Ask HN: How to overcome fear of flying?

It helped a lot to learn as much as I could about the way planes "operate". I have a physics background, but rather that dealing with fluid mechanics, lift, etc, what really helped me was understanding the day-to-day operations of planes and pilots - what all of the lights and sounds mean, why certain small parts of the plane are designed the way they are, etc. The YouTube channel "Captain Joe" helped me a lot with this. It really shows you how much thought, planning, and effort goes into making sure your flight is safe and smooth.

My advice is learn and think about this on the ground, when you're not getting ready to take a flight, or at the airport, or on a plane - that way you're not having a psychological response and can think more rationally about these things. There's nothing worse than having a panic attack on a plane and having your companion urge you to think about probabilities :p

My problem with airplanes is claustrophobia. After years of fairly-regular flying the claustrophobia suddenly grew intense --- and it has stayed at that level --- after being jammed into a non-reclining back-row middle seat on a flight from Istanbul. Fortunately, I discovered the person seated next to me just happened to be a therapist. She kindly volunteered to get me through the flight by talking to me and distracting me from my surroundings. (What a sweetheart she was!)

Of course, I can't travel with my own therapist so now I take a half gram of Lorazepam at the start of each flight, a drug that magically removes my fears. I also always get an aisle seat.

I used to get moderately anxious when experiencing turbulence while flying.

I tried a several different strategies that I researched, but I completely eliminated my anxiety by imagining that I was riding in a big Greyhound bus and we kept running over some really big pot holes in the road.

It seems silly to me, but it works great for me. I feel totally calm even during pretty heavy turbulence.

as a kid i was scared shitless of flying. the idea of being blasted across the country in a pressurized metal tube was overwhelming to me. when my family was planning a trip to orlando for disney world, i contemplated staying behind with family so i didn't have to get on that plane. in the end i went, and overcame my fear of flying. now, i prefer air travel to just about anything else.

part of what helped me is my mother's job working as the business manager for a local hangar and airplane mechanic. hanging around the hangar i saw how many hours went in to maintaining even the smallest two-seat planes. i heard about how many hours pilots logged before they could even look at a small regional jet. the mechanics, pilots, and engineers working on those commercial planes are all the best of the best.

turbulence: when a plane is between 20-40k feet, what feels like a catastrophic drop is, subjectively, not a big deal. sure it's scary and the plane bounces around but the plane will not go down in turbulence. it may drop 10, 20, 50 feet. but you still have 19950 to go before problems arise.

finally, don't psych yourself up reading the manuals about what to do if things go wrong. don't even listen to the presentation. put some headphones on and look out the window at all the people working hard to make sure you and yours arrive at your destination safe and sound.

hope this helped even a little bit. flying is stressful even when you're not scared, but it allows for so much freedom.

What helped me was:

1) Consider the micromorts of the things you do in your everyday life. Chances are, many of them are higher than flying.

2) Look up flight accidents for recent years. Large airplanes almost never fall out of the sky. If they crash, it’s usually on the ground and survivable. Smaller aircraft are far more dangerous, but you can avoid them. Terror is somewhat localized geographically. You should also look up how many flights there are every day. It’s way more than I expected!