{"id":4587,"date":"2017-10-09T14:14:02","date_gmt":"2017-10-09T21:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=4587"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:53","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:53","slug":"191-fear-gulp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/191-fear-gulp\/","title":{"rendered":"#191 Fear (Gulp!)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fear is sure an important factor in our approach to a lot of significant activities.\u00a0 It was a big hurdle for me as a student pilot.\u00a0 I knew I had a fear of heights.\u00a0 My first employment in aviation was as a hot air balloonist.\u00a0 As the balloon gained altitude I always became acutely aware of the height.\u00a0 In fact, I had this fear of the basket\u2019s floor giving way.<\/h3>\n
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My first flying job… Balloon pilot. (\u00a9 The Lansburgh Collection)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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I\u2019d get a funny feeling in my feet, a tingling that betrayed my fear of it giving way and leaving me falling to earth.\u00a0 Later, I\u2019d be apprehensive about aerobatics.<\/h3>\n

Finally I had a talk with myself.\u00a0 Those who know me know that I often have discussions with \u201cmy Goofys\u201d.\u00a0 Let me explain.\u00a0 My Goofy\u2019s are the character Goofy who occupies a place on each of my shoulders.\u00a0 The Goofy on one shoulder is rather angelic, sees the good in everything and is pretty much an old softy.\u00a0 The other Goofy is pretty hard core.\u00a0 He is a bit of a pessimist and has a crusty attitude about everything.\u00a0 Those Goofys no doubt were based on<\/h3>\n
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Pluto was the original cartoon character with a conscience on his shoulder. (\u00a9The Disney Company)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

a Disney device that was used in a Pluto Cartoon.\u00a0 Pluto was faced with the situation of a kitten drowning.\u00a0 Suddenly, he had two Plutos on HIS shoulders, one a devil and the other an angel.\u00a0 Obviously the devil didn\u2019t care if the kitten drowned and the angel urged Pluto to save the kitten.\u00a0 I\u2019ll let you guess how it ended.\u00a0 My Goofys are a real pair of characters.\u00a0 The two never agree on anything, but my decisions are often based on my consultations with those two characters.\u00a0 After discussing my fears of flying with the two Goofys, I pretty much had to shut them out of the process.\u00a0 I realized that if I was gonna crash and die, it wouldn\u2019t make any difference if I was afraid.\u00a0 I\u2019d die anyway.\u00a0 \u201cWhat would be would be\u201d, was pretty much what I came up with.\u00a0 Bingo, my mind was made up.\u00a0 From that moment on, my approach to aviation was realistic and sensible.\u00a0 Sure I had a little fear from time to time.\u00a0 But for the most part I just pressed on and worked on my flying skills.\u00a0 I learned to put a plane\u2019s wheels in water and hydroplane.\u00a0 I learned to loop, roll and hammerhead. \u00a0I even learned how to crash a Cub into a large cardboard box full of ducks.\u00a0 \u00a0I was freed from my irrational fears.<\/h3>\n

I see that same fear in many of my students when we approach the process of spin training.\u00a0 I watch them out of<\/h3>\n
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With its relatively quiet Hovering, the hot air balloon Is a pretty good symbol of A person\u2019s fear of heights. I Used to get a lot of questions about The Cessna Balloon. It was used to Promote a Cessna Dealership. It was actually a Raven balloon. (Photo by Bert Fox, \u00a9 The Lansburgh Collection.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

the corner of my eye.\u00a0 I see their shoulders rise as their level of trepidation increases in formation with the airplane\u2019s angle of attack.\u00a0 They are faced with much the same decision I was so many years ago.\u00a0 Perhaps they simply need to ask themselves, \u201cAm I gonna trust this yayhoo next to me to keep me safe or not? And am I gonna trust this airplane to hold together in this very unnatural maneuver?\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s it in a nutshell.\u00a0 Trust that airplane or not. Trust me or not.\u00a0 If so, let\u2019s go learn something and turn that fear into thrill.\u00a0 If not, either quit flying or find an instructor and an airplane you DO trust.<\/h3>\n

Happy Swooping!<\/h3>\n

Brian<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“As the balloon gained altitude I always became acutely aware of the height.\u00a0 In fact, I had this fear of the basket\u2019s floor giving way.\u00a0“<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[35,59,67,90,173,174],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4587"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}