mind was telling me for 20 years that if I got on a plane I would die. Hahaha and I DIDN'T !!!
I did it!!! I have made two flights in the last three days. Flew from Melbourne to Sydney on Friday and then back again today (Sunday in Aus). It went amazingly well. Thanks to the SOAR program I am confident that I shall fly again, and soon !!
Capt Tom:
Congratulations, Narelle! Great work. As as you continued, it only gets better.
Narelle:
Thank you Capt Tom, and to anyone who read this that is thinking of doing the SOAR program, do it !!! It is the reason I finally had the courage to get on a plane again. It feels so amazing to have actually got on a plane and know that I can control my anxieties. I am now looking forward to planning more plane trips. My teenage kids are extremelly excited at the prospect of a 2 hour plane trip as opposed to our usual 22 hour drive to Queensland.
Esprit12:
Congratulations, Narelle,
So glad all went well and that you're ready to fly again. SOAR does work.
Pam
Narelle:
Thanks Pam. And yes, it does.
Capn Steve:
Narelle, Congratulations! You have every reason to feel very proud of yourself.
Cheers.
Steve
Narelle:
Thank you Steve Yes, it is a feeling of great achievement. I'm sure I read someone else experiencing similar to this... it has also had a roll on affect to some of my other anxieties. ie my mind/I do not have any control over things that happen, no matter what my mind tells me... My mind was telling me for 20 years that if I got on a plane I would die. Hahaha and I DIDN'T !!!
==========
SOAR Will Work For You Too
Even if you are doubtful, SOAR nevertheless works. This is because we, with the help of brain scan research that showed us how the mind works, broke the code on flight anxiety, claustrophobia, and panic.
SOAR was established in 1982 because no programs existed that could
help people with moderate to severe difficulties. Even today, no other
program offers help that is effective except for mild difficulties. No
matter how difficult flying is for you, we can help.
help people with moderate to severe difficulties. Even today, no other
program offers help that is effective except for mild difficulties. No
matter how difficult flying is for you, we can help.
- Call me at 877 332-7359 between 10 AM and 6 PM Eastern time or
- Set up a time online at http://soar.genbook.com
- No Charge. No Obligation. Just get the information you want.
Or Enroll Right Now And Get This Over With
You will feel better as soon as you make the decision.
You will feel better as soon as you make the decision.
Accelerated Courses
Flying tomorrow or the day after? Be ready to fly in 90 minutes with Rapid Relief.
Flying in three to ten days? Get comprehensive help with SOAR Complete Relief.
- Accelerated courses give you the most help possible in the time you have available.
- A twenty-minute private session and unlimited group counseling sessions are included.
- What you pay is 100% transferable to the SOAR Video Course 11 DVDs.
Start viewing on your computer screen in two minutes.
- Get a compact version of the SOAR Course.
- Load it on your laptop, iPod or other media player. More info.
==========
Unsure Which To Choose
If
you are unsure which is best for you, please call me at 877 332-7359 so
we can talk it over. You will feel better as soon as you decide to act.
We are always here to help. As you go through the program, call or email whenever you have a question or a concern.
==========
Discuss Or Schedule An Individual Session -- Call 877 332-7359
Call between 11 AM and 6 PM Eastern Time (same time zone as New York)
You'll reach me easily. The toll-free number rings my cell phone.
Call between 11 AM and 6 PM Eastern Time (same time zone as New York)
You'll reach me easily. The toll-free number rings my cell phone.
- find out how I can help you with flying
- discuss the possibility of a counseling session
- set up a time that fits your schedule
Outside the U.S. and Canada call 203 258-4803
- a twenty-minute session is $60.00 if not enrolled in a course.
- one twenty-minute session is free if enrolled in any course.
- additional twenty-minute sessions are $60.00.
- two one-hour sessions are included in the SOAR Guaranteed Program
Schedule An Individual Session Online
Note: Times Listed Are Eastern Time (same as New York)
