Pilots and fear of heights

[Commander]

I read somewhere that fear of heights is more common amongst pilots than non-pilots. I wanted to get some opinion on that. For instance I knew a 747-driver that was extremely afraid of heights, but when asked how come he flies he said it was a totally different thing. Is the world we fly in seperate from the one we climb ladders in?

Best,


Commander.

[Capt Claret]

Absolutely Commander. I have no problems looking out of the flight deck or cabin from the cocoon but take away the enclosure and it's a different story.

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bottums up !

[Puritan]

Weird, I was thinking about the exact same thing the other day - as I was driving over the Queen Elizabeth II bridge (at Dartford, see: Dartford Bridge (http://members.aol.com/dwestbs/bridge.htm)) and espied some the bridge's maintenance team going about their work right at the very top of one of the upright pylons (137 meters, or in 'old money', 450 feet above the Thames)

I remember looking up at them and feeling almost nauseous with vertigo - and yet one hour before I'd been up in the FL300+'s - as Claret says, it's different (sort of).

[Honest Frank]

Put me up a tree and things start twitching.
Put me in a cockpit and everything is OK.

[Bird Strike]

Same for me!

[Pdub]

Same here, I have no problem with flying at all, flown as pax in a Zambian microlight over Victoria falls not a problem, the problem was crossing the bridge from Zimbabwe to Zambia http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/eek.gif had to stay well away from the edge. I also have trouble standing next to tall buildings/bridges.

[Petergozinya]

Ditto.

[JJflyer]

I am horrified of hights... No problems sitting in the cockpit but looking down from Empire State Building was very hard and I was "premedicated" in the nearby bar.

JJ

[Ivchenko]

The leader of the Hungarian (I think) formation aero team , Skybox, pursued this avowedly dangerous activity for many decades.

He was killed last year - fell off a ladder at home.

[deepbuffet]

Couldn't agree more. As RAF I'm not bothered about inverted spinning at 18000ft, but the wife changes the lightbulbs at home. Asked a mate (psychologist), and got an answer that makes sense to me. He reckons that people who are afraid of heights are not actually afraid of being high up, but are afraid of falling. In an aircraft, you're sitting in' and are probably well fastened to, a chair. Your brain knows that you won't fall out, so you ain't scared.

[HugMonster]

I can relate to all of the above - I often have trouble looking out of a window only one story up...

My friends think it's hilarious that they know a pilot who's scared of heights!

[McD]

Deepbuffet, that sounds pretty reasonable to me! Never thought about it that way before.

I'm not actually afraid of heights in the traditional sense (i.e. I will climb ladders & trees, and will enjoy the views out of tall buildings). However, if I am in a tall building with plate glass (floor-to-ceiling length) windows, I get uncomfortable if I stand too close. If I'm on the Empire State building, and looking out over the city, it's fine, but if I look straight down. . . .forget it!

It is funny how the perception is completely different in an aircraft.

[Lurk R]

I can stand by edge of a floor to ceiling plate glass window on the 40th floor with no problems at all. Take the glass away - I don't think so!!!

[TowerDog]

Same here. Don't like tall buildings at all.

First parachute jump from a C-206 at 2500' was something I had to force myself to do.
(That was also the last jump)

Live in a one story building at sea-level. :)

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Men, this is no drill...

[HugMonster]

Does anyone like the lifts at the Belgrano?

[Pax_1A]

Here's a twist. I do a bit of offshore racing and have found that there seems to be a correlation between crew who are regularly seasick and crew who admit to suffering a little vertigo. I was thinking it was an inner ear thing.
In any case it would seem odd to have a link between vertigo, sea sickness and pilots without having a link to air sickness. Now that would be weird, but maybe there are more than one type of motion sickness.

[mach78]

I agree.One of the most frightenind photos I saw was of scaffolders in New York in 20's+30's eating, also lying flat out apparently sleeping on the slimmest of girders hundreds of feet up, making skyscapers.
Even now thinking of it makes me squirm.

[dingducky]

totally agree :)
some people thought i was odd because i had a fear of heights but flew
thought i was even stranger when they found out i can't drive a car! http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/tongue.gif

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Those who can't write, write manuals

[This message has been edited by dingducky (edited 10 October 2000).]

