My wife getting scared

This is the same approach the the King's have been pushing for a couple of
years. Flying is dangerous (as is crossing the street). Denying the danger
by citing safety stats is not addressing the inherent risks.

Dudley's advice is right on. Convince her that you are aware of the risks
and dangers and that you work proactively to avoid them. That doesn't mean
that you will fly forever but it does increase the odds. Nothing in life is
risk free. There are many people who have a similar experiences related to
other activites. Entire families that are killed in a car crash. Tornadoes
wipe out entire towns. Etc.

That and, gosh honey, maybe we should spend the money for a twin engine
plane and put in a stormscope and a better autopilot and a ...

--
-------------------------------
Travis
Lake N3094P
PWK
"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
...
Paul Tomblin wrote:
I've been a pilot for 12 years now. I've been married (this time) for
10.
Three years ago, the DE who passed me on my private and instrument
tickets
died in a stupid accident. My wife had met him a few times at flying
club
dinners and around the airport. A few weeks ago, a club member who she'd
also met several times died in his float plane, a plane that I'd flown in
a few weeks before that. He died with his best friend, a former club
member who I knew a bit but whom my wife didn't.

Now that two people she's met have died flying in a relatively short
period of time, she's getting less and less secure about my own flying.
Every time I head out to the airport, she gives me the talk. "Be
careful.
Don't die. If you have the slightest doubt, come back." Etc. And so
on.

I don't think she'll tell me to stop, because she knows I was a pilot
before we married. But what can I do to reassure her? The pilot
community is pretty small, and losing three people associated with our
little club is pretty scary for her.

At one time, I thought when the kids were finished college I'd finally
have enough money to buy a share in a float plane and we could have some
adventures together. Now I'm not even sure she'd come flying in a club
plane.


During the fifty odd years I've been involved in professional aviation;
most of that teaching in and flying high performance airplanes I've buried
32 of my friends and associates. My wife was with me through forty of
those years and knew many of these people personally.
I've dealt with this issue both in my own home and as an adviser to
others.
I can tell you this in all sincerity and honesty.
I realize you might not be involved in high risk aviation so what I am
about to say to you might even be easier for you in your personal
situation as a pleasure pilot.
I believe I have looked at this issue from enough directions and have
enough experience with it that you might want to give serious
consideration to my advice.
When it comes to handling something like this with a loved one, you can of
course attempt to convince your wife you will be safe based on the
favorable statistics you can go dig up that say general aviation is a safe
pastime.
But my advice is to use this approach but with a caveat.
Forget using the statistics alone without additional input from you as
that road to convince a loved one is filled with pot holes.


In order to reach your wife, don't down play the dangers involved with
flying, as she is already convinced of a potential danger and has seen
what can happen when things go wrong.

The best way to handle these issues is to start immediately to convince
her that rather than denying any danger exists, you are completely aware
of the potential for danger in flying and are capable of avoiding that
danger by the way you approach the issue of flying.

In other words, what you want to accomplish here is to convince your wife
that YOU PERSONALLY are an aware pilot with a professional attitude that
is highly tuned in to the avoidance of areas of danger when you fly.
What you want to do is steer your wife into thinking of you as a pilot
separated from other pilots. You need to have her consider you
INDIVIDUALLY as competent and professional instead of viewing you as just
another pilot among many. It's the thinking about a large group where some
get hurt or killed that frightens loved ones. Once she looks at you
individually, she will realize that you PERSONALLY are aware of danger and
competent enough to stay away from it.
She will feel better knowing that.

All this having been said, there is nothing cast in stone that will solve
these kinds of issues. Accidents happen and pilots get killed once in a
while. What it boils down to is that YOU are the only one who can address
this issue with a loved one. It takes tact and it takes understanding, but
most of all it means recognizing her fears as legitimate instead of down
playing them with safety statistics.
Bring her into your world as a pilot more than you have and let her know
that above all else, you are aware....and you are a SAFE pilot.
Hope this advice has been of some help.
DH


--
Dudley Henriques

I'll echo Dudley.. and add .. let her see that you are actively staying up
to speed to remain safe
- get on the faa mailing list and attend local pilot safety meetings
- attend AOPA safety meetings.. take their on line courses
- take a weather course..
- add that next rating.. a commercial rating is the simplest to add.. a new
rating means "additional training received".
- don't wait for a sunny day and decide to go flying.. pick a day two to
three weeks out.. and then if the weather is bad or something "just is not
right"... make the decision not to go and let her know why you decided that
it was not a good day to fly.. maybe it was just because you had a "bad day"
at the office the day before.. and "your mind was not in the game"..
remember and practice IMSAFE

BT


"Paul Tomblin" wrote in message
...
I've been a pilot for 12 years now. I've been married (this time) for 10.
Three years ago, the DE who passed me on my private and instrument tickets
died in a stupid accident. My wife had met him a few times at flying club
dinners and around the airport. A few weeks ago, a club member who she'd
also met several times died in his float plane, a plane that I'd flown in
a few weeks before that. He died with his best friend, a former club
member who I knew a bit but whom my wife didn't.

