The only time I’ve ever been remotely scared flying in an airplane was a little over ten years ago.<\/p>\n
Our airliner was flying into Nice, France, from Paris, and the weather was abominable. The clouds were grey and as thick and opaque as clam chowder just outside the window, and the turbulence on the final approach was unlike anything I’d felt. We’d plunge suddenly for what felt like hundreds of feet before stopping the descent abruptly and racing back upwards. It went on and on…endless cycles of up and down, unpredictable and sudden, for what seemed like forever. People were pasty-faced and ill all around me, and more than a few airsickness bags were used. I even started to feel a little queasy, and all I could do was to stare out the window and hope for the ground to appear beneath us, signifying that landing was imminent. Time dragged on. The engines would rev sporadically, pushing us back in our seats for a moment before relenting, and the pitching up and down went on and on. The windows are either side of the plane were still walls of grey mist, no sky, no ground…nothing. My brothers looked miserable, as did my mom. People were complaining audibly by this point, and in an effort as much to make myself feel better as a feeble attempt to reassure my family, I quoted some inane statistic about the safety of air travel and got a few words into my explanation of ILS and glideslope and landing procedures before my voice tapered off. The rest of the family gave me death-stares before re-focusing on their own misery. I turned away and looked outside again as the plane heaved around in every axis imaginable. I looked up to try to catch a glimpse of sky–no luck. I looked down and the consistency of the clouds was exactly the same. Suddenly, as I was looking down, ground appeared not twenty feet below us. Before I had a chance to turn around and tell the family, the main landing gear hit the runway with a resounding thump that shuddered through the airframe. The nose rotated downwards, touched the ground, and the pilot kicked in the thrust reversers. We slowed to a crawl as the most palpable sense of relief I’ve ever experienced permeated the air in the cabin. Some people clapped, but most just sighed great sighs. We taxied to the terminal. I don’t think I’ve ever seen people disembark more quickly than they did that day.<\/p>\n
When I think about my response to the experience, though, it wasn’t even one of fear. It was more just intense discomfort from the inability to situate myself relative to my surroundings outside the plane, and the unexpected movements as the pilot kept us on course for the runway. As soon as the nausea lifted my enthusiasm for flight returned to full strength.<\/p>\n
Man has wanted to fly for thousands of years, and it would seem like in ages past we’ve had the desire more collectively than just the small percentage of folks nowadays who actually enjoy the experience, if prose and poetry from the last few centuries are any indication. I think it was just a fantasy, though, and in the fantasy the intrinsic risk and danger are gone, because it’s a perfect thing, an expression of an ideal. But I still have a hard time grasping peoples’ fear of it.<\/p>\n
What’s your response to flying? Fear? Joy? Mild displeasure and inconvenience? Utter and abject terror? Thrill beyond the dreams of Icarus? I’ve been pretty interested in this subject lately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The only time I’ve ever been remotely scared flying in an airplane was a little over ten years ago. Our airliner was flying into Nice, France, from Paris, and the weather was abominable. The clouds were grey and as thick and opaque as clam chowder just outside the window, and the turbulence on the final […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}