Fear of Flying Remember Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge
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I bet 99% of the world doesn’t know who Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge was. I sure as hell didn’t. We all know that the Wright Brothers made the first sustained powered flights but does anyone remember the name Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge? We should but don’t just because we’re all suppose to believe the flying is safer then driving a car, Kumbaya Kumbaya. Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge was the first person ever killed in recorded aviation history! Now why don’t any of us know this? Because no one wants to remind you that Flying sometimes has bad consequences.
“When Orville Wright came to Fort Myer to demonstrate the Wright Flyer for the US Army Signal Corp division, Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge arranged to be a passenger while Orville piloted the craft. On September 17, 1908, the Wright Flyer circled Fort Myer 4½ times at 150 feet (46 m). Halfway through the fifth circuit, the right propeller broke, losing thrust. This set up a vibration, causing the split propeller to hit a guy wire bracing the rear vertical rudder. The wire tore out of its fastening and shattered the propeller; the rudder swiveled to the horizontal and sent the Flyer into a nose-dive. Orville shut off the engine and managed to glide to about 75 feet (23 m), but the Flyer hit the ground nose first.
When the craft hit the ground, both Selfridge and Wright were thrown against the remaining wires. Selfridge was thrown against one of the wooden uprights of the framework and his skull was fractured. He underwent neurosurgery but died that evening without regaining consciousness. He was 26. Orville suffered severe injuries, including a broken left thigh, several broken ribs and a damaged hip, and was hospitalized for seven weeks. Selfridge wasn’t wearing any headgear while Wright was only wearing a cap, as two existing photographs taken before the flight prove. If Selfridge had been wearing a helmet of some sort he most likely would have survived the crash. As a result of Selfridge’s death the US Army’s first pilots wore large heavy headgear reminiscent of early football helmets”. Above quoted text from Wikipedia free of use policy
My main problem with Flying is that if something bad is going to happen, chances are you’ll know about it for a few minutes and there is no way for you to escape. You are trapped. That’s what I can’t deal with. If one just suffered instant death without warning I would have no trouble flying. But because death isn’t always instantaneous without warning when an Airplane crashes, I won’t fly period. To people who say I’m crazy and overreacting, all I have to say is Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge and they’ll all go who huh “oow wah wah walla walla bing bang”. For more on Fear of Flying in My Blog please read:Fear of Flying Is A Good Thing and other articles in my Anxiety section. Oh yes, almost all major commercial airline crashes happen in groups of three within a few months worldwide so you might want to keep that in mind when planning to fly. My theory for that is basically after the first crash anxiety builds up amongst the airlines, airline personnel, pilots, airline maintenance and repair workers, air traffic controllers and passengers affecting their subconscious and causing them to make anxious mistakes they normally wouldn’t make. In the case of passengers, I believe but can’t prove, that their collective brain waves give off some negative energy that may somehow affect the flight.
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