Cure for Acrophobia???
- Thread starter vontresc
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ScottM
Taxi to Parking
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iBazinga!
My niece is coming to visit next month and one of the things we were thinking of doing was going to the Sears Tower to try those out. I get the willies being up that high in a building and looking down. But I am perfectly fine in an airplane. I don't know why the difference though.
wbarnhill
Final Approach
You and me both. I'll fly all day and love it, but try to have me climb a tower or something and I'll go "WTF are you nuts?" I think it's the safety factor. There's a severely unlikely chance that a plane is going to simply lose its wings and plummet at a godawful speed to my death. The chance of my slipping off a roof or falling off a tower after a D-ring failed is slightly greater.
tonycondon
Gastons CRO (Chief Dinner Reservation Officer)
i think the difference is that you have a floor underneath you and a fairly enclosed space around you when you are in an airplane. I flew a super-floater ultralight glider once, climbed to about 150 feet behind MM's car and then landed. I definitely got the sensation of height.
fgcason
En-Route
That's up there with the Grand Canyon Skywalk.
If you want a cure for heights, a friends dad back on college had the ultimate solution. A step stool would freak him out to no end and was having his kids get stuff off out of reach shelves. He also couldn't stand water on his face either, like the water hitting his face in a shower, and don't even think about sticking his head underwater.
At one point he said "that's it, I'm done with this heights and water thing. I've got to get over this." Less than a year later he was parachuting into the ocean with scuba gear.
If you want a cure for heights, a friends dad back on college had the ultimate solution. A step stool would freak him out to no end and was having his kids get stuff off out of reach shelves. He also couldn't stand water on his face either, like the water hitting his face in a shower, and don't even think about sticking his head underwater.
At one point he said "that's it, I'm done with this heights and water thing. I've got to get over this." Less than a year later he was parachuting into the ocean with scuba gear.
tonycondon
Gastons CRO (Chief Dinner Reservation Officer)
It wasn't Matt's. It was one of his friends. He took my trailer to Arizona to get it, we assembled it and flew it a little, but then he moved to Hawaii. It was kinda fun to fly. Matt took a tow with it behind the supercub. I was flying the supercub, as slow as I could. It was still too fast, he was hanging on for dear life. that was the only time we aerotowed it. really needs to be pulled with an ultralight. It'd be an easy glider to gravity launch at Harris Hill
Teller1900
En-Route
I'm the exact same. I hate the tops of buildings, the tops of ladders, the tops of chairs, etc. But, flying at any speed or any altitude, and I'm fine. Every non-pilot seems shocked when I tell them I'm afraid of heights, but I think Tony's explanation is dead on.
That said, I've been to the top of the CN Tower in Toronto, which has huge windows in the floor, and it most decidedly did not cure my fear of heights!
flyingcheesehead
Taxi to Parking
I've gotten the height-willies in an airplane only once - I was flying in IMC in winter at night and had the landing lights on to help keep an eye out for ice. They're in the left wing on the 182, so they're shining right through the leading edge.
However, there is some light "leakage" at the top and bottom as well, and so there's a sliver of light that points nearly straight down. The IMC was mostly mist and not clouds, so the sliver of light disappeared into the big dark void below me and really showed a new perspective on how we're pretty much hanging from a thread up there in the sky...
