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.

I get the heebie-geebies when something lends scale to the height I'm at. I would quite cheerfully go up a 10 metre diving-board and dive off outdoors, but try it indoors, when I realised that I was up close to the ceiling of the swimming pool ... :uhoh:

I used to get exactly the same sensation when flying just underneath a high cloudbase with a clear view down to the ground.

Thank you Paper Tiger for explaining the difference. You are right, in my case it is a fear of falling/depth

The comments that the various postings have rekindled memories I'd sooner not had - a hotel in Austin, TX that had the balcony over the inner atrium that scared me everytime I had to walk along it. Also a glass floor in a building that I couldn't walk on, or those suspended walkways in a certain computer company's offices near Heathrow airport (the one used in a Bond film).

I think I'll pop out tomorrow and buy a length of rope & a couple of karabinas (?) so I can keep myself attached to something :)

Falling Dream
 

I don't have any fear of height or falling, but I do get that damn dream where I fall for ages and wake up tense and sweaty.

Rainboe, would never belittle your experiences, but Mt. Kosciusko in Alaska? Google & Wiki bring no results.:suspect:

Have a good friend who suffered terribly from - bathophobia in light of the above - who successfully trained himself to be comfortable at heights, after he was offered his first job, as a TV aerial installer. LOL, poor guy, first couple of months were rough on him.

Cheers,

ABX

Woops you're right! Mt. Alyeska it was! 17 years since going to that lovely place! Kosciusko is the Snowy Mountains, Ozland, isn't it?

Hehehe ...
 

Yep, Mt. Kosciusko is less than a C210 hour from your Sydney experience.

And less than an hour in a 210 from where I live, Albury (ABX)

Cheers,

ABX

I tried to go up the Eiffel Tower a few years ago, got to the first big platform and found that I couldn't look up at the rest of the tower, it made me feel sick. I like many don't like crossing high bridges etc. In 5500 flying hours, height has never bothered me, ever.

I'll echo many of the comments on page one. I'll fly quite happily in a bucket seat, tied by a load of string to a couple of sheets of cloth, 6,000ft above the ground, thermal up some cliff in Snowdonia or the Alps and chat to the people on the cliff but stand me on the edge of that cliff and my reaction will vary somewhere between mild discomfort and near panic.

Since falling out of the sky this March, I have felt more nervous when paragliding close to the ground but that's a relative thing - I've always felt safer the higher I am because you have more time to sort it out; plus there's a realisation, having taken maybe ten mins to thermal to cloudbase, that there's not 6,000ft of nothing between you and the ground but 6,000ft of air.

Cheers,

Rich.

I've got you ALL beat - my palms are sweating just reading this stuff. :ooh:

Get the heebie-jeebies looking up at powerlines or tall construction cranes.

Hate long or tall bridges. Didn't used to bother me... what happened?!?

But put me in business class at the window, ah, that I can do even before cocktail time. Takeoff & landing are fun to watch. I must agree, there's something about being inside and seated that changes one's attitude about altitude, possibly the separation aspect - one is contained.

Cliffs... :eek:

Cheers, y'all. Now must wipe keyboard dry...

I'm beginning to get suspicious that it may just be possible that pilots actually may have a higher fear response to heights than the general population. For some inexplicable reason, sitting in something appears to take the fear response away, but then I know I still feel it, for example, on a high balcony. I had a real problem with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss%C...l_The_Stamford this hotel balcony- being outside up to 73 floors high is freaky. So you can still be 'in' something, yet feel vertigo. So what does the panel think?

I am non-civil RW and hate heights unless I have my Perspex bubble of courage around me. See through cheese steps kill me!!!

I did once go topple when I flew at 20ft AGL off the edge of a 2000ft drop in the Balkans; waffled back to low-level in total turmoil (wished I wasn’t solo and never did it again!!!!!)

Oh, GAWD - now my FEET are flushing!

In downtown Hamburg, there's St. Michaelis Kirche. My wife and a colleague's wife were going up the lift for (what I thought) were Bach recital tickets, but when it opened, there I was, facing Planet Earth from 130 feet, with a short fence and little else. My wife was shocked and our friend totally perplexed at my wish to get the hell out of there, 'cause she had NO idea of my fear of heights (or depths, whichever.) I was as green as copper roofing, and embarassed because school children were running up and down the belltower steps with not a care in the world. Will never forget, and will NEVER go back.

Crouquet fields are nice...

Love flying, in big & small a/c (as pax, not a pilot!), have done bungee jumping, parascending, balloon flights etc. Enjoyed all of it. Don't like very tall ladders (worst thing I saw was Fred Dibnah, steeplejack, leaning backwards two thirds the way up a huge chimney to clamber over a bit of scaffolding), narrow parapets, the thought of walking round on the top of a very tall chimney.

