As I’ve had many emails from first time flyers with questions along the lines of ‘what is take-off like?’, I have a quick video for you showing a typical take-off from Madrid Barajas Airport.
NB: The odd noise you can hear as we go down the runway is my camera moving against the window – it’s not the plane. You would not hear this noise during take-off.
Hope the video helps……. Just hit the play button and enjoy.
Any questions?
9 responses to “First Time Flying? A Video of Take-Off”
Dear Kevin,
I love your site! I look at it every time a day to fly comes up. Knowledge has helped ease my fear, but my biggest irrational fear about flying is that the luggage hold will somehow come open during takeoff or even at 30,000 feet! How likely would that be to happen? Thanks!
Hi Jen,
Glad the site is useful to you!
The luggage hold is very securely closed with a very advanced locking mechanism that is checked by the ground crew as well as the aircraft systems. If there is any fault with the door, the onboard computers will alert the pilots. A plane will not even push back until the luggage hold door (along with all other doors) are firmly closed and safe.
Therefore the chance of that door opening on takeoff is more than highly unlikely, in fact, it’s pretty much impossible.
Dear Kevin,
My worst fear in flying is what if the plane does not climb during takeoff. What if it stalls soon after takeoff. Please do let me know if there is any chance of this happening and in what conditions. Secondly there is a term that pilots use before closing the gears on takeoff i.e. positive climb rate. Is there anything opposite to it say negative climb rate?
Hey,
I am going on a 12 hour flight from Canada to Italy in 53 days, and I am nervous to the point of considering cancelling the trip all together. I think my biggest problem is, despite all the stats I read ( and they do give some temporary relief ) I can only focus on the 1 plane that went down and not the 22,000 that landed or the 20 fatalities as opposed to the million of survivals. I just need to know if there’s ever been a moment when you’ve been scared while flying, and if you can offer any advice on overcoming this irrational fear?
Aimee,
A girl hopefully going to Europe in 53 days.
Just stumbled across this website! Well I am supposed to be going to Thailand in Feb, and I live in Scotland so that’s like a 13 hour flight! I have flown before but I was verrrry young so I don’t recall how it was unfortunately. It’s just dawning on me now that I will be stuck in the air for such a long period of time, wouldn’t be so bad if my first time flying was only for like an hour! This site does provide some reassurance, but there is always a chance that something can go wrong up there. If I do go to Thailand and return home safely, I don’t think I’d be scared of flying afterwards! But until then the concept is very much scary.
Hiyah,
My worst fear is not so much about crashing, although this is at the back of my mind. It is because I have a fear of heights and the thought of been that high up for a couple of hours panics me.I think it is the fact that I know, once we take off, that is it, no turning back until we reach destination and then I’ll have to do it all again coming back!!! Arghhh! lol!
I really want to do it for my kids, as they have never been abroad, and I don’t want them having the same anxieties as I have. I’m sure once I do it, I will be fine, but it’s just that fear of the unknown. It’s also great to see I’m not alone in my fears.
Thanks for listening, and any advice would be great,
Jen.
There is a possibility of my family flying to Disney in May from Cleveland. I have never flown and I am terrified. Just watching this almost sent me into a panic attack.
I don’t think there is any hope for me.
Lisa and all,
I too fear flying. I’ve never flown and I have a physicial reaction just thinking about it. It would be greatly helpful if you could come back to the site and let us all know how your flight went. I think we could all get a better understanding to know if your fears were warranted or just your mind creating a horror story. Thx.
Dear All,
I do not have a real fear of flying but have always been a very nervous flyer. Before, I did not travel by plane so much but then I met my husband and he loves travelling, so we frequently travelled around Europe by plane. We went from Germany to Spain three times, to Sweden, to Italy, to Greece and to France, that makes 14 flights in total (mostly with the cheapest airlines) and all of them were very comfortable, none of all the terrible things I imagined beforehand happened. I came to really enjoy the take offs and when the plane turns a little to the side after the take off to turn into the right direction (sorry for my poor English) then it makes really fun.
And since my husband is Japanese and we moved to his home country last year I now have to take a 12 hour flight between Germany and Japan twice a year if I want to visit my family back in Germany. Until now I did so 8 times in total, every time with intermediate stops), so there was no trouble at all during all those take offs and landings. We had one go-around in Tokyo because the runway was still blocked by another plane but that was perfectly well done by the Swiss Air pilot and I never felt unsafe at any time.
Also the flights between Germany and Japan were all quite comfortable apart from the last one, when I experienced some turbulences that suddenly made me panicking and uncontrollably shaking for some time. I even became more afraid when we were told “due to the weather conditions at this altitude please remain seated”. My panic was really stupid because all the other passengers were perfectly calm, some were even sleeping while my whole body like in a cramp was shaking with panic. That is why now I have started reading some information about turbulence and fear of flying and so on. But after we passed Mongolia the turbulences calmed down and I even fell asleep, so all the panic was in vain, I was angry with myself for having wasted energy on such a stupid fear. I have read a lot about turbulences now and I hope this will help me next time I fly back. Also, my husband, as a business man, has travelled and is still travelling really a lot by plane (sometimes every week) and there was never any situation that worried him.
Come to think of it, it is so stupid to be afraid of flying and at the same time driving around in a car. Last year a young man died in a car accident right in front of my parents’ house (not the first mortal car accident at that place). And if I read the local newspaper I can find a mortal car accident almost every few days. But when I get into my car and drive around I do not think even a second about these crashes. But imagine a plane would have crashed, or imagine what you are feeling when you read about a plane crash somewhere: As for me, I would think: Oh no, this is going to happen to me on my next flight as well! And before my next flight my brain tries to think about all the plane crashes that I heard about. That just does not make sense at all, it is so completely illogic and that makes it so illogic to be a nervous flyer.
Btw, when people started driving cars at the beginning of the 20th century many people were seriously awfully worried about moving at the speed of 30 km/h because they thought it is not natural for the body and thus will cause damage to their health. The maximum speed of a Peugeot built in 1896 was 50 km/h, but the people were told the maximum speed was 20 km/h (there were no speed indicators in cars at that time) because people back then were afraid of travelling at 50 km/h and thus no one would have bought this car because it would have been considered as too dangerous. Can you imagine anything like that? Today we are driving at 200 km/h (at least on German highways :-)) and we think: So what?
So why can’t we just do the same with flying in planes?
I will not be afraid during the next turbulences anymore, will just enjoy them!