Heights. I didn’t choose to be frightened of heights. I never fell out of a tree or off a ladder. It’s just how I was born. Some people get spiders. Others get snakes or enclosed spaces. I got heights.
Ask me to stand on a chair to change a lightbulb. Not a hope! My response “Oh, no! Can’t do that”. Ask me to clean the outside of a first-floor window – even from inside the room – and watch the colour drain from my face. “Oh, no, no, no. Not a chance!” I think I would rather die than look down a stairwell.
Tall buildings? Scary, scary. We honeymooned in Paris. On the obligatory trip to the Eiffel Tower, I faked a headache rather than attempt going up and my wife (the “sárkány néni”) had to ascend alone. Faking a headache is a tactic she immediately seized upon and used to great effect, in later years!
I stood for hours among hundreds of people waiting at the foot of the Shanghai Tower while my colleagues queued for tickets and went up. I had been persuaded to go, and really wanted to try but I overheard someone talking about a “glass floor” in the observation area. What? Standing 600 metres in the air on a glass floor? People do that for fun? Not me! I couldn’t join them. Trying to get up the stairs in Gyula Castle or the castle in Hollókö were a “No! No!”, until one of the ladies in our company took me by the hand and guided me like a four-year-old child crossing a road. It’s visceral. Nothing I can do about it! I hate heights.
I don’t know if I’m a very brave person. Would I dive into a river to save someone? I pretty sure I would. Would I run into a burning building to do the same? I’m not so sure, but I think so. Would I climb onto a window-ledge to rescue a child who was in danger of falling? Not for all the tea in China!
So, flying didn’t come naturally to me. I lived in and around London from the age of 18, and every vacation trip home, as a student, was an utter nightmare. I used to have to visit the doctor and get a Valium tablet to calm me before I could fly. It was so bad that even anticipating going to the airport was anathema. In later years, as an adult, my bowels would turn to water on the day before I had to pick someone up at the airport, just from the psychosomatic stress of knowing I would be near planes the next day. Awful! Dreadful! Horrific!
How did I get over my fear of flying?
Well, it was a combination of things. Part of it was that I had a long period where I was flying up and down to Edinburgh, and back-and-forth to Denmark, on a regular basis, for work. One becomes used to flying regularly: it gets to be a bit of a bore, just like commuting on a bus or train.
Another factor was learning what a take-off procedure (unofficially called a “stepped-climb”) is. For a nervous flyer like me, the landing was never a problem. It was always the take-off. A big help was learning that the increasing and decreasing pitch of the engine noise during take-off was a normal and necessary feature of getting the damned plane off the ground. The pilot isn’t fighting to keep failing engines up to the required RPM, but is increasing and decreasing the throttle according to airport regulations, a plan. Not all planes take off for the skies in a perfectly straight-line ascent, like we see in the movies – like Beyoncé’s career. Some planes ascend bit-by-bit, hang around for a bit at one level, decide it’s not stratospheric enough for them, move on up to the next level, do the same thing again, ultimately reaching the target altitude – like Meghan Markle choosing husbands!
Another factor was choosing the seat! When I started flying commercially, it was a different experience from nowadays. You could be crammed up against the fuselage, with some f***er kneeing you in the back and another beside you chain-smoking and breathing whiskey fumes all over you. It’s funny to look back on. In those days, one could sit beside a mother and child and chain-smoke cigarettes and they had absolutely no right to object! There wasn’t a “smoking section”! Nowadays – smoking is no longer a problem – and someone can bring a “comfort animal” and put it in the middle seat between you, and you can’t object… Flying? It’s a different world, altogether, to when I was young.
The biggest factor in my acclimatisation (that’s “acclimation” to our N. American brothers and sisters) was that, at some point, my economic circumstances improved enough to allow me to pay a premium for extra-legroom. That was the kicker! I learned that – if I pay a little extra – I can book the aisle-seat in the front row of the two extra-legroom rows. That way, I can stretch out, and the ill-mannered f***er in the seat behind me can’t dig his knees into my back: there’s nobody pressing against me on the gangway side and, being tall, I can sit up straight in my seat without my neck being pushed sideways by the fuselage. Comfortable, relaxed flying starts with sitting comfortably and relaxed! Who knew? And that transformed my flying experience – forever.