Wouldn't do parachuting unless I had to. Seems to me that I don't mind heights in the slightest if I believe I'm firmly attached to something. Otherwise everything starts to get twitchy. Mrs. B&t really really hates cliff edges where the ground gradually increaases in steepness until you get to the vertical drop. She's always worried she'll start walking on the flattish bit, then won't be able to stop once it gets steeper.....:eek:

There have been several previous threads on this going back to 2001. Most reflect the views above. My old boss on CFS (H) used to speak of his problems with the air test height climb requirement in the Whirlwind 10 - up to 14,000'. He said that the only way he could force himself to do it was to imagine the biggest set of swept wings attached out of sight. Perhaps that was a slightly special case since we were operating at around 60 kts or so and, at that sort of height, it looks as though you are stationary - quite disconcerting!

I have a fear of heights (all the other Kestrels flew off without me :{ )

I have no problems flying, I remember though during my first flights in a 172, PA28, Glider etc momentarily thinking what the hell am I doing up here in this big sky in something that is only marginally wider than myself, it's a long way down. Not real fear rendering me useless, just a passing thought.

I was up in a hot air balloon a few years ago, it was a wonderful experience but I was ready to shoot anyone who made a move and rocked the basket even slightly.


If you want to test your nerves, get yourself climbing a tower crane. Climb up to the cab and ontop of the jib, stand at the middle and look up at remaining part of the tower. You'll see the clouds moving and it will scare the sht out of you faster than you can return to terra firma!

I'd be tempted to try parachuting, whether I'd have the courage to actually jump or not I don't know, but sitting here, I say yes at the minute. Bungee jumping no way!

If I found myself in the Petronas Towers, I suspect I'd sooner go down the stairs, outside, across and up the stairs, rather than step foot on that walkway between them.

Don't get me started on glass lifts on the outside of buildings! Whoever came up with them should be shot.

I can report similar to above posters - terrified of anything above the ground floor windows on a ladder yet will sit with legs out of a Helo all day quite comfortably. Some very interesting explainations so far.

On an aside, when mini was young and in the military he wanted to try out for a shady unit, decided the "regular" elite was not for him as they did the parachute, abseil thing so he joined the underwater mob.

Nine months of hell was tackled only to find that the final day of selection involved a suprise jump off a bridge (20M) into a lake. It probably only took two seconds to hit the water but it felt like a lifetime. I remember thinking about the irony of it on the way down.

15 odd years on as a civvy I still dive, and I have no problems with depths of 60M +, guess I'm not a bathywhatever?

Add my name to the list. When the next inquisition comes, they can dispense with the hot pokers and testicle crushers, just put me in a cable car, and I'll tell everything:eek:

Thanks to Paper Tiger for identifying my phobia as bathophobia, I'd always admitted to acrophobia, which somehow seemed inconsistant with the things that I love to do in aeroplanes:D

Confronting one's greatest fears is good therapy, in the sense that the original poster is conducting a psychological survey, I'm wondering if the wish to confront our fears head-on plays any role in this. Is this different to those who are drawn to occupations which are attractive to a person with fetishes, e.g. I believe that necrophiliacs are drawn to the funeral industry (with apologies to the majority in that industry who are not necrophiliacs).

Regards, Look forward to the research results,

Old Smokey

I'm more than happy being in aircraft, with and without engines at any height or attitude. However, the following scare me fartless: Looking over cliffs; down stairwells in blacks of flats; over balconies etc. Abseiling; Climbing up ladders over ten feet or so; being near the edges of the roofs of buildings and lastly, the most surprising one to me, being in (or is it on?) a "primary" glider - ie. a simple frame with a wing and a seat.

However, I've also had to bail out of a glider and that didn't affect me untill the following day.

PM

Ah, thank god the cable car thing isn't just me. Can't stand the *******, particularly when they stop for a bit and you just...dangle :eek: :eek: :eek:

Not very comfortable when I get beyond the height of the roof of my house......I guess that is about as far as I would care to fall. Been flying 36 years and never an issue in the airplane. Doesn't even enter the brain it seems. Thought for a long time that it was perhaps a question of "being in control" but suddenly dawned on me one day that it isn't an issue when riding in the back either. Moved on to a theory of being in an "enclosed" vessel but that doesn't work out either as I can go up in an open cockpit and the willies don't raise their head but can have that feeling standing against the window of a tall building.....so not sure what is at play.

My money's with mini.

I do the civil helicopter thing as winch operator/cargo sling crew and once or twice as the dope on the rope:eek: . Getting me out the door on that suddenly very thin cable was in hindsight quite funny but at the time anything but. :mad: :mad:
I can sit with my feet out the door with no problems as I am tied to the aircraft, but a 4 step ladder is eneough to give me a cold sweat. As for skyscrapers etc......forget it!:yuk: