I'm a rational man, generally. Weird, but rational.
I know all the reasons why flying is safe and fun and good. I get it. Arab Nights sounds like a very confident and knowledgeable flyer and I truly 'get' the logic of flying.
And yet... I can't do it anymore.
Flown in a commercial jet a few times but I'm always scared shitless before the flight, then excited during the rush of acceleration (that's the only truly fun part for me), and then I alternate between bored and terrified as many tons of dumb steel and plastic hurtles through the air. And, the last flight ended with us rocketing into the air at a crazy-steep angle because of something on the runway.
The reason I'm scared to fly is not the companies or the pilots or a misunderstanding of actuarial tables indicating it's safer than driving; it's a weighted assessment of risk involving a situation wherein ONE mistake, ONE little oops, can cause not just death but many minutes of terror followed by death.
See, in a car crash, you have 1 or 2 seconds of realization before KA-SMASH you're dead, but in general, A MAJOR MALFUNCTION or ERROR in the mechanics of the vehicle won't cause death in a car. If the wheels fall off in normal driving, you got a chance to recover.
The the motor falls right the hell out of my car, or a door flies off, I can probably recover.
But if one single system totally fails, or some dude misses one critical bolt, or some bizarre situation rips off a wing of a PLANE, and it's hopeless to recover, you get the joy of being in a cage with a hundred other humans, all screaming for minutes as we twist downwards to our so-long-in-coming-but-way-too-fast death.
And I KNOW there are redundant systems on planes, I know planes rarely just belly-flop out of the sky... but it DOES happen (yes, just like in cars, too... shaddup). It's a matter of severity and criticalness of perfection required for a big plane that freaks me out.
This is why I wish 'professional' fliers would give those of us who won't fly due to safety concerns a break. We aren't all just dummies who are a bunch of scardy-cats who don't understand how safe flying is. I know how safe it is... I just can't handle relying on SO MANY people doing there jobs perfectly. I have a chance of recovery if my car's wheel falls off, but if my jetliner loses a wing, it's a long, scream-filled last couple of minutes.
(Arab Nights, I just re-read this post and want to assure you that last paragraph isn't directed at you! It sorta looks like it is, but it aint
).
