by Scott Poulter

Created on: February 07, 2010

I burst through the womb a disciple of fear. My mother game me the gift of fear through osmosis, literally. My father on the other hand feared nothing and no one. Unfortunately our family did not live near us so we had to travel b plane to visit. Usually up to five hours at a time.

We traveled did a lot of travelling in the 1970’s across the country, mostly on DC-10’s. The media did to me what the movie Jaws did for ocean dwellers. After seeing the photo of the plane crashing in Chicago after the engine fell off, I no longer wanted to fly on DC-10’s. The media was not the only reason why I hated to fly. In my travels I had experienced some rough flights that fanned the flames of fear. I have flown through thunderstorms with lightning right outside the plane being tossed like a carrot in a salad. When they say items may shift in flight – they do. I have been in turbulence that has been so bumpy the overhead bins opened up and people's belongings started to fall. Once our plane hit an air pocket and the plane felt like it dropped a thousand feet straight down. One time our plane touched, no slammed, down so hard that the oxygen masks dropped from their compartments.

You would think that with age your fear would subside as your wisdom grew. Actually it only heightens your fear because death is better understood the older you get. As my anxiety to fly grew, I would find myself getting irritable the moment I arrived at the airport. I used to get so nervous I wouldn’t eat the whole flight because my stomach was in knots. I actually began a superstitious tradition that every plane I boarded I would pat with my right hand on the outside as I walked through the door. There have been instances in my adulthood that have fed into my fear of flying. I was flying on September 9th, 2001, two days before the September 11th attacks. One week after my honeymoon the same plane my wife and I were on crashed off the coast of California. From then on I never flew on another MD-80 plane. How did I finally conquer my fear of flying?

I started taking flying lessons; well only 3 hours worth, because of the expense involved, but I felt peaceful knowing how a plane flies and what is involved in all aspects of flight. I learned things about the weather and turbulence that helped me understand some of the things that scared me the most. Knowing what creates turbulence in the air, the heating of the earth's crust, flying over mountains, etc. really helped my fears of flying in turbulence. So now I am not the white-knuckled flier but rather the one who reads his magazine calmly while eating his honey roasted peanuts. And yes I still pat the plane before boarding – darn superstitions.

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