Ask HN: How to overcome fear of flying?

Your post sounded very much like my own story. Flew most of my life, wasn't particularly afraid until a night-time flight with severe turbulence where the plane dropped so fast the only thing that kept people from hitting the ceiling was our seat belts. A few people screaming, lots of scared murmuring. After we got off the plane, we heard there was bad weather with 100km/h winds. Ever since then, the slightest bit of turbulence gets me very anxious. I'm also less scared when I'm alone (dying alone isn't as scary), but usually I'm with my wife & kids, so the fear amplifies (even though they are all quite comfortable).

One coping mechanism I recently came up with is that I realized it's not so much the fear of crashing that I have (I've been able to rationalize about how turbulence != crash), but it's more that when the turbulence starts, I hate the unpredictability of it - I have no idea if the next bump is a small one, a big one, or one so big it will cause panic in the cabin. Thus even the smooth waits in between become angst-filled.

On a recent vacation, on the ground, I ended up playing with my kids on a "parkour" playground, running up and down hills, jumping on trampolines, getting the same feeling in my stomach and inner ear as a bumpy plane ride. So once I was back on the plane and we hit some turbulence, in my mind, I visualized myself running around that playground again. I know this sounds silly, but it worked wonders. When the bumps came, my mind was already prepared as it was pretending running and jumping on a trampoline. This helped me cope a lot, by taking me to a different place.

Many people mentioned hearing pilots attitudes towards turbulence helps and I can totally see that. However, one thing that I wish they wouldn't do is announce before the flight that a) it's going to be a smooth ride or b) there will be some bumps along the way. For me, at least, in scenario (a), if we hit some unexpected turbulence that makes it worse for me because I know the pilots weren't expecting it and (b) if they say there will be a bumpy ride, I'm bracing myself the whole time and I've been on flights like that where they ended up being 100% smooth :/

Fears aren’t rational. They are emotional. It will take a long time to address it with just your thoughts. A better way is to try to address the emotions and fix that. You have a lot of choices here. Some examples are a therapist, spirituality, meditation, a coach, flying lessons, or flying repeatedly until the fear goes away. Trying to solve emotional stuff with intellect is not the most effective way imho.

You know what they say, planes stay in the air through lift generated by physics; helicopters stay in the air because they're so ugly the earth repels them. I'm OK with flying in fixed-wing craft, but you wouldn't be able to get me into a helicopter.