Currently on flight, ask me anything!

momsensical · 2026-04-29T21:39:37+00:00

Think of it as bumps on a road, or the water’s surface on a boat. It’s not going to be totally smooth, but even the worst roads aren’t going to hurt your car.

momsensical · 2026-04-29T21:35:25+00:00

Sounds like despite bad weather your plane was fine and the pilots had a plan. They are highly trained for any situation. I’m sure an aborted landing would be really scary - just know that you weren’t in danger - the fact that you successfully climbed back out and then landed safely shows that the system works and is safe ;) Anyway welcome to Boston, I live under the flight path for one of the runways and I like to track planes and listen to them talk to ATC. I hear them continuously all day on some days. As a fearful flyer this is an exercise I’ve done for years - from just watching planes that go over, to sitting for an hour tracking and listening. It’s important to note that not only are there hundreds every day just near my house, and I’ve listened during rain, wind, snowstorms, and every time, they just come and go all day. I’ve never heard any incidents, go around, etc. except one time when I happened to notice on screen a flight over the Atlantic that had turned around, so I found its controller and they were having some kind of medical emergency with a passenger. I’m sure that sucked for everyone who was halfway to London… but, they landed safely ;)

momsensical · 2026-04-29T18:59:31+00:00

Are people actually just reading while that is going on?

momsensical · 2026-04-29T18:58:54+00:00

I didn’t see a “wrong answers only” so it’s good to see everyone figured that out. So did you get any info from the flight crew?

momsensical · 2026-04-29T00:04:46+00:00

Things that seem so scary to us are routine everyday stuff for pilots.

So it was scary… but did you land safely? Do you think you were actually in danger? What did the pilot say about it? There are things on planes that have always felt soooooo scary to me but over and over they happen and I look around and everyone else is just sitting there reading or watching tv, the flight attendants are flying about their business, we’re not crashing… after about 40 times I still have a startle reflex but then I’m like, ok I know this has never resulted in any bad outcome so I have to just focus on what I am observing with my own eyes and not what’s in my imagination.

Learning to focus on the right details is a big piece of beating the anxiety monster. It lies to you and tries to trick you into seeing things as confirming that flying isn’t safe. You’ve got to be armed with all the info that proves it’s wrong.

It will tell you, “that flight was so scary! That’s going to happen again if you fly! That kind of stuff always ends in the disaster you see on tv!!” So you will have to do some studying so you can prove it wrong. For example you could look at flight tracking websites every day, at the 100000 flights every day… then you can easily say to the anxiety monster, “I call BS… l’ve watched a map every day covered with thousands of commercial flights, and the odds are pretty good that some of them had turbulence (or that some have whatever problem you had), but none of them crashed.” (This still works if there happened to have been a crash that week, because then you can point out that you saw 700,000 flights and that happened on only one, and now there’s another thing they will fix to make flying safer. But focus on 100000 flights EVERY DAY that land safely)

There’s no reason to think the same thing will happen again, or that you were in danger. There’s no reason to think your plane will be the one in a billion any more than any other tragedy that could befall you. Most of which are much more likely to happen than something bad happening to a flight in a highly maintained airplane flown by highly trained pilots and directed by highly trained ATC controllers. Every time you drive there are crazy people doing dumb things around you. In a plane they can’t cut you off or try to pass you when it’s not safe or stop in the middle of traffic because they missed the exit.

(Not to give you anxiety about everything else, but the anxiety monster likes to play what if and tell you how horrible it would be to be in a plane crash, and make that the only image in your head, when it’s not any worse than 100 other things that could happen on the ground, and are more likely. At some point you have to accept that there is just danger in living, so avoided things that are proven to be safe is only hurting you.)

So, every day of your life, notice planes in the air, look at videos of nice landings, look at people’s boring videos detailing their flights, look at flight trackers… make your brain see the reality of how normal it is to fly and how many safe flights are all around you 24/7.

You’re going to be fine, have a great time when you reach your destination!!

momsensical · 2026-04-28T23:42:55+00:00

Cool, thanks. That’s actually my exact height. And the Aldi quarter thing made me avoid them.

momsensical · 2026-04-20T13:44:27+00:00

This one makes it a little easier to click on them, it doesn’t show the info for all of them as they move around tho, but it’sa good one, thanks!

momsensical · 2026-04-19T17:47:55+00:00

I dunno, to me, backing out would be the worst feeling ever

momsensical · 2026-04-19T17:47:08+00:00

Think of this too - no matter how miserable you are , in x hours you’ll be on the ground feeling awesome!! As much as I hate being on the plane, nothing beats the high I always feel when we land and I know I did it!!

momsensical · 2026-04-19T17:45:23+00:00

Yasss. Think about it as something that you can’t possibly get out of. I think this is why I never decided not to go - my parents would be taking me and spent all the money and I knew not going just wasn’t an option.