[Slasher]

Yeh me too. Same as you guys. Put me in the 737 at 35000 ft and no problem. Put me on a ladder at 3.5 ft and Im already sh!tting bricks.

[Whirlybird*]

Any kind of flying, I'm fine. That includes open cockpit microlights, gyroplanes which are like aerial motorbikes, and even hang gliding (though I never got beyond tethered flight). But I have trouble climbing ladders, and when I went tall ship sailing I absolutely refused to climb aloft to the crows nest. No-one could believe a pilot would be almost the only person who never went aloft even by the end of two weeks, but just looking at other people up there made me feel sick. Fear of falling? I don't know, but it makes more sense than anything else.

Whirly

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To fly is human, to hover, divine.

[Capt Claret]

An addendum to my previous post.

I had my first and only helicopter ride just over 12 months ago. The jolly, over and around The Bungle Bungles, was in a 4 seater with no doors. I didn't feel at all comfortable looking straight down ~ 500'and spent most of the flight, checking & double checking and so on, my seat belt! http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/redface.gif

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bottums up !

[HugMonster]

Pax_1A, I'm not sure about that correlation - or maybe I'm unusual...

As a small kid, I used to get carsick, but grew out of it by the age of 10. I've never been even slightly airsick or seasick, however.

Have to agree with Capt Claret, though - helos ain't natural!

[Dr. Red]

I'll be happy flying in helicopters - just as soon as I see a bird with rotating wings attached to the top of its head :)

[This message has been edited by Dr. Red (edited 10 October 2000).]

[WX Man]

I think there's a difference between vertigo and fear of heights- isn't vertigo where you feel an urge to jump off tall buildings etc? Not that anyone would ever do it... the majority of sufferers are perfectly sane (in a surreal sense of the word).

I suffer a bit from this. Looking down Vic falls bridge, I wondered what it would be like to jump off... so I tried (albeit attached to a piece of elastic :))

The wierdest thing though is when I developed a fear of flying... happened after I'd done my ME training, and flew SE solo for the first time in about 20 flying hours. I did not feel safe... in fact, I felt really uncomfortable. The type of uncomfortable one feels when one is crawling through a tight, muddy passage in one of the Yorkshire Dales's smallest, grottiest caves.

Oh, and I think the Belgrano's lifts are COOL.

[readytoturnthelightsoff]

Forward flight at any height - no problem, hovering at any height - no problem, roped to the outside then abseiling from 200' - no problem, parachuting - no problem; but if any part of the a/c touches terra firma whilst my side is still over a 4000'+ drop then I start to feel a bit weird. I can't rationalise it, but that's the way it is!

[Seaking]

I agree with you Truning the lights...

Sitting in the back of a car i feel sick,you will not get me to walk to the edge of a cliff or tall building for anything,i hate glass lifts,tall bridges,etc,but.....

Sitting in a cockpit spinning from 10000'- brilliant,falling out of a loop-NO Problem,winching down a cliff,great fun,abseiling over a buildng i'm your man,
hovering with an underslung load over a 1000' cliff-easy,

Why ? i dont know,maybe its the security blanket effect,the need to hold onto something,being in control.

Loves flying....hates heights!!!

One for a shrink i think.... http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/eek.gif

[Commander]

What a sensitive nerve I've hit on approaching the subject. It's the first time I've thought about Deepbuffet's theory of the fear of falling. This makes perfect sense. The feeling of looking over the edge of a cliff lying flat on the top isn't the same as going over it strapped to a rope. The feeling of security being strapped on to "something" overwhelmes the fright of heights.

So here's one: Do you ever think of the dope and fabric and few rivets and bolts holding the Cubs, Citabrias and Pitts together?

And another thing, all kinds of phobias interest me. Fear of flying isn't related to fear of heights - but when flying low with my wife for one of the first times, she told me that she found it uncomfortable. I didn't notice, but understood. I had a fear of heights until age 17 when working at a construction site, where I had to go 6 stories on outside platforms. Cured me for good.

