I have never flown very well and often have panick attacks. I get very travel sick and often spend the flight with ear plugs in and a cover over my eyes. I have never let it stop me from flying as i want to see as much as I can.

I am so glad that I am not alone!!!
I used to be OK flying when I was younger, then I didnt get in a plane for over 10 years and the first time I got in one after that lay-off period I turned to jelly.

I'm going to look at that link to the fear of flying website that was posted earlier on. I will try ANYTHING to get over this silly fear.
I have no idea what brought it on, cos as I say I was fine when younger.

Do what I do get drunk fall asleep and wake up at other end no problem

I always thought I was alone! but its really good to realise that there are more people out there that are as frightened as I am about flying.
The biggest problem I have is that I have never flown before (neither have my two boys), this will be our first ever flight and I'm not sure what to expect

Thanks for all your suggestions. Think I may go with lots of drugs and drink.

thats what i did only i took a sleeping tablet as well

not that bothered about flying but on the way back from brisbane,about an hour into the flight i had a bit of a panic attack!i said to oh " i can't do this for another 11 hours,started hyperventilating and everything!!was so close to asking hostess to stop the plane!!(and i'm not joking) but then i told myself to wise up, get another drink and u'll be fine.so here i am writing this today and laughing a what an eejit i was

I'm gonna sound like right one here!

Someone said in the thread they can't stop thinking about a flight a few days before they get on a plane, since the idea of moving to oz has been in our head the thing I fear the most is not moving thousands of miles away from rellies or not knowing absolutely anyone in oz anywhere, it's the flight!

I don't worry about being in strange land where everything is different, nah, I worry about getting there!

Our flights are booked for 19th july and I'm slowly thinking well i'm on it and thats it. Like some other posters I've been superstitious about it thinking sh** the 19th july mmmmm it's got a ring to it! - it's nuts! mm mm!

I have never bothered about flying before I had my kids and I would be ok flying on my own but I just fear if a situation occurred, well it's unimaginable I know!

On a more sound mind it's true, planes are safe and are maintained as are the crew. I worked for Monarch Airlines and Easyjet for years in the crewing department and have been in cock pits many times, pilots are tested in the simulator and cabin crew go on refresher courses every year. So many people fly so many hours............

Chins up to all of us! Give me spiders anyday!

Carmel

Even though I’m not afraid of flying, I do tend to get a little apprehensive just before a flight, and I even found myself a few weeks ago, when we were flying Brisbane to Gatwick, I was monitoring the same flight we would be on up to 2 weeks before our flight to make sure it landed safely. Silly eh! I just think to myself of the thousands of flights around the world that take off and land safely every day, you’re more likely to be run over by a bus crossing the street!

Commercial flying is actually potentially quite dangerous. Not as dangerous as rock climbing, driving to the shops or patting an unfamiliar dog, though.

What makes it incredibly safe in relation to just about everything else that we all do without thinking about it, is the extraordinary emphasis on safety, procedures, testing and retesting, constant ongoing research and investigation etc etc.

One of the bylines is "Safety is no accident".

Millions of highly qualified and trained designers, engineers, logistic specialists, crew and so on have only one objective: a safe operation. You probably have no idea of the degree to which the industry goes to achieve this, or the regulation which governments and the industry itself impose on aircraft manufacture and operations.

If a millionth of the effort and discipline that is involved in airline operations were to be applied to say road transport then perhaps one fatality per ten years on UK roads would be the norm, instead of 3500 per annum - and perhaps only a couple of thousand people would be licenced to drive based on ability and psychological profile!

So don't even think about the safety aspect, unless you worry about getting on a bus or getting hit by lightning. If claustrophobia is the problem I can't help - but C2H5OH probably is as good as anything else!

Correct. When a big bird goes down your toast. That is something I like about flying the small planes. If I lose the engine I can still land it safely on a road or in a field. Although the commercial pilots do a lot of work preparing for a disaster what usually determines you surviving is if they panic or not.

You guys really know how to reassure a person.

I used to be PETRIFIED of flying, to the extent that we almost cancelled our reccy. The thought of flying that distance to Oz scared me silly.

People told me to try hypnotherapy, but I dismissed it as I am a total sceptic about those types of things.

Anyway, desperation saw me book a session. The first session was about regression - trying to find the trigger in your past that made me scared. This I would say was what I though 'typical' hypnosis would be. I wasnt convinced it had done any good. I then had a second session where we did something called positive mental reharsal. That was fantastic. Basically, I was talked into a relaxed mood and then talked through the whole flight - from leaving the house, through check in and onto the plane, and all the time being told that I felt good, and excited and relaxed etc. This was to try and make it so that when we did go through the journey I would be thinking those thoughts, and not the anxious thoughts I would normally automatically think.

I tell you what - I absolutley loved the flights, I wasnt just no longer scared - I actually enjoyed the whole thing. There and back.

I cant recomend this enough to anyone that has a fear of flying. Look on the internet for a local therapist, I looked for one that was registered to work on the NHS as there are a lot of unregulated therpists our there that have had no proper training. Give one a call and ask them about mental rehersal. I thought it was fantastic.

I make no comment about "davdah's" toast-post. However, I do think that most people are grownup enough to make rational choices when the facts are presented to them, and the fact is that being in an airplane doing 500mph at 6 miles altitude is more risky than standing in a field. But then so is crossing a road with traffic on each side. Or boiling a kettle.

The real fact is that the airline industry is incredibly tightly regulated, overseen and operated, and this makes it far and away more safe than virtually every other method of transport.

I can't remember where I came across a site giving numbers of fatalities due to thousands of seemingly innocous activities - such as getting out of bed, and tying your shoelaces - but it's quite unbelievable how many die each and every year just, well - living!

Now an astronaut - *that's* dangerous travel for you!

Yeah, my daughter wants to be one:

She'd better hurry up then - I think the shuttle only has a dozen or two more flights!