Could Captain Ron Cure My Fear of Flying?

On a scorching Saturday night in Might, I reported to Terminal 4 of Phoenix’s Sky Harbor airport. There, in a small convention room behind an unmarked door, I placed on a reputation tag and joined 18 different nervous-looking individuals hoping to be cured by Captain Ron.Captain Ron (actual title Ron Nielsen) is a 78-year-old former business pilot who teaches a free class for nervous fliers roughly as soon as a month. He has the healthful look of a small-town minister: rectangular glasses, short-cropped white hair, and a whimsical tuft protruding of every nostril. He’s just like the aviation equal of Rick Steves—the type of man who, after a category that goes significantly properly, exclaims, “It needs to be towards the legislation to have that a lot enjoyable!”Discover the September 2025 IssueCheck out extra from this difficulty and discover your subsequent story to learn.View MoreA concern of flying, Captain Ron defined, is nothing to be ashamed of. “You’re not damaged.” The nervousness seems totally different for various individuals. Some fear largely about exterior elements, equivalent to crashes and terrorism. Others dread a panic assault—and the way fellow passengers would possibly react to it.Sitting subsequent to me was a retiree named Mike who had been coming to Captain Ron’s class frequently to handle his claustrophobia forward of a long-anticipated flight: a two-hour journey to Reno to go to his grandson. Throughout the desk, Stephanie and her husband, whom she’d introduced alongside for ethical help, have been planning a visit to Cambodia. “Over water,” somebody throughout the room supplied. Stephanie’s eyes have been large. We understood utterly.Numerous individuals endure from a concern of flying, together with not less than 25 million of us in america, based on the Cleveland Clinic. Our worries are sometimes dismissed as irrational—planes are a lot safer than vehicles, and so on. However a current succession of terrifying airplane incidents has solely appeared to validate our phobia—most notably, the crash touchdown of the Air India Dreamliner that killed 241 individuals on board in early June, which got here only a few months after the midair collision that killed 67 individuals close to my dwelling airport, simply exterior Washington, D.C.Latest occasions however, most aviation fears boil right down to a scarcity of management, Elaine Iljon Foreman, a scientific psychologist and co-author of Fly Away Worry, instructed me. Generally these fears are triggered or exacerbated by a particular flying expertise, or main life adjustments. Alex, a 42-year-old IT supervisor who sat close to me at school, stated that he developed his concern of flying when his spouse was pregnant with their twins. The couple have been compelled to fly twice from Phoenix to Los Angeles for medical care to avoid wasting the being pregnant, and for Alex, it was a traumatic expertise.I’d skilled 21 years of unmemorable flights earlier than my very own concern of flying took maintain. In Might 2015, I used to be touring from my dwelling state of Iowa to New York Metropolis for a summer time internship. I used to be already nervous about shifting, after which, someplace above Illinois, the aircraft hit a patch of turbulence and dropped what felt like a thousand ft. A number of individuals screamed. For the primary time in my life, I started to expertise what I might later perceive to be panic: My face and neck went clammy, and black spots crammed my imaginative and prescient. At one level, an overhead bin popped open and some unbuckled passengers smacked their head on the ceiling. They have been all okay, and, bodily, so was I. However I had unlocked a brand new concern.I’ve been a white-knuckle flier ever since. Upon boarding, I proceed down the aisle like a bride heading to a doomed marriage, quietly assessing my fellow passengers for trustworthiness, ought to a crash require us to forge a Misplaced-style alliance of survivors. On the first bump, my palms begin to sweat and my calf muscle mass tighten. In significantly tough air, when the pilot urges the flight attendants to please take their seats, I start to manage my very own final rites—You’ve had a great run, my mind whispers—and hearth off a number of farewell notes to family members: “Actually dangerous up right here,” I textual content my boyfriend. “Love you.” As soon as, on my method to a good friend’s wedding ceremony, I used to be so overcome with nervousness that I handed out on the gate, my physique folding over my suitcase like a wilted flower.For some time, I thought-about a flightless future. However the price was too excessive. I remembered Royce White, the Iowa State basketball participant whose concern of flying required him to drive a whole bunch of miles to away video games, and contributed to the top of his NBA profession. I considered a longtime household good friend named Betty whose aerophobia I had all the time interpreted as an abiding love for trains. Betty frequently traveled between Iowa and Florida by way of Amtrak sleeper automobile, a journey that took 96 hours, required layovers in Chicago and D.C., and value roughly $4,000.I’ve stored flying, however lots of the others in Captain Ron’s class hadn’t Alex had flown solely as soon as since his spouse gave delivery (the twins are in grade college now). Mike, the claustrophobic retiree, instructed me that on a current try to fly, he took an Ambien and drank a number of pictures of whiskey, but he remained too terrified to board. Drained and tipsy, he needed to name his daughter for a trip dwelling.The primary portion of Captain Ron’s class occurred on a stationary Southwest airplane. After introductions, he handed out boarding passes bearing