Sitting strapped in in the back of a Whirlwind, feet dangling out of the door as we flew back to Kai Tak over the New Territories of Hong Kong (mainly open country in those days) I was happy as a sandboy.
All of a sudden we were over the built up area of Kowloon with skyscrapers seeming to rise up to meet us. I was immediately terror struck and crawled back into the far corner of the cabin.
Totally illogical, as a 1,000 foot drop onto open country would have had the same result as dropping into a street or building, but my brain just didn't seem to see it that way
When I was flying in the back of a Victor tanker I don't ever remember feeling scared, but about once a week I had what I understand is a common "anxiety " dream - being flown at low level a few feet above the ground, going underneath power cables etc and in imminent danger of crashing. When I left the RAF this dream stopped and I have only had rare recurrences over the years
Odd dream for me, our flying was very rarely anywhere near the ground - on tankers we considered FL250 as low level!