[Buzzoff]

Yup, me too. The only time I had the fear in a flying machine was the first few feet in a hot-air balloon - as soon as I was clear of the treetops I was OK. I echo Slasher's post: 737 - good, ladder - bad.

[WebPilot]

Bizarre. I thought it was just me! I can't bring myself to ride my bike over the Dartford Bridge (I can just about get myself to drive over in the car), yet the other day I was quite happily doing a tight turn over it at 1500' whilst looking down the wing and thinking 'there's that bridge I can't ride over'.

Odd.

[HugMonster]

There's a rope bridgeout to a stack rock on the north coast of Northern Ireland, at Carrick-a-Rede. Walking across it is a serious one even for people with brass cojones.

The joke when I was over there was:-
Q:- "What does crossing the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge have in common with a BJ from Mo Mowlem?"
A:- "For God's sake, don't look down!"

[redsnail]

A theory I heard about fear of heights v's flying is that with a tall building, cliff etc you have a visible vertical connection with the ground. Thus you get a sense of height/distance. With an aeroplane there is no such "connection". The only time you may get it is if you look at the down going wing during a steep turn. (Not that you should be looking there any way!)
Cheers


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reddo
A Feral Animal.

[F3]

Glad I'm not the only one... FL's good, roof of house NO way! Much as I hate to admit it, I developed a fear of flying during the solo consolidation portion of my course.(53 hrs P1 required)This occured at approx. 25 hrs, and was tremendously confidence/soul destroying for a few hours of flying, and yet the problem disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.
I still havn't worked out why it occured.

[pigboat]

Whew, I thought it was just me. Absolutely no problem in an aircraft, but try and get me to clean the gutters.
The airport at HSP (Hot Springs VA) is on top of a butte, they just graded the top off the mountain and laid the asphalt, as it were. The drop offs on either end must be nearly a thousand feet down to the valley floor. On departure out of there once, just as we flew over the end of the runway, I glanced outside. The sensation was hard to describe, but it was like losing all vertical reference. I could relate to the aircraft climbing, but not the ground falling away. I gave control to the FO, and it took me several minutes before I felt well enough to resume flying. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this before?

[Whirlybird*]

pigboat, yes I get it sometimes to a lesser degree if flying low over mountains in a helicopter. Happened last week between Swansea and Cardiff. The valleys heading north from Cardiff are very steepsided, and when I went from being less then 500 feet above the ground (avoiding low cloud, and no people etc so not breaking any rules) to being about 1500 ft agl - ooooo...felt very strange, didn't like it at all. It was, as you say, the ground falling away that was the problem, as vertical take-offs in a helicopter are lots of fun and don't bother me. Very odd.

Whirly

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To fly is human, to hover, divine.

[Localiser]

And I thought I was the only one! My friends find it most amusing that I am scared of heights! Tall buildings, ladders etc. But I regularly go rock climbing so this backs up the theory of feeling safe because I am secure on the other end of a rope.

Went on a romantic weekend to Paris once. Had to the let my girlfriend go up the Eiffel Tower on her own. Funnily enough, we split up shortly after that....!

LOC :)

[Commander]

Yes - flying low over a cliff, where the ground "falls" is one of the greatest kicks. I have the urge to let passengers enjoy the feeling with me. Unfortunatly they sometimes don't. The same ones usually have a problem with an unsuspected roll :)

[coco-nuts]

Deepbuffet-the theory is correct;regards the fear is really all about falling.My doctor explained it the very same way to me,and also saod that it was a form of vertigo.I still havent conquered it yet and feel very funny when i see peolple on scaffolds etc,but have almost learned to live with it....i say almost! Here i go again ...flight level 350 capt?...no probs!

[UKAR]

I'm the same as everyone else, flying no problem, top of a tall ladder, a bit queasy.

One thing not recommended for the fear of heights is going to the very top of the Eiffel Tower. Nothing but passing girders as you go up in the lift, its especially bad if you happen to be squashed in nearest the doors with the large glass windows. I had my eyes closed most of the way up!