our names however no vacation spot, and collectively we marched warily from the ticketing space by safety. At gate D-13, a Southwest agent led us down the jet bridge and onto a ready Boeing 737 Max 8 and, as soon as we have been seated, made a proper boarding announcement: “Good night and welcome aboard Southwest Airways Flight 1234, with service to nowhere!”For the subsequent hour, Captain Ron stood within the aisle and delivered a lecture that flitted between airplane trivia and private anecdotes. We discovered how a lot time is usually required for a aircraft to turn into airborne (35 to 45 seconds) and the way a lot gas planes sometimes carry for home flights (greater than sufficient to get to their vacation spot). We have been reminded that turbulence, whereas disagreeable, isn’t harmful. We discovered about methods for overpowering our emotional “elephant mind” with our logical “rider mind.” If we would have liked an “actionable job” to distract ourselves throughout takeoff, Captain Ron recommended journaling about our nervousness or quizzing a journey companion with rapid-fire math issues. Collectively, we inhaled for 4 seconds and exhaled for six. Generally, we discovered, it helps to breathe by a straw.Learn: Worry of flying is totally different nowVery little appeared to crack Captain Ron’s cheery exterior, together with questions concerning the current air-travel incidents. Newark airport had simply skilled a quick radar blackout, and on the identical day our class was held, the aviation hub was having air-traffic-control staffing points. A scholar requested Captain Ron whether or not individuals needs to be fearful. “Nice one, nice one,” he stated. Airports, he defined, scale back the variety of planes within the air if there aren’t sufficient controllers to maintain individuals flying safely. (A number of days after our class, NBC Information reported that, based on an nameless Newark air-traffic controller, the airport had misplaced radio contact with pilots a number of instances in current months. “I can’t let you know that that’s a fascinating scenario,” Captain Ron instructed me by cellphone. However pilots “have procedures” for this.)After an hour collectively on the aircraft, we disembarked and took a bunch photograph on the entrance to the jet bridge. A number of of my classmates could be again in a month, to commune once more with different anxious fliers and spend one other hour on a aircraft listening to Captain Ron’s soothing phrases. For some, simply sitting on that grounded aircraft is a type of publicity remedy. I wanted I may be part of them.The irony was not misplaced on me that attending my fear-of-flying class required taking two lengthy aircraft rides. However the subsequent morning I used to be feeling assured, and determined to forgo my common Xanax earlier than the flight dwelling. Captain Ron had suggested me to strive boarding early, to fulfill the pilots, one thing I had assumed solely a toddler may do.Within the cockpit, I instructed the captain and first officer that I hated turbulence. “That’s what all people appears to be afraid of,” the captain stated, laughing. “It’s by no means precipitated an issue.” I smiled politely. The primary officer defined that he usually falls asleep when he flies as a passenger—“and I get up after we contact down!” Very useful.At my seat, I centered on Captain Ron’s actionable duties. I timed our takeoff, which took precisely 40 seconds. I journaled my emotions, and listened to an audio recording created by Captain Ron referred to as “Harmonizer,” a 32-minute cacophony of sounds and hypnotic phrases meant to desensitize and distract your mind. (“No extra fears, no extra struggling,” Captain Ron says on the recording. “I’ve had it, and now I’m altering. Immediately’s the day!”) For a extra absorbing diversion, I watched a number of episodes of a smutty Netflix drama about British prep schoolers.Midway by the flight, the aircraft hit a tough patch, and my pores and skin grew clammy. What if I had distracted the pilots from their preflight guidelines? Quickly there was a brand new bout of bumps, this time larger. My chest tightened, and I attempted to breathe in for 4 seconds and out for six.I considered one among my classmates, Irene, who instructed me she practices accepting her lack of management by reminding herself that the universe does “what it’s going to do.” I attempted to attain an identical state of acceptance. After a couple of minutes, my heartbeat slowed.The flight turned out to be one among my bumpiest, and subsequently most disagreeable, in current reminiscence. Captain Ron had not mounted me. However I used to be a barely totally different flier. I had discovered some new instruments for managing my concern. And I’d come to view that concern as one thing aside from a shameful secret. Sure, I’d been anxious. However I had flown to Arizona. I’d eaten carne asada, hiked the Huge Butte Loop, and laughed on the title “Huge Butte Loop.” I had confronted my discomfort—and boarded the aircraft anyway.A number of days after I returned to D.C., my classmate Alex was set to fly to Chicago together with his household—his first airplane journey in years. I texted him the evening earlier than to say that I used to be pondering of him. Once I didn’t hear again, I fearful that his concern had as soon as once more gotten in the way in which. Then, late the next afternoon, I obtained a textual content. It was an image of distant red-sandstone hills—Phoenix’s Papago Park—from a tiny airplane window.This text seems within the September 2025 print version with the headline “Captain Ron’s Information to Fearless Flying.” Once you purchase a ebook utilizing a hyperlink on this web page, we obtain a fee. Thanks for supporting The Atlantic.