Now that two people she's met have died flying in a relatively short
period of time, she's getting less and less secure about my own flying.
Every time I head out to the airport, she gives me the talk. "Be careful.
Don't die. If you have the slightest doubt, come back." Etc. And so on.

I don't think she'll tell me to stop, because she knows I was a pilot
before we married. But what can I do to reassure her? The pilot
community is pretty small, and losing three people associated with our
little club is pretty scary for her.

At one time, I thought when the kids were finished college I'd finally
have enough money to buy a share in a float plane and we could have some
adventures together. Now I'm not even sure she'd come flying in a club
plane.

--
Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/
...I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply
suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an
interpreter. -- Nick Petreley

I like that approach. When the day comes that the weather is right and the
rest of IMSAFE, she'll have a hard time stopping you. She'll feel so sorry
for all the times you didn't go. For that matter, I may just start planning
to fly every day... Think of the sympathy points!

--
-------------------------------
Travis
Lake N3094P
PWK
"BT" wrote in message
...
I'll echo Dudley.. and add .. let her see that you are actively staying up
to speed to remain safe
- get on the faa mailing list and attend local pilot safety meetings
- attend AOPA safety meetings.. take their on line courses
- take a weather course..
- add that next rating.. a commercial rating is the simplest to add.. a
new rating means "additional training received".
- don't wait for a sunny day and decide to go flying.. pick a day two to
three weeks out.. and then if the weather is bad or something "just is not
right"... make the decision not to go and let her know why you decided
that it was not a good day to fly.. maybe it was just because you had a
"bad day" at the office the day before.. and "your mind was not in the
game".. remember and practice IMSAFE

BT


"Paul Tomblin" wrote in message
...
I've been a pilot for 12 years now. I've been married (this time) for
10.
Three years ago, the DE who passed me on my private and instrument
tickets
died in a stupid accident. My wife had met him a few times at flying
club
dinners and around the airport. A few weeks ago, a club member who she'd
also met several times died in his float plane, a plane that I'd flown in
a few weeks before that. He died with his best friend, a former club
member who I knew a bit but whom my wife didn't.

Now that two people she's met have died flying in a relatively short
period of time, she's getting less and less secure about my own flying.
Every time I head out to the airport, she gives me the talk. "Be
careful.
Don't die. If you have the slightest doubt, come back." Etc. And so
on.

I don't think she'll tell me to stop, because she knows I was a pilot
before we married. But what can I do to reassure her? The pilot
community is pretty small, and losing three people associated with our
little club is pretty scary for her.

At one time, I thought when the kids were finished college I'd finally
have enough money to buy a share in a float plane and we could have some
adventures together. Now I'm not even sure she'd come flying in a club
plane.

--
Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/
...I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply
suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an
interpreter. -- Nick Petreley

Drive faster. my wife worries more about me getting killed on th eway to
the airport.


Bertie

On Oct 1, 3:58 pm, (Paul Tomblin) wrote:
I've been a pilot for 12 years now. I've been married (this time) for 10.

Stupid question, but does your wife fly with you? Do you actively
involve her in your flying, or is she completely dis-interested.

Sometimes, it's kinda like air-sickness, if your passenger is quezey,
get them on the stick for a bit - perhaps if you could get your wife
more involved, you could both enjoy it.

AIDS (Aviation Induced Divorce Syndrome) is a fairly common affliction
unfortunatly, you may need to take some preventative action sooner
rather than later.

In a previous article, James Sleeman said:
On Oct 1, 3:58 pm, (Paul Tomblin) wrote:
I've been a pilot for 12 years now. I've been married (this time) for 10.

Stupid question, but does your wife fly with you? Do you actively
involve her in your flying, or is she completely dis-interested.

She flies with me if we're going somewhere she wants to go. But 90% of
the time if I'm just going for the sake of flying, she doesn't want to go.
I used to drag her along, and she'd read a book or fall asleep.


--
Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/
"I've gone through over-stressed to physical exhaustion -- what's next?"
"Tuesday."
-- Simon Burr and Kyle Hearn

She flies with me if we're going somewhere she wants to go. But 90% of
the time if I'm just going for the sake of flying, she doesn't want to go.
I used to drag her along, and she'd read a book or fall asleep.

Hey, that's the highest compliment a passenger can pay you.

(They can't sleep if they're terrified... ;-)

I have dealt with this fear from many angles. In fact, now it is ME
who is scared, when my only son goes up for a lesson, so the shoe is
truly on the other foot.

