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Sheer Will Power. Top Manhattan Model Peggy Moffitt first flew at the age of seven, and used to commute to California by plane; now she travels only by train. Why the changeover? "Nothing dramatic," she says, "I just got married, and that made me feel mortal." Most groundlings trace the beginning of their phobia to an especially hairy flight. Jackie Gleason swore off flying in the 1940s when the plane on which he was a California-to-New York passenger lost two engines and landed in a Midwest wheatfield. Old Trouper Jimmy Durante also dates his dislike of flying to "the worst flight ever" some 20 years ago. He still flies, because "I gotta. But when it gets choppy, I say, 'Oh, my God,' and hold to whoever is sitting nearest." Such people get little satisfaction from the statistics, which show that air fatalities v. auto fatalities last year were .29 to 2.40 per 100 million passenger-miles; they are just plain scared of flying.
Even old Air Force men have been known to break out in a sweat once aloft in the passenger seats. Alabama's George Wallace, an engineer in a B-29 crew during World War II, is no exception. Recently, when a British journalist tried to interview him on his chartered Electra high over Illinois, Wallace turned off all questions while he stared fixedly out the window. "Listen, sonny," he said, "I'm tryin' to get us out of this weather. Now leave me be." California's Ronald Reagan is no braver. Congratulated recently because he seemed to have overcome his fear of flying, Reagan snapped back: "Overcome it, hell. I'm holding this plane up in the air by sheer will power."
The Reasons Why. "Fear of flying is not a laughing matter," says San Francisco Psychiatrist Edwin F. Alston. "It can involve clear physical suffering—nauseous stomach, sweating, trembling, and sometimes inability to move." In treating patients, Dr. Alston has found that the causes go far beyond the experience of a particularly rough flight. "It has always been a multiple thing," he says. For a few, the fear may result from a death in the family resulting from an air crash. For others, the airplane may represent separation—from both the ground and loved ones. Deep feelings of guilt often play a role. "A man who feels guilty toward his wife," says Alston, "expects a catastrophe, such as a crash, as punishment."
Jack R. Edwalt, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, also finds that other anxieties contribute to the fear of flying. "Trouble with the boss, an impending tax struggle, problems with a new product—the airplane can aggravate these." Often, too, there is simply "mistrust of the gadget." Polaroid's manager of community relations, Bob Palmer, who cheerfully admits, "I get tanked up while the airplane does," agrees. "It's really a hatred of being dependent on something mechanical," he says. Then too, executives who feel that they must always be in command may be bothered by the feeling that they are not in control in the air.