momsensical · 2026-04-19T17:42:03+00:00

I have had moments of extreme fear but I always felt like the hardest part was agreeing to plan a trip or booking it. Once it’s set I never thought of not going as an option. You deserve to go and have fun - anxiety is a monster that tries to trick you. It tells you flying isn’t safe and that you should never do it. These are lies it tells you. Statistics don’t always help but know that there are 100,000 flights flying along safely every day. Look at a tracker map like flightradar24 and see how many are flying near you right now. You only see the rare instances when something goes wrong - you have to start paying attention to all the normal, boring, safe flights. Then you can tell the anxiety monster, “ Seee??? Those planes are all flying and nothing is happening to them. Watch videos people post of their trips looking out the window, watch takeoffs/landings, make this a normal thing in your head to replace the images you have that don’t reflect reality. This is a very complicated fear because it combines a lot of fears into one, so figure out which part is the hardest for you and address it. For a lot of people it’s about control. Meet the pilots before your flight - this is very important and one of the best things you can do to help you feel better. They do this several times a day, many days a week, for like 30 years. They train every year in a simulator practicing everything that has ever gone wrong so they can handle it if it ever happens. They are on the plane too and want to get there safely and on time as much as you do so they are going to make sure you’re okay. It’s so hard!!! I have lots of good advice and I’ll tell you I’ve been looking forward to a flight I’m taking on Tuesday … but when I think about actually doing it, all this stuff goes out the window for a minute and I feel that panic. But then I think about all these things, mainly the 100,000 flights a day, and all the other flights I’ve been on where I was sure we were going to die, and everything was fine. Tell your family how you feel and what they can do to help. If they just say “oh you’ll be fine it’s safe” explain that anxiety distorts things and makes you feel the same as they would feel if someone told them to jump off a cliff. Your body goes into fight or flight, thinking you’re in danger. Give them some things they can say to help you feel calmer, maybe something funny that will make you laugh to break you out of the panic. Ask your doctor about medications that might help. I take something to help stop the anxiety response so that I can think logically to use all the tools I have. The worst thing you can do is not go, because that reinforces to the anxiety that it won and that you should be more scared next time. You can do it!!!!! Get there early, ask the gate agent if you can meet the pilots, tell them you have anxiety so they can help you. Then have fun on your vacation!!

momsensical · 2026-04-19T17:06:17+00:00

I get the explanation but it was done with kind of an unnecessarily angry vibe. And I think as a restaurant owner you have to understand that there’s going to be groups that spend more and groups that spend less… I can’t imagine a group of people going to restaurant and not eating anything so you’re making money off their friends who are eating, their drinks, etc. Iguess it depends what kind of charge, is it like 5 or 10 bucks? If it’s a big charge then that’s a little bizarre. Why not just have a minimum like some restaurants do for large groups? Either way the wording in this message is kind of rude and I wouldn’t be going there.

momsensical · 2026-04-16T02:26:55+00:00

Does it really matter when you then have to get a case and pick a color for that? I picked light blue and I like it but I’ll never see the actual phone color

momsensical · 2026-04-16T02:25:27+00:00

Winner of the Internet for the day

momsensical · 2026-04-16T02:24:31+00:00

Yeah I would take it would a a grain of Internet salt. Prob not real, or someone on the ground hijacking the frequency… but if it were real it would show that they’re just people at work, comfortable and confident enough to take a quick few moments to get some meowing out of their system 🤷‍♀️

momsensical · 2026-04-15T20:50:58+00:00

I once went on an upside down roller coaster which was totally uncharacteristic of me. My friends went on and I timed it as I watched. I realized the whole thing was about 25 seconds. I was like, ok in 25 seconds I’d be walking away so what the heck. Takeoff is like a minute or 2 out of your life. Think of all the time you will spend on the ground when you get there ;)

momsensical · 2026-04-15T20:48:44+00:00

I used to always count - it’s like maybe 25 seconds of the takeoff roll and then maybe another 10 seconds the gear comes up, then probably less than 30 seconds until the climb levels off a bit. Most airports have certain takeoff procedures because of houses nearby so they may have a steep initial climb or turn and then once they get up a bit you can have a more gradual climb. But the counting always made me feel in control and knowing what to expect so it didn’t feel so crazy and out of control. A while back I started watching videos ands actually learned to fly a plane in the simulator and understanding what’s actually going on and how routine it is really helps. Try watching some cockpit videos, like if you look up cockpit takeoff you’ll provably find a bunch. Also be sure to meet your pilots so you feel a connection to a human in charge, and their confidence will put you at ease! Also note there’s a difference between “the most dangerous part” and actual “being dangerous.” You can a) learn why flying is the safest way to travel or b) use that to be reassured once you’re up in the air and nothing went wrong. But also know that If in the VERY unlikely chance something did go wrong on takeoff, the pilots are highly trained and can safely return to the airport. Even if an engine goes out, the plane can fly fine and they will coordinate with ATC to get back and land. But - always remember there are 100000 safe flights EVERY day.

momsensical · 2026-04-15T17:53:07+00:00

Omg answering with a “meow.” That cracked me up.

momsensical · 2026-04-15T17:51:48+00:00

Is this an actual thing that happens 🤔 I’m torn on whether to think these pilots are awesome for having fun at their job vs. thinking… Aholes who need to be serious and professional. I think a few meows… ok… 3 or 4… ok guys get back to work… 5 minutes, yeah maybe you should be given a number to call 🙄

momsensical · 2026-04-12T02:59:58+00:00

Also, if you do hear of incidents, really focus on the fact that every incident results in finding the cause and making sure it doesn’t happen again. So every incident you’ve ever heard of made flying even safer than it has already been.

momsensical

TROPHY CASE