With my wife, Mary, the best thing I could have done was to get her
interested in flying. Once SHE had "the bug", there was no way she
could sit on the ground and worry -- she was right there with me.
This, of course, doesn't solve the very real problem of risk and risk
avoidance that comes with flying -- but it makes our marriage more
comfortable.

Our families have always been worried about us flying, especially when
we fly while our kids are in school. I must admit that Mary and I had
long, involved discussions over the wisdom of this practice (required
because our "weekends" are Wed/Thu, so if we want to fly it's going to
be during their school day), and it's not always been easy to
discuss.

Our "worst case scenario" is imagining what would happen to our kids
if we simply went up on a Wednesday and didn't come back. None of
our family lives in Iowa, so the kids would be on their own throughout
the ordeal that would inevitably follow an accident -- and this is
simply not something any parent would wish on their kids.

This fear has faded somewhat, now that our kids are teenagers. When
they were in elementary school, Mary was VERY uncomfortable flying
without them (for some reason it's okay WITH them, which is pretty
odd, if you analyze it too much), because of the awful prospect of
them waiting a day or two for relatives to arrive.

On the plus side, this fear has made us VERY meticulous and careful
pilots. Preflights are NEVER omitted, fuel tanks are ALWAYS filled,
gas is ALWAYS tested, maintenance is ALWAYS done. Still, we all know
that "**** happens", and we could become statistics at some point.

I always fall back on two facts that comfort me:

1. You can either live, or wait to die. It's up to you.

2. Mary and I could be killed driving on the highway any day of the
week.

Life is a terminal condition. No one is getting off of this planet
alive. It's up to each of us to make the best of our time here, and
-- in my world -- that means flying.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:
This fear has faded somewhat, now that our kids are teenagers. When
they were in elementary school, Mary was VERY uncomfortable flying
without them (for some reason it's okay WITH them, which is pretty
odd, if you analyze it too much), because of the awful prospect of
them waiting a day or two for relatives to arrive.

I don't think that's odd, Jay. No parent wants anything bad to happen to
their kids, and most would give their own lives to save their children;
but there's also a purely gut instinct that if anything's going to
happen, you hope you're all together, especially when they're
elementary-school age and completely dependent on you. That's both
caring and selfish -- caring in that you KNOW what the aftermath is like
for those left behind (esp kids that age), and selfish in that you don't
want to go and leave them behind to have lives that you won't experience
with them. The redeeming thing is that once they're older and you KNOW
they'd be able to understand, care for themselves (with help) and be
okay if anything happened to you, you can be more okay with them moving
forward in your absence.

Not only is that a possibility if you fly (or fill in the blank with any
other activity), it's also a medical possibility, and we have way less
control over that, assuming we take reasonably good care of ourselves,
than we do over safety in activities. Don't we all know of someone who
was WAY too young when a terminal illness struck without warning and
took them?

On the plus side, this fear has made us VERY meticulous and careful
pilots. Preflights are NEVER omitted, fuel tanks are ALWAYS filled,
gas is ALWAYS tested, maintenance is ALWAYS done. Still, we all know
that "**** happens", and we could become statistics at some point.

Yep. I've been teased that my preflights are like 100-hr inspections. I
do everything you listed above, and it didn't stop the oil cooler from
failing.

Question: how often do you practice simulated engine failures over
places you aren't used to flying patterns? We'd done a simulated engine
failure approach *and landing* on a dirt strip two weeks prior to our
accident. Just having thought about and actually flown the procedure and
then critiqued it later (it went very well but there's always something
you may have done differently/better) may have saved a few precious
seconds in thinking/reacting in the actual emergency. We continue to
practice engine-outs frequently, and not over airports that we're
comfortable flying in and out of -- but it's surprising how many pilots
only do them during BFRs or when getting checked-out in a rental
aircraft.

I always fall back on two facts that comfort me:

1. You can either live, or wait to die. It's up to you.

2. Mary and I could be killed driving on the highway any day of the
week.

Although true, #2 doesn't usually do much to comfort anyone who is
worried about a loved one that flies.

My daughter flies, too. I didn't find out she was soloing until after
the fact, and I appreciate that she spared me -- there was also a method
to her madness as she knew that if I'd known, I'd have been there taking
pictures! But I understood. She's a CFI now and also just became an ATC.
We've flown together some, and I'm comfortable that she's a safe,
competent pilot (and a good CFI) ... but I admit that it's still easier
to hear about her flights after rather than before the fact!

Life is a terminal condition. No one is getting off of this planet
alive. It's up to each of us to make the best of our time here, and
-- in my world -- that means flying.

;-) -- a sentiment most of us agree with. The afternoon of our
accident, when we were driving back to the airport (plane was totaled),
we asked each other if we would fly again, and we both said "I don't
know." That feeling (sadness and uncertainty) lasted for two days. On
the third day, I awoke ANGRY and wanted to complete the flight that we'd
begun the day of the accident.

I'd be interested to know, of those who survive engine failures or other
occurrences that bring airplanes down, what percentage give up flying.

Shirl

Have survived ( just barely ) a engine loss/crash , I went back up as soon
as I could. It was a little bit easier for me as I had no memory of the
accident.

John

"Shirl" wrote in message
...
Jay Honeck wrote:
This fear has faded somewhat, now that our kids are teenagers. When
they were in elementary school, Mary was VERY uncomfortable flying
without them (for some reason it's okay WITH them, which is pretty
odd, if you analyze it too much), because of the awful prospect of
them waiting a day or two for relatives to arrive.

I don't think that's odd, Jay. No parent wants anything bad to happen to
their kids, and most would give their own lives to save their children;
but there's also a purely gut instinct that if anything's going to
happen, you hope you're all together, especially when they're
elementary-school age and completely dependent on you. That's both
caring and selfish -- caring in that you KNOW what the aftermath is like
for those left behind (esp kids that age), and selfish in that you don't
want to go and leave them behind to have lives that you won't experience
with them. The redeeming thing is that once they're older and you KNOW
they'd be able to understand, care for themselves (with help) and be
okay if anything happened to you, you can be more okay with them moving
forward in your absence.

Not only is that a possibility if you fly (or fill in the blank with any
other activity), it's also a medical possibility, and we have way less
control over that, assuming we take reasonably good care of ourselves,
than we do over safety in activities. Don't we all know of someone who
was WAY too young when a terminal illness struck without warning and
took them?

On the plus side, this fear has made us VERY meticulous and careful
pilots. Preflights are NEVER omitted, fuel tanks are ALWAYS filled,
gas is ALWAYS tested, maintenance is ALWAYS done. Still, we all know
that "**** happens", and we could become statistics at some point.

Yep. I've been teased that my preflights are like 100-hr inspections. I
do everything you listed above, and it didn't stop the oil cooler from
failing.

Question: how often do you practice simulated engine failures over
places you aren't used to flying patterns? We'd done a simulated engine
failure approach *and landing* on a dirt strip two weeks prior to our
accident. Just having thought about and actually flown the procedure and
then critiqued it later (it went very well but there's always something
you may have done differently/better) may have saved a few precious
seconds in thinking/reacting in the actual emergency. We continue to
practice engine-outs frequently, and not over airports that we're
comfortable flying in and out of -- but it's surprising how many pilots
only do them during BFRs or when getting checked-out in a rental
aircraft.

I always fall back on two facts that comfort me:

1. You can either live, or wait to die. It's up to you.

2. Mary and I could be killed driving on the highway any day of the
week.

Although true, #2 doesn't usually do much to comfort anyone who is
worried about a loved one that flies.

My daughter flies, too. I didn't find out she was soloing until after
the fact, and I appreciate that she spared me -- there was also a method
to her madness as she knew that if I'd known, I'd have been there taking
pictures! But I understood. She's a CFI now and also just became an ATC.
We've flown together some, and I'm comfortable that she's a safe,
competent pilot (and a good CFI) ... but I admit that it's still easier
to hear about her flights after rather than before the fact!

Life is a terminal condition. No one is getting off of this planet
alive. It's up to each of us to make the best of our time here, and
-- in my world -- that means flying.

;-) -- a sentiment most of us agree with. The afternoon of our
accident, when we were driving back to the airport (plane was totaled),
we asked each other if we would fly again, and we both said "I don't
know." That feeling (sadness and uncertainty) lasted for two days. On
the third day, I awoke ANGRY and wanted to complete the flight that we'd
begun the day of the accident.

I'd be interested to know, of those who survive engine failures or other
occurrences that bring airplanes down, what percentage give up flying.

Shirl

Question: how often do you practice simulated engine failures over
places you aren't used to flying patterns?

Sadly, I have to admit that our fear of harming our engine has far
outweighed our fear of an engine-out landing. There is simply nothing
you can do to your engine (in normal use) that is worse than simulated
engine-out landings, so we do them very rarely.

We used to practice them regularly in rental birds...

;-)

My daughter flies, too. I didn't find out she was soloing until after
the fact, and I appreciate that she spared me -- there was also a method
to her madness as she knew that if I'd known, I'd have been there taking
pictures!

Hee hee! I even created a webpage for our son's solo flight, much to
his dismay. (Although I think he appreciates it now...)

I'd be interested to know, of those who survive engine failures or other
occurrences that bring airplanes down, what percentage give up flying.

Well, my mentor experienced an engine-out landing in a corn field. He
did it expertly, neither damaging himself nor the plane. He flew a
few times after that incident, perhaps to prove to himself that he
could (?), but to my knowledge (he lives in Texas now, so we've lost
touch) he's never flown again.

I think his wife -- an adamant anti-flyer -- had a lot to do with
that.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"