COPING WITH THE FEAR OF FLYING

"Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me and when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

Aviation, especially Experimental Aviation, carries along with its benefits an intrinsic risk that is hard to completely dismiss. Things can go wrong when you are flying, either with the airplane, the weather or the pilot’s technique that can lead to tragic outcomes. Those bad outcomes include injury or death. Because a person can get hurt or killed, it is natural for anyone involved, especially those in the flying machine itself, to feel fear. Since fear is a natural instinct, somewhat inseparable from the act of aviation, the question we have to ask is not “How can we keep from being afraid?” but rather “How do we cope with fear when it arises?”

I have been involved with and participated in a lot of very risky activities in my life. I guess I have been drawn to sports such as skydiving, flying, water skiing, scuba diving and mountain climbing ever since I started reading books on the subjects, making their participants my heroes.

Whether it was a fighter pilot in WW-II, a mountaineer struggling his way up Everest or an explorer deep beneath the waves coping with technology and nature, I have always been excited by what it takes to perform near the edge of what is humanly possible.

On the edge