Fly Me To The Fear

Pteromerhanophobia. A deluxe name for what essentially means, 'I hate flying more than is socially acceptable.' Pteron is Greek for wing. Not to be confused with Pteronophobia - which is a fear of being tickled with feathers. Perhaps the latter (of which I don't have, luckily) cancels out the former. If so, feel free to tickle me at high altitude. Anyway I share my Pteromerhanophobia with some cool people: David Bowie. And also some not so cool people: Kim Jong-Il. Britney Spears.

Given that there are so many ritzy sounding labels for phobias, my recent challenge has been to find a professional name (one with a wage, briefcase and a blow-dry) for fearing flight, yet being an aviation and plane loving geek. I have been temporarily unsuccessful. However, the wings of the web forum has proved I am definitely not alone in this particular quarter of the bonkersverse.

AA777, says: 'I love airplanes. But if we have windshear when we are landing, I'm shitting my pants! I also can't do air pockets.' Adding, 'A shrink friend of mine said that to overcome the fear of flying I should go parachuting. YEAH RIGHT.'

Flashmeister replies: 'I love watching, reading and learning about planes. But I can't do take offs. I try to just breathe and put one (NOT two) hands on the seat in front.'

Out of context, air pockets sound like trendy Shoreditch trainers. And what would happen if I put my second hand on the seat in front? (Perhaps Otto Pilot might appear). Anyway, the general conclusion, is to fly more.

I took nine flights in 2001. None of them got easier. The final one was made mildly more interesting by sitting beside Mr Asbestos Bladder, who by some miracle of medical science failed to make a toilet trip in 13 hours (yes, I checked the rise and fall of his chest). But I wouldn't say the eight previous flights had somehow infused the final experience with a festive sparkle. The opposite in fact when I consider the choppy landing, during which we circled Heathrow so many times we practically boiled a cloud. I've never found statistics helpful either. Knowing I'm more likely to catch the Monkeypox off my kitchen or glue my face to the sun just doesn't resonate.

Thus I've spent a large proportion of my life avoiding films like Alive and Final Destination (that documentary Airplane is ace though). And wherever possible, avoiding flight. I once got a train to Paris, a taxi and a connecting train to Bordeaux, simply to avoid a short haul. It was an expensive journey which tested my near dead linguistic skills to the max. And took a whole day. I got to take in a lot of French countryside and watch a lady consume two impressively large bars of Milka though.

And yet, I love planes. And airports. I feel it's only right to acknowledge the contradictory nature of my blog. Do I like aviation because I'm scared of flying? Is it that compelling euphoria that comes after the weak-legged, chunk-surpressing main event is over and you're thrilled to discover you not only made it, but enjoyed a dry croissant along the way? A 'fight or flight' reflex, as old as mankind, which leaves you feeling both emotionally bankrupt yet triumphant...

I always go for a window seat. I don't want to pretend I am somewhere I'm not. It seems rather patronising (if you can patronise yourself.) And it's the only way I can get the movement to make sense. I won't close my blind for night nor blazing sunshine. Sorry sleepers. But another reason for remaining window-side, is that in spite of myself, I'm captivated. Mid-air, I'm obsessed with the lay of the land below us. The way it looks like it's been cut from a stencil and coloured in.

I am an incessant gazer. I select my music tracks* (oh, you know it!) to best represent the vista I see, be that outlines of rivers and roads, ferry specks in giant seas, glowing conurbations at night, a lucent horizon made from acres of sun-soaked clouds - or simply wind over wings. When the whole plane is asleep, and subjected to 'lights out' like a flying dormitory because somewhere in the world it's bed time, I'll be at the back; peering through the emergency exit window, wondering who is staring up at my contrails. How remarkable, that while my feet are on hard ground, the hard ground is slicing through soupy air at a speed I'll never understand.

