37000 feet

[meaiok]

For those of us who are dealing with fears of being stuck at such heights as 37000, what can you tell us to put this into perspective. For a lay person, the thought of being that far up, with no place to go, is mighty daunting! How do you view it?
Thanks so much for all of your help and taking the time to help us fearful fliers:)

[Barb-SAN]

Here's an additional question...since you (Capt. Hutch) spend so much time cruising at that altitude, "suspended" in space. Do you ever get spooked by thoughts of the enormity of the universe, and how tiny the earth is, and how it's spinning in space, revolving around the sun, and if we're really alone? etc. etc. Seems like sitting up there in the cockpit at night, there might be lots of time to think about those things......when you aren't monitoring the radio and running your checklists...and discussing sports with your co-pilot.:)

[CAflyer]

Barb that is a whole other issue :) Sometimes I am just sitting here and I think, " Weird, all that dark space out there around us!" And that leads to all these other kinds of thoughts about space. Astronomy class was one of the spookiest classes ever!

Maybe one day we won't just have a fear of flying board we will have a fear of flying into space board for the future when we are flying form planet to planet :)

[Captain Hutch]

meaiok et al,

You all have touched on a variety of subjects on which I have all thought about for quite a while.

At night cruising above the highest cloud layer I love to view the astronomical phenomena and contemplate our (man's) place in the universe (when we're not running a checklist of course or talking about sports!)

37 thousand feet isn't so bad to get down from--our emergency descent procedures are clear and basically the idea is the obvious, get down as quickly as possible. We practice getting on the oxygen mask as soon as possible since the time of useful consciousness at that sort of altitude is not long, maybe less than a minute depending on the person and how they feel that day. As a passenger I would think about how I would put that mask on as soon as it dropped from the overhead panel.

That being said: because 1) I studied background gamma radiation when I was getting my physics degree, 2) I fly several flights a week, and 3) am ultraconservative relative to exposure to UV and high energy radiation (gamma rays), I don't like flying at altitudes much above 30,000 feet. I don't know a single other pilot who has this attitude that I have, but as I said, I am on the ultra-conservative side.

But, as you can see, these reasons have little to do with actually getting down from 37,000', so I believe from your question, this would be the area that you are concerned about.

Hope this helps,

Hutch :tiphat: