California

[marinav]

We're leaving for California this coming Thursday to attend Ionel's brother's wedding. I hate flying and this will be a long flight. I'm getting more and more anxious as the day nears, and to my dismay, I can't seem to follow my own good advice. I used to wonder why some psychologists have their own psychologists. I used to think it was

Comments

[marinav]

I'll tell you why :o)
I read someplace (and then heard the same thing on a PBS special) that the bigger the planes, the newer they are, and the more widgets they have (TV's, phones, and so on), the more wiring they require. The miles (literally) of wiring are extremely difficult to check, even though there are some safety features in place, like little connectors that report back to the main computer when something goes wrong. Apparently, if the wiring goes bad or burns while in flight it doesn't do a world of good to have a little bulb light up saying there is a problem.

The reason small planes crash more often than big ones is because the vast majority of them are owned by regular people who don't maintain them as well as they should. This is not true of small companies like the one we flew with.

So in a nutshell, the simpler the plane, the less likely it is that it will crash, unless it is a privately owned plane and the owner is not experienced enough, or maintains the plane the same way s/he would a car.

Also, the survival rates on small/private plane crashes is pretty good. The same can not be said about the big ones.

I especially hate taking off in the big ones because takeoffs put the most strain on the airplane. On takeoffs, all kinds of mechanical things can go wrong. On landings it is largely due to pilot error if the plane crashes. In flight, it is less likely something mechanical will go wrong, but more likely something electrical could.

Bottom line, I prefer to drive. If something goes wrong, I can pull over, rather than plummet to my death. Eeeek! Also, statistics are funny. If each one of us would fly as much as we drive, the likelihood of us dying in a plane crash is 12 times higher. I had a car accident a year ago. Pretty bad. Thanks to my Subaru's safety features I walked away with minor injuries (the Subaru with $8,000 damage). Had it been a plane accident...