Forget films. The flight tracker channel is my narrative. I get engrossed in where we are, how high we are, how fast we're going, and all of that over again, in whichever languages are available for me not to understand. I'm peculiar enough to have taken screen grabs along the way too.

I've mentioned Captain Stacy Chance. He is probably the reason I can appreciate parts of flying now instead of chewing a flight sock. His tutorial acknowledges every sensation from take off to landing and explains them all in detail - far more effective in cutting through the grease of my fear stain than anything else. So, consider Captain Chance the Flash to my dirty hob. Hm.

Often fearful flyers end up at the helm, taking lessons. I can see that. It's like squaring up to a monster and instead of passing out, getting it on side and working for you in accounts. And who doesn't want a tame behemoth type, bashing out some top drawer arithmetic on the company abacus?

I will leave the final words to AA777:

'This might sound kinda weird. But my sister has gotten over her fear of turbulence by just pretendings [sic] she is on a magic carpet...'

AA777...

Am I your sister?

*Fleet Foxes, Simon & Garfunkel, Ryan Adams, Rilo Kiley, Cashier No. 9, Walker Brothers (Blue Ridge Mountains, Only Living Boy in New York/America/Old Friends, Easy Tiger album, So Long, Lost At Sea, No Regrets.)

Piston Power

Retrospective Breaking News: Father Christmas shuns sleigh for TWA! But his ale choice still remains unexplained...

If you're feeling somewhat despondent about Pan Am's sugary debut on BBC2 the other eve (I foolishly expected to see Christina Ricci play a snarly hostess version of Wednesday Addams or at the very least channel some gum-chewing give-a-shit Val from 200 Cigarettes) I suggest you turn your flying-eye to their Santa-approved rival, Trans World Airlines. What an endorsement.

And while the Christian/mythological/pagan present-giving patriarch might have his own airborne transportation, I can understand the need to let the reindeer lie fallow for a bit. And sleigh parking in Roma? Conspicuous at best.

TWA was Pan Am's competitor until the late seventies and was considered the American number two - until it also went bankrupt. As I have a prop compulsion this week, I've been digesting the twin joy of the Douglas and Lockheed planes, both pieces of 40s and 50s magic that began life in TWA's fleet. The two prop-liners were just as good as one another, but the Lockheed was miles better looking. Lockheed Constellations ('Connies') had three fabulous tail fins like precisely arranged wafer biscuits, a fat waspy body, a midnight daubed snout - and a name like a jazz band.

In actuality, all the fifties fleet had that inky-nosed cuteness as part of the livery. I don't know why it fell out of fashion, as I think it's a lovely visual. It's like a full-stop, signifying the end of the plane. Anything you see beyond that is something else. Like a horizon. A control tower. Or a bacon sandwich.

Here's the deal: TWA got the Lockheeds before anyone else thanks to their wealthy obsessive compulsive investor and aviation nut, Howard Hughes. The Lockheed was part designed by him as a plane to out-do the Boeing 307 Stratoliners and everyone said yes, because you don't say no to money, power and weirdness. It worked.

I should mention the DC 6 and 7 too, not my favourites, but the planes that sparked an unequivocal urge in John Travolta to get his fly-on. As they grumbled, moth-like over 1950s New York, he found them inspiring enough to pitch up at flying lessons and ultimately own a passenger jet (it's less clear what could have inspired him to make Look Who's Talking Too or adopt a religion created by a mediocre fantasy fiction writer, but that's for another blog.)

Blazing a (con)trail, TWA were the first liner to show an in-flight movie, proffering John Sturges' 'By Love Possessed,' to captive first class passengers in 1961. Sadly, everyone in economy missed out on Lana Turner being 'the year's most provocative woman,' and had to make do with reading the book or looking at their own hands.

I have the film on order. I have low expectations. It looks terrible. But I plan to endure it like a good passenger, while a patient friend re-creates TWA first class for me: intermittent settee rocking (turbulence) and scotch. I'll return the experience.

