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2 Answers

Nerves/Confidence

Asked by: 2064 views Flight Instructor, General Aviation, Instrument Rating, Private Pilot, Student Pilot

Good afternoon,

 

My question is how do you get over the nerves of flying?  I am a Private Pilot with 273 hours.  I do want to move forward with my flying career but the psychology of flying is getting to me.  Is this a lack of confidence or just fear.  I waited until late in life to start my flying.  I have been in aviation for over 25 years and have always wanted to be a pilot.  Within that amount of time I have lost several friends to aircraft accidents.  I think this is my biggest problem right now.  Is there anyway to get this out of my head permanently?

 

Thank you,

 

John

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2 Answers



  1. KDS on Apr 20, 2018

    That’s not necessarily such a bad thing. The folks who scare me the most are the ones who have no fear.

    I guess some of it has to do with where your head is while you’re flying. Just as an example, I was on the controls in a crewed helicopter. I started talking about the mechanics of what held the parts together (e.g. the “Jesus nut”). I started giving myself the heebie jeebies talking about the things that could go wrong (and a helicopter has a lot of those). The other pilot looked over at me and said “let me take the controls for a while”. I turned the controls over to him and then he said “now, shut your door”. He said I had gotten myself so wound up thinking about what could go wrong that he didn’t want to take a chance what might happen if he told me I also had my door unlatched.

    There is a balance between getting yourself so worked up that the other pilot doesn’t want to tell you that your door is unlatched and having no fear at all.

    Having been in aviation and having seen things go wrong as you have is actually a benefit. Why did those things go wrong? How did those people get hurt? Find the answers and don’t let that happen. A key part of aviation safety is reviewing accident.

    You may have heard this famous quote from Will Rogers:

    “There are three kinds of men. The ones that learn by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”

    I spent way too much of my life being that third kind. Now, I’m an avid student of aviation mishaps. I want to learn what other people learned the hard way and ensure that I take steps to not let that happen to me. With your experience, you can do that same thing. That way, when you’re flying, you can say to yourself “I know what got other people hurt and I took every reasonable measure to ensure that wasn’t going to happen to me”. After that, you just enjoy being able to do what very few people in this world know how to do. Safely fly an aircraft.

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  2. Jflyinpc12 on Apr 22, 2018

    KDS,

    Thank you so much for your response. It is very nice to get a upfront and professional answer to my question. I hope that I can take the knowledge that I have learned and apply it like you are.

    Thanks

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