I believe i can fly....as long as im not with my mum... (How safe do you feel about flying?)

Member Name: B_O_M_B_A_

Product:	How safe do you feel about flying?
Date:	02/09/08 (215 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Gets you places...

Disadvantages: you hope...

I have to admit that at a young age I was a complete wimp when it came to flying, for months before my holiday I was always extremely excited. It wasn't until around a week before that I remembered I would actually have to fly before I could enjoy the sun, sea and sand.

I do however blame my mother for a lot of this, I particularly remember one flight on the way to Majorca, we were sitting by the fire exit and were given additional covers because it could get 'Breezy'. Now, my mum has always been a worrier and for twenty minutes after that she was asking my dad why it was 'Breezy'. He tried to keep her calm by saying that it's just because the emergency doors seal may not be completely air tight, confirmed later by the air hostess, and was nothing to worry about. The trouble was I was sitting next to her and her being in a state started taking its toll on me.

We did however take off without a hitch, and to be honest I actually always enjoyed that part. The next problem came when we were in mid flight, it was dark outside and the plane had a small orange light on the wing that occasionally flashed, my mum caught a glimpse of this and decided to say in her loudest calm voice "The wing is on fire", now I'm not usually a worrying kind of guy but I have to say that did get me going. Since I have stopped going on flights with my mum however, I actually cope a whole lot better, mainly because I don't have someone in my ear constantly looking out of the windows to make sure the wings are still attached.

I have however come across a few other problems during flights, the first was during a flight to America, due to the high temperatures the air around Florida sometimes produces Air pockets, unfortunately a plane does not cope well In these pockets, apparently the air gets very thin. The pilot warned us about the upcoming pocket and turned on the seat belt sign, as soon as we hit it there was immense turbulence, followed by what I can only call an incredible drop. The plane fell 5000 feet in 10 seconds, I was literally holding onto my chair arm to stop my body shooting upwards. My stomach was left 5000 feet up and I have to say I didn't feel too great afterwards. It also wasn't helped by the 6 people around me who vomited.

My second problem was on a return flight from Benidorm with a few mates; the plane was fairly small in comparison to the American plane and coped poorly in turbulent conditions. As we were approaching England the clouds started to gather and it was quite clear we were going to fly through a storm. As we hit it the plane began to rock violently, I also wasn't comforted by the air hostess who ran down the aisle waving her hands shouting "Put your belts on immediately!!". Luckily I survived to tell the tale, although it did get a bit hairy at some points.

I constantly see on the news and on videos however incidents involving planes both large and small, on occasions the passengers are fine, but occasionally a plane explodes on crash landing and kills everyone. They do however say that flying is the safest form of travel, it depends how you look at it though. More people die in cars because they are in such close proximity, I'm sure if planes flew 2 metres behind each other far more would crash. It is very rarely someone dies because their car just broke down, if however a plane breaks down there isn't a great chance of survival.

I'm not sure what I am more apprehensive of though, whether it's the height I am flying at or the worry that the plane will crash. I do like to feel I am in control and I think that is the same for most people.
To sum up I would say that I have grown to appreciate flying far more, without it there are places I wouldn't be able to visit, like Thailand where I went for my honeymoon. It is now also relatively cheap and as long as you travel with a mainstream airline you are more than likely to be ok. I would therefore conclude that I do feel safe when flying but always have an ear out listening for the time one of the engines stops working...

Summary: Safest way to travel supposedly