Nowadays, I love flying. No problem!
A long, long, long time ago, on a trip with my younger brother, he called the stewardess over and asked her if I could visit the cockpit. She said “Of course!” – those were simpler times – and, seconds later, I was sitting in the redundant flight-engineer’s seat, behind the pilots, chatting away. In fact, after 10 minutes they forgot I was there, so we were almost on the ground at Aldergrove before the stewardess came rushing in to take my back to my seat. I loved it! And the stewardess thrust several miniature sprit bottles into our hands as we deplaned! Happy days!
I once flew on a 4-engined turbo-prop during a storm which was so bad that – even after we had taxied to a halt on the stand – we had to remain seated for 10 minutes because the plane was still being blown about so much! One or two people in front of me ignored the pilot’s instruction to “Please, remain seated with your safety-belts fastened” and opened their overhead lockers, only to be thumped on their heads by falling luggage. I still remember that as the moment I first really felt and understood the meaning of the word “schadenfreude”. So, had I been frightened during that flight? Not a bit! The bumpier the better!
Which brings us to gliders… I’ve been around gliders for years, through my association with Szatymaz airport. Why have I never flown in one?
Well, it’s the size of the cockpit. I don’t see myself a being claustrophobic, under normal circumstances but, as explained above, I need space on a plane. I’ve stood and looked into the cockpit of a glider, many times. Of course, I have. But the seating position? It’s not for me. It’s just too small, with an unnatural semi-reclining posture, and no elbow-room. If someone could redesign the cockpit in the shape of a big Perspex cube and put a chair in it – like the “Popemobile” – so that I could sit up straight, like at a dining-table – well, then I’d be up for it! No problem! But that’s not going to happen, of course.
I nearly did go up, once. For years, Péter, and others, have been trying to get me into a glider. One day, I was at Szatymaz. Péter was offsite at a meeting somewhere. It was a typically beautiful, Hungarian summer’s day. You know Szatymaz has a bar, right? A typically beautiful, Hungarian summer’s day and a bar? What to do? What to do? Anyway, Péter arrived back. Perhaps, sensing that he had a slight advantage over me this time, Péter said “Come on! Let’s take you up!”. Well, he did have a slight advantage, clearly, because I (having had a couple of beers) accepted. Finally, I had agreed to fly in a glider.
But it was a brief adventure.
Péter next said “Ok, let’s get you fitted with a parachute!”, at which point, realisation of what I was getting into sobered me up instantly. My reply? “Nope! That’s not going to happen!” And that was the closest I got – or ever will get – to going up in a glider.
So, where is this all leading? I’ve seen the photos. I’ve watched the cockpit movies. I’ve seen the exhilaration of the competing pilots as they land.
There aren’t too many opportunities for exploration and adventure, these days. Exploration and adventure in my life? The only thing I explore is the Árkád shopping centre. The biggest excitement in my day is choosing what to have for lunch.
The Viking voyages of adventure are long past and now Grýla, the ogress living in the Icelandic mountains, can shop in IKEA, 24/7. The Conquistadores discovered South America, giving the natives smallpox but getting tobacco and tacos in return! Captain Cook gave us Australia and a legacy that includes Kylie Minogue in gold hot-pants (no complaints here!). Irish monks discovered North America, never thinking that their epic journey would be written out of the annals of history, nor that future generations of Irishmen would be forever portrayed as drunken New York cops in countless movies and TV-series.
North Pole, South pole, the moon… It has all been done. Everest has been climbed. Where’s the adventure?
I think the adventure lies with you – glider pilots. You carry the genes of the explorer and the adventurer and I’m jealous AF that I will never share your experiences. You are all heroes, to me!
So, to end, here’s a poem. It was written by a motivational speaker, William Arthur Ward, so it’s a bit “preachy”, but it describes what I want to say much better than I ever could. (N.B. I changed the last line).
Happy flying!
To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement,
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To live is to risk dying,
To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow,
But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.
Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.
The pessimist complains about the wind;
The optimist expects it to change;
And the realist glider pilot adjusts the sails.”
H.