[You splitter]

I'm not a pilot, but my job does involve a lot of jump-seating , postioning and I've sat in on a few C of A tests. Love every minute of it. Spent a weekend in HAM recently. My girlfriend was as nervous as usual on the flight over. We visited a funpark whilst there. She had great fun on the bigwheel. I sat gripping the sides ready to fill my underwear! Weird. I agree it's the mind playing tricks.
With you guys could also be a control thing as well. For example I once heard of a pilot who was a very nervous FLYER if he wasn't the one up front watching the dials!

Anyone else like that?

[alt sel]

Me too:

737, DHC8, Open cockpit ultralight etc = good
Ladder, Roof, Tree, Blackfriars Bridge = bad
Glass roof (CN Tower), Ferris Wheel = Very bad
Rollercoaster = Impossible
Helicopters = unnatural :)

[tunneler]

Dont really bother me at all:-)

Only time I feel a bit wierd is when i have one of those dreams about falling from a great hight - you know the kind?

But the worst ever had to the bungee I did in cyprus - major session the night before, being 150ft barely able to talk was one of lifes interesting little moments - the jump itself was superb though!!!! :)

b
x

[jtr]

No probs sitting at 35,000, but if the cockpit had a glass floor, it would be a different story

[DOC.400]

Gosh -this all sounds very familiar!
It IS the fear of falling for me, and I spent a year surveying for an industrial roofing company -boy did I sweat sometimes -i HATED it.
One up side was winning the contract to re-roof the spectator veiwing area at LHR about 7-8 years ago. It was a VERY hot summer, site meetings followed by some 'plane watching, no problem, and in company time -no prob with heights there!!

[gaunty]

Me too
My Psych mate told me the name of the syndrome which is quite well known, but can't remember it. Anyone?

There are 2 ways to get me unglued,
1 Standing on a tall anything, cliff etc, including those glass elevator thingys and looking down.
I actually whiteknuckled the opening scenes in the movie Cliffhanger and that other one on the Pertamina towers in KL.
2 Any kind of snake.

Found a new version of the dreaded "leans"
Was checking out a very experienced and superb pilot on a new type in the daytime VMC and after a while noticed during the seat swapping that was taking place, every time we banked to the side he was occupying he would lean away from the side window. The last session took place at night, no visual cue of the ground, no lean. At the coffee session after, I asked him if he was aware of the habit, he was not, but had the same feelings discussed here. He was much relieved when I related my feelings and that we were not alone.

[sickBocks]

I've got a particular aversion to that film of John Noakes from Blue Peter at the top of Nelson's Column, can't watch it without getting butterflies in my tummy. Still, cheaper than a roller coaster.

Parachute jumps are odd, I did one from 9000' and was ok in the 20min climb, but as soon as the door was opened, that was it. Very scared. Once we [tandem] exited I was ok - I realised there was bugger all I could do about it, and you don't feel like you're falling anyway (until last 100').

sB

[Snakum]

Oh God ... me too!

If I'm standing on something even as silly as a chair I don't want anyone near me, touch me and I'll freak out. I can't even look at someone else on a ledge, balcony, roof, etc. I get a very strong and quite uncontrollable feeling that I'm gonna' fall if I'm not planted squarely on terra firma.

I've noticed as well, that when I'm doing steeps turns in a high-wing to the left that if I look down I begin to get that same feeling. I wonder if I should stay with software development and forget about getting my CPL? Anyone had it this badly and still wound up flying for a living?

Wannabe With Agoraphobia

[X-QUORK]

I'm not aircrew, but used to spend quite a bit of time in Army helicopters whilst in the forces. Doors open at 500' with legs dangling in the wind was quite a buzz, not too scary.

After leaving the forces I worked for a Telecommunications company and had to climb 200 ft masts - I managed it but it felt bloody horrible. On one occaission, we climbed to 170ft on a foggy day, looked down only to see the mast slowly fade to nothing below me. Looked up to see the same thing - as the mists drifted past it felt as if the whole tower was moving at a few miles an hour !!

Very interesting thread this; has anyone heard of the times when pilots can suddenly freeze up and feel really severe vertigo ?
( Not the leans. I heard this happened to a military pilot. ) Maybe that one's just urban legend.