After a while, maligned like a knackered old greyhound, every prop plane has to bite the dust. By 1967 TWA was Totally Jet. On the seats of the fancy new planes, passengers found the awesome propaganda booklet, 'Props Are For Boats.' Given that most companies were going jet one by one anyway I can't see what purpose this would have served, aside from some self-congratulatory puff and a curious read for aviation geeks.

So to properly celebrate the winsome piston-engine age, I'm going to show you this engine failure clip. Stay with me. Active pilot and 1950s TV presenter Arthur Godfrey, was something of a David Letterman in his day. That is until he went shitty and fired loads of his colleagues (he also remarkably ended up with one lung. But the two are not connected.) Best known for variety and chat shows, he also happened to host a lesser known and diabolically clunky, advertorial-esque documentary promoting Eastern Air Lines. After knocking off the engines in a Lockheed Constellation one by one to show us safety, he then refers to his craft as a purring kitten. Cheesier than a wotsit and hammy as shit - it's completely wonderful.

If you're a total geek, check out the entire docu here. It's worth it alone for the weird 'hello' Arthur dispenses in the first 40 seconds, while creepily stroking some trophies. And if you're wondering who the chap is at the end of this clip, it's the commendably named Captain Stacy Chance, whose website tutorial helps countless flying-phobes.

So here's what I've learned:

Prop planes are beautiful.

Commercial flight won't turn you to the church of Scientology.

Arthur Godfrey was a bronchially-challenged diva.

And Wednesday Addams should definitely be an air steward...

Jarvis, Russia and The Bins: A Side Dish

An aside. Imagine we're on the hard shoulder of my blog now. The periphery. We're making a quick tangential trip into the woods. The air is cold. Quick! Keep close behind, and don't look left nor right...

Why am I almost incurably ill with the want to visit Russia?

I am homesick for a place I've never been. Is that real? I am hooked. Perhaps because it still seems impermeable. Yet to thaw in more ways than one. And there's something intrinsically attractive about a closed book.

But then there are a lot of countries that are far more stand-offish (Dom Joly's accounts of North Korea are fascinating for one - he's been to Pripyat too, but that's got nothing to do with this, apart from the fact I want to go there). But for me, Russia (and it's former republics) just has something. It's like a real-life gothic fable I want to tumble head-first into, taking the lead role in a wool overcoat or something hooded (Fable Whore). There's something about the culture, the folkloric overtones, the architecture, the art and the elegance that I find bewitching. I like the cold, the darkness, the secrets, the superstition, the mythology. And at the other end, the grit and determination of a nation which endured years of censorship and repression.

I'm enthralled with the beautiful yet steely-faced gymnastics teams of the 60s and 70s (punctuated by the delightful and in some ways quite un-Russian Olga Korbut, when she dissolved in tears after a disasterous bars routine at the 1972 Olympics - left). It's no secret - I want to be them. And I love the beautiful form and athleticism of the mighty Bolshoi Ballet Company. I want to be them, too. 

I like the attitude to dress. People have a want to look sharp. And you can't argue with that. According to a cool Russian blogger I found, it's not weird to look as fabulous as possible just to take the bins out. I get this. It also reminds me of a quote from my teen hero, Jarvis Cocker, who declared to Smash Hits around '95 that he always wore a smart jacket as, 'you never know who you're going to meet.' The only folk likely to see me take the bins out in my South London Panstick-Refuse-Finery, would be 'Coolio' the Dwarf Tramp and his sometime aggressive friend, Bad Reggae Guitar Crazo (Stockwell's answer to celebrity.) But I love that that's not the point. Myself, Jarvis and the Russians - we need to dine.

Proving the jacket theory further (albeit a jacket for the face) is Ukrainian and former Soviet gymnast Tatiana Gutsu (left). At the height of her short career, she always made a plan to look as colourful as possible. In fact, so fierce was her love of liberal frosting and kohl (and poise of course) she was nicknamed by journalists at the '92 Olympics, 'The painted bird of Odessa.'

