Fear of heights
 

As part of my psychology research, I'm trying to establish the extent and severity of 'fear of heights' amongst aviators, both professional and non-professional. I've heard a fair amount of anecdote that suggests it's more common than might be expected. Anybody prepared to offer an opinion please?

I'm certainly nervous of heights, and I have been known to aviate.

I'm with Farmer1 on this one, I think it's the vertical views that get me.

Looking over cliff edges and building parapets gives me the eebie-jeebies -I was ok on the Empire State Building til I looked over & straight down.

I'm a student nppl, turning left and looking straight down takes a bit of swallowing too, but I enjoy the flying and have no problems with the height otherwise.

In an aircraft I have no fear whatever of heights in routine or aerobatic flight, dual or solo, but I hate to look over the parapet of a tall building, so I stay well away from them.

I have tried many times to climb the steps to the top of the Scott Monument in Edinburgh, but never made it. There is a big hotel in Atlanta, GA, that was new in the late 1960s. The rooms were reached by galleries round an indoor atrium. Just awful. I also stayed in a similar hotel in Hong Kong. Also awful.

The head office of The Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank in Hong Kong is the same, only worse, being clad wholly in glass. I had to go there once. Never again. I can get the tall building malaise on looking at those classic 1930s stills of workmen enjoying a sandwich on the high steel in Manhattan. Not for me.

Anything above about 8ft scares the proverbial out of me on a ladder, otherwise I don't recall ever having a problem with height.

Echo above fears. Looking down a cliff, tall building (=tall enough so it will hurt if you fall ~20ft) and additionally cable cars, rollercoasters. 500hr ppl, aero and night ratings. About 30hr in gliders, 3 in an R22 chopper.Sometimes strap the back seat of an airliner to my butt, no issues with height there.
Would NEVER bungee jump, or leap out of an aircraft with a piece of silk attached to my posterior, unless I knew the imminent crash was going to be unsurvivable, and I actually had a 'chute. A situation that would never happen in real life.
Occasionally the feeling of vertigo looking down from a tall object is strong enough to cause slight dizziness/stomach churning.Sometimes it's hardly evident.

I can look out the window of my aircraft but i cannot look over the edge of a cliff or even climb to the top of a ladder without getting nervous.

There is usually confusion between acrophobia, popularly defined as fear of heights and bathophobia which is the fear of depth. What most people call acrophobia is actually a fear of falling from a height, not of simply being at a height. This is more closely aligned to bathophobia since it is the depth (height) of the fall which scares the **** out of sufferers.
As others say, if you step back from the edge or don't look down then the fear subsides; so it isn't the mere fact of being elevated, it's the possibility of a PLUNGE (ta-da ! :eek: ) from that elevation.

I doubt a true acrophobe could be a pilot, but no problem for a bathophobe - just don't try any wingwalking.

Personal aside: my worst nightmares usually involve being stuck on a narrow ledge/flagpole/scaffold. Mrs Tiger usually wakes me with a judicious elbow as I grab her in a death grip :ouch:

Agree with a lot of the guys above. Hours and hours in an aircraft, height never an issue. Climb a tall building/tower/bridge etc and the rear end starts to twitch.

Strangely, I experienced the same feeling once while in an aircraft. I was orbiting over a cooling tower on the south bank of the Mersey and decided to look down inside it. Instantaneously I remember feeling extremely glad I was not standing at the top of it, yet as soon as I looked away from it at anything else the feeling totally disappeared. It was one of the most bizarre experiences, and I'd recommend that other people see what effect this sort of thing has on them.

I've come to the conclusion that if I'm enclosed, ie. in an aircraft, on the London Eye, actually inside a building then I feel safe and secure, whereas if I feel exposed to the potential of a fall then I start to be concerned - probably 'bathophobia' in light of the above.

Echo the above. Nearly 20,000 flying hours with never a twinge of height fear, but tall hotel balconies and cliff tops set me off. In Alaska at Mt. Kosciusko, I had to walk on a coll- a high ridge that stretched between 2 peaks. It became just a path with a fallaway on both sides. I suddenly had to get on my knees and try and turn around and crawl back. Very hard to turn- felt terrible. Couldn't go on. I felt if I tried standing I would just fall over. Decided mountaineering was not for me, ever! Skiing seems somehow easier, but still scary.

Got to agree with all the above. I've flown open cockpit aircraft and gliders, aeros, etc without any problem, but completely freak out with Tall buildings, and cliffs. Strange though it may seem I can drive across bridges but couldn't walk near the edge. Telling me somethings been up for 50 years just doesn't help. I can just about climb a ladder to paint our upstairs windows but you can almost see my finger impressions on the ladder! Always used to use docking for working on tailplanes or delegated!
Mrs Mike Echo thinks it all a bit strange.

it strikes me reading this thread that most pilots seem to feel the same way about edges, heights, ( except in a plane ) ridges and ledges...or is that ( apart from those who are afraid of flying ) just normal..:confused: :confused:

i've been flying thirty something years...and resisted attempts by others ( both istrructing and examining ) to kill me:eek: ..but just reading about the ridges and ledges in this thread gives me the willies...:eek: :eek: ..

mind you i can tolerate ladders up to two stories high...:eek: ..but only just about..

the dean.

I even get uncomfortable looking up at high objects e.g. sailing below cliffs, especially if there is someone on the top.

The only time I have noticed height from an aeroplane is when I look down flying over a TV mast e.g. Wenvoe

Took my kids to some cliffs south of Sydney. Very sharp, vertical granite cliffs, but not very high. I tried to crawl to the edge and look over. Had to get right down and crawl towards the edge- I felt such vertigo I felt I could have lost my balance and gone over- and that was lying down! I don't know how rock climbers do it- I just keep away! Never understood how being upside down in an aeroplane can be so easy (particularly if your instrument flying isn't very good!), but 80 feet on a balcony or cliff can freak you. I used to keep so quiet about this until I discovered many other pilots were similar!

I get a dry mouth if I climb a ladder or a tree, and once I'm 6' above the ground, I can feel myself start to sweat. It's not pleasant.

But I'm happy to fly a light aeroplane, I've parachuted, I've climbed up the side of a quarry, I've absailed down tall buildings, I've jumped up and down on the glass floor of the CN tower in Toronto, all with no problem. :}

It took me about 30 minutes of internal turmoil to walk onto that glass floor in the CN tower.... and there was no way I was going to jump on it, or even look down for longer than 2 seconds.

Joe :O

I have always been led to believe that fear of heights (vertigo?) is only noticeable when you are connected to the ground via a structure etc. Only once have I felt vertigo when flying & that was when I looked down the launch cable whilst being winch launched in a "Primary" glider; releasing the cable & all became fine again.
Went up the CN Tower many years ago, my 4' tall cousin stared at my terrified look as I backed up against the wall as the lift shot through the building's roof where you get in the lift & muttered aloud "scarred of heights are we?" soooo embarrassed!

are those who fly but fear heights good pilots?and how do you curtail such fears?

personally, have never been scared!

If you read what's been written above, you will see the answer is that the two don't seem to be related. Whether they are good pilots depends on everything else - aptitude, experience, decision making, all the normal stuff. I don't get your implication?

general theme of earlier submissions seems to be that people ( if i understand it correctly )are not afraid of heights when flying ( altitude ) ...but they may have a fear of heights ( when attaches to something solid )...


so i think the answer to your question seems to be that...fear of heights per se has nothing to do with flying..( that is unless you fall..!!!:} )

dean.