I'm now happily employed on terra firma - the Ground floor.

[Skycop]

X-Quork,

We once ended up hover-taxying over water in near freezing fog conditions, following a wrongly charted set of wires (which should have stayed over land and allowed us past along the shore). The captain suddenly elected to go over them as he was beginning to lose his visual references over the water. Just as we got over them (about 60 ft agl) we spotted another set ABOVE us. We appeared to be suspended in space with wires above and below.

Laugh? No - I still have bad dreams about it.

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Safety Altitude? We only go that high with 7700 selected..

[a_random]

Some of you guys seem to have had freaky experiences, especially that wire thing, Skycop.

I am also scared of heights, although I am perfectly happy flying at FL50 inverted with a small piece of plastic molding (with 260hp Lycoming) strapped to my back. How I see it is definitely the fear of falling - especially tripping over my own feet. Any edge where the barrier is below waist level gives me the willies. However I climb and occasionally abseil. Fine while I'm on a rope, but going over the edge onto an abseil rope (already attached, but not taking the full weight, so my psche doesn't trust it) scares me s**tless http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/eek.gif

[ehwatezedoing]

What about the fear of height when doing scuba diving, looking down in deep sea........without seeing the bottom floor.

What a strange feeling of a gulp machine http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/confused.gif

I tried one time to beat my fear by passing under the sailing boat.....I found it more scarry.
Maybe I will get used to it after a hundred time, I don't know.

[This message has been edited by ehwatezedoing (edited 27 October 2000).]

[This message has been edited by ehwatezedoing (edited 27 October 2000).]

[snafu]

Yep, me too!

Sitting in the front of a cab at almost any height, aeros in my fixed wing days - no snags!

I'm OK with ladders, tress, gutters etc, but get me near a cliff or any long drop with nothing between me and the edge and I start sweating!! I also felt a bit uncomfortable leaning out of the cargo door trying to grab a HIFR hose at 50ft, even though I knew I had a dispatcher harness attached to the aircraft.

The only time I've got slightly concerned while flying was when we took a cab up to 10000' and the realised that it wasn't fitted with the new ELS gearbox. Time for the gearbox to seize without oil - about 2 or 3 minutes if you're lucky, time to auto from 10k - 4 minutes(ish).....we decided we both preferred flying below 500ft and that was a much more comfortable place to be!

[John Farley]

I’m 100% with deepbuffet.

I have always recognised my problem as a fear of falling. So strap it on your back and all is well.

I still think I will leave the London Eye alone ‘cos it may fall.

[Night Rider]

Hi everyone,

I am an F/O on a fairly large cargo aircraft. Part of our pre-flight checks is to get out on the wings to check fuel and oil levels.

I am scared stiff of these kind of "height's" but I'm fine once I get back in the cockpit!

Fortunatly, the rest of the crew on the fleet are very understanding. I usually do the external walk-around checks while another one of the crew members goes out on the wings.

I'm sure if any of my colleague's reads this they will know who I am ! Thank's for your support guy's.



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Pull back and the houses get smaller - pull back a bit more and the houses get bigger!

[Paterbrat]

Once saw an interesting documentary on babies. It showed babies develop a sense of depth perception at a very early stage. Experiments with humans and animals, they used kittens, showed how when exposed to large dropoffs (protected however by glass sheets) none would venture further over what appeared to be a drop off even if something was placed ahead of them to show them that it was safe to carry on, but would always draw back and refuse to go.
It would appear that we are given an instinctive inbuilt aversion to what could be potentialy lethal situation involving height.
Our various pursuits, hobbies, and in most cases our profession, have all been done in stages. We learned to cope as we went along with altitude and situations where height is involved, but our gut instinct apparently still kicks in at various times to warn us of danger.
(It's not the fall that hurts but the sudden stop at the bottom and I've found that out the hard way, a 24' conical reserve doesn't slow you down very much at all.)
Some of us obviously cope with it better hence the workers on the 'high steel'. I gather that there was a certain tribe of American Indians in the height of the scyscraper era excelled in those sort of jobs. Rather them than me, after all look at what happened to the Flying Walendas

[Blackshift]

Yup, another confession of legs occasionally turning to jelly with regard to heights attached to the ground.