So I basically need to go to Russia. A bit like I need to eat, or I need the loo. It's not really a choice. I need to see the pomp. The hats. The military Ushanka with it's ear-flaps and turned up front - wolf-like. The People's Palaces...

I want to taste the history. A soup of revolutions, uncertainty, triumph over adversity, angst and relief, bribery, corruption, agents and spies. In GCSE history I half listened to nuggets on the Russian Empire, the last Tsar, Rasputin and the Bolsheviks - but never quite appreciated it at the time. Instead my friend and I spent lessons designing comedy Trotsky merchandise (bedspreads and lampshades). What a bonehead (me. She's still cool.)

If I fall in love with a country, I want to see the suburbs. I want to see where I would live, if I'd been born there. What local shops I'd go to. What adverts I'd be susceptible to and what toothpaste and washing powder I'd use.

I want to go to Belarus and see the apartment Korbut grew up in, and see inside the specialist sports school she attended (one of many, designed solely to produce Olympic champs.) I want to go to Siberia and see the world's oldest and deepest lake. I want to discover the old abandoned homes deep inside the Russian forest, laden with charm and woodworm, which look like eerie dolls houses (above), and the centuries old traditional wooden orthodox churches found in the North (top).

On the flip side I want to see with my own eyes, some of the brutalist monuments, palaces and buildings to come out of the 70s, 80s and 90s, where the architects sensed the loosening of reins and went mildly bonkers, yes and-ing parts of their imaginations long-repressed to create inconceivable and imposing buildings like the Palace of Weddings in Tbilisi, the polytechnic university in Minsk and the House of the Soviets in Kalinigrad (all featured in architect Frederic Chaubin's Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed).

For me, this giant place is like an insurmountable treasure trove. A place of past oppression and endless once-upon-a-times. A rich and detailed painting, layered with meanings and riddles I can't hope to understand.

And maybe it's also an under-dog thing. This is massively general, but I am definitely drawn towards countries or communities that haven't had it easy. Because when life is difficult, often what springs forth is determination and creativity. When times are hard, it's inevitable that people access their heart and soul more; they sing louder, they feel more keenly, they live with more verve, they are the cognoscenti of camaraderie... because who knows what's going to happen tomorrow. Feeling marginalised seems to go hand in hand with a strong sense of justice. The need to be the best version of you possible, to offset the circumstances...

So, who is game for a holiday?

After I've taken the bins out in my ball gown of course...

Babyflot

'Where else in world do passengers start disembarking from either end of the plane, because it's structured such, that if you don't, the plane will fall over? Where else in the world do they not wake you up when you are about to land and you wake up in this froth, because you think the plane's going to crash? Where else in the world, does the captain get off the plane before you do? Where else in the world are there plastic cups that have got teeth marks on them? It's only Russia. It's got to be Russia.'

- Airplaneski

Once upon a time in early-90s land where satin low-rise flares flourished in the West and the Soviet Union broke up for good under more easterly skies, a national carrier called Aeroflot was going through some pretty insane changes. Like aluminium puberty, it grew from one organisation and blossomed into hundreds of different domestic airliners, dubbed Babyflots.

1. The word Baby does not sit well with my puberty metaphor.
2. Don't let the implied cuteness of the baby word distract you.
The safety record for many of these new airlines were so appalling, that the International Air Transport Association recommended train travel in the former Soviet Union as a preferable and less death-y option (closely followed by unicycling head first into an Amur Tiger's mouth and riding a Snow Sheep back to front through the Siberian Alps*)

Essentially, the amount of planes needed for such a huge Baby(Flot) Boom, just couldn't be met. So the crafts often used were geriatric, rickety and poorly maintained. Parts for broken planes often couldn't be located for weeks. Sometimes not at all. Documentary, Airplaneski delves into the murkiness, poverty and pilot frustration of 20-years-ago-Russia, with some incredible first hand accounts of flights that were at best bonkers, and at worst, foggy (inside the plane) white knuckle rides culminating in multiple and unscheduled pit-stops, often decided by bribe or passenger vote ('Can we drop our eldest and naughtiest off at Rostov-On-Don, please? He's being a dick. Yes, without the comfort blanket.')

