Whilst flying per se never actually frightened me, though I frightend myself and the talking ballast a few times, I have to confess to a real fright, if not absolute terror, of the ejection seat.
From the first time I sat on one in a Jet Provost T3 to my last ever toom flight I was constantly afraid of the thing, nervous of it, with a strong but thankfully well suppressed urge to pull the handle. This “urge” was deep in my physicy and was at it’s very worst about an hour before I clambered onboard and an hour afterwards. Whilst bothered by the explosive violent nasty things, at least when airborne I had a lot to distract me and to relegate the terror to a nagging uncomfortableness at the back of my mind. But just before and after I hated the idea of sitting on one and fixated on pulling the handle.
Oddly, and deeply ironically, after a gap of flying post RAF I went for a flight with a friend in a Cessna 150 and can even now recall the horrible and uncomfortable realisation, as we crossed the upwind threshold, that as I had no ejection seat, if something went wrong I was riding it down with no escape.
Never felt that way in an airliner or biz jet though.
Danny42c,
A fascinating question that raises many many more, as a subject for study and debate.