Paterbrat has a point about us overcoming such an aversion "in stages" though : I tried a spot of paragliding a couple of years back, which started out with me clinging to a hillside with barely concealed terror as fearless PepsiMax types swished nonchalantly above giddy head - soon, however, I was leaping off the same hill into the wild blue yonder like any other extreme sports nutter (to the untrained eye, perhaps).

Perhaps it is the subconscious desire to overcome such anxieties which attract us to aviation in the first place?

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Today is a good day for vanity and chasing after the wind.

[This message has been edited by Blackshift (edited 06 May 2001).]

[Mr moto]

Afraid of heights? No.
I'm afraid of widths!

[The African Dude]

Blackshift -

Interesting point there about the natural urge to overcome fear of heights - I've always been of the opinion that I'm afraid of falling (as I'm also not afraid of flying high, just climbing ....trees (for want of an example!) ).

However... any of you lot been to Alton Towers in the past few years and had a go on the 'Oblivion'? Scary as hell - *very* worrying the first time you ride it! But the second you get off, you just want to face the fear over and over again..... human instincts work in strange ways I suppose :rolleyes: :)

All the best.
Andy

[Secret Squirrel]

I'm like Lurkr, don't mind the height as long as you don't take the plate glass window away. In effect I don't like ledges or precipces.

I urge you all to try something which I tried the other day. It scared the sh!t out of me. As I was taking off from LGW there is a small space of time between the gear going up and acceleration when I chanced a look out of the window (right down as opposed to out!) I did get the vertigo but on returning my gaze to the flight deck I got this overwhelming feeling that we were climbing too steeply. A quick glance at the AH reassured me but for a split second I was ready to lower the nose for the driver and I even inhaled sharply through my teeth hissing. The FO wondered what was the matter so I explained it to him later and got him to try it on the next leg.

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Very funny, Scotty. Now beam up my clothes!

[compressor stall]

I LOVE heights... Are there any other pilots out there who rock climb or iceclimb/mountaineer/cave?

For those of you scared of heights - try caving - in particular vertical caves involving abseiling. It is amazing how calm you are on a muddy slippery rock at the top of a 60 metre drop rigging the ropes when you cant see the bottom as it is beyond the reach of your torch beam....

Once spent a memorable night on the North Wall of Mount Buffalo Gorge (it is the right hand cliff in the picture of the Dark Forest of Ewing in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but I digress...). Our second night on the cliff, and it involved sleeping on sloping a foot wide ledge, well tied in harness to the crack at the back, but as I drifted off to sleep, my arm would fall off my chest over the edge and pendulum in space, waking me up as my CoG moved past the lip....

As we were on a slight prow, it was a sheer 600 feet to the rocks below. Wonderful! ;) ;)



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Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.
William Blake

[Meatbomber]

Wow amazing how many folks here share the same fear !

I've got the same problem, a tall ladder / a mountain trail and you can use a crowbar to "unfreeze" me .. Flying an open cockpit glider (SG38 the flying broomstick) or hanging under a parachute canopie no problem whatsoever ..

I've also got another explanation as of why you get this difference between looking downa cliff and flying at the same hight.

It's that your eye can only focus to a certain distance (40m ? can't remember) and after that it's unlimited, that means the feedback your brain gets fom looking out of an aircraft is the distance to the furthes part of the A/C you see, the ground is just background. Now when you look down a cliff the full distanceis reported back to the brain and therfore you get thois F A R down feeling.

dunno if i got that across ;)

MB

[gaunty]

I feel sick, tremble and come over all funny, just watching the opening scenes of "Cliffhanger".
Glass lifts outside the building Yeaaach.
Cleaning the gutters. http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/frown.gif
Grand Canyon looking up from the bottom cool ;)

FL470 no wuckers mate. :)

[FL390]

Well, i think you're all a bunch of wimps! I love wide open spaces, it gives me a sense of freedom!

I also like jumping of very tall buildings without a parachute. :)