In 1998, the Moscow Times announced the 'end of the Babyflot era.' But the safety debate inside Russia still persists. I appear to have found some like minded geeks on the Wings of the Web. According to one, the only carriers to fly with inside Russia these days are, Aeroflot, Rossiyer Airlines, Vladivostock, Transaero, S7 and Ural. All the rest are potentially a full-panted nightmare. In particular the regional jet liner, Yakovlev. I can't help but wonder how 'bad' it all is. Or if it's over sensationalised. A recent article in Forbes seemed to compound rotten safety issues up to the present day, but it received a complete belting on the Wings forum. However, according to the Aviation Safety Network, it's not that wrong. Inside Russia is apparently the most dangerous place in the world to fly (their international fleet of Boeings have a near perfect safety record). But so much for the 'end of the Babyflot era'...

Why is it all going so wrong? I learned today that Aviacor is the largest manufacturer of Russian planes. It makes the gloriously named Antonovs, Tupolevs, and Yaks - but it only makes one new plane a year. The government says, 'buy Russian.' But how, if there's nothing to buy? It's like saying, 'go to the soap shop and buy some soap. There's no soap in there. Just some rank old stuff. But make sure you buy it, yeah?' Most of Aviacor's time is spent servicing ancient planes, which clearly doesn't work as there have been six fatal crashes this year. Now I love a splendid retro plane, inside and out. But not one that's still in active service and being run into the ground. It's like making Grandma work a 50-hour week and then poking her with a stick if she sits down.

I sort of want to see the whole situation for myself. Aviacor has been described as a 'chilly hangar' not unlike a 'museum' (left). That's already a geek-win. I do wonder if there is a market for some sort of eccentric, tailor-made holiday encompassing a trip to Aviacor, a tour of a Tupolev-144 (my all time favourite looking creature inside - orange lozenge-seat o'clock) and a TU-95 (not a passenger plane, but my all time favourite on the outside - the most festive looking prop plane ever made, so definitely an alternative for Father Christmas, should the sleigh malfunction) and a stay somewhere remote. With lots of vodka. The proceeds of every trip could be used to make planes which aren't complete death traps.

The final Act
Shock. In the wake (turbulence) of far too much furrow-browed information-overload, now for something lighter. One thing I noticed on my tour of Babyflots, is the array of (sometimes endless) generally quite poetic sounding company names. Just for kicks, I have plucked my favourite sounding ones and listed them below. I base my choices and ponderings purely on the arrangement of letters and sounds my eyes and ears enjoy...

Flylal. Sounds like something you might say on waking from an anaesthetic. Pretty punky hot pink livery. Still exists.

Nikolaevsk-Na-Amure Air Enterprise. Well, it just rolls off the tongue, like a bag on a conveyor belt destined for Murmansk but labelled Scunthorpe International...

Novosibirsk. Twice bankrupt. The most juicily Russian sounding. Almost all their fabulous cargo lifters were Antonov 'giants.' One of which - the An-22 Antheus - was nicknamed the 'cock' and most of which were like rotund, obese airborne walruses. The others in this blatant trio of power- in- size, were named the Condor and the Cossack: which both sound like plausible, meat-head lead roles in an 80s action flick. And definitely starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. In both parts.

Polar Airlines. Because I wonder how much vodka you'd have to imbibe to think you've seen a bear in a cockpit.

KrasAir - because I'm a child and it sounds like crass. And Crass in turn, happens to be a defunct 70s punk band.

Rock on.

*lies.