The Jello Exercise

One of the reasons people fear flying is because they just cannot understand how an airplane can stay up in the sky safely all that time.

If your fear is that airplane might suddenly fall from the sky you have to read this article by Capt Tom Bunn. I guarantee just reading this will make you feel a whole lot safer while flying.

The Jello Exercise

At five miles-per-hour, you walk through air effortlessly. But as speed through air increases, air becomes radically different. On a bike, people who are not bike-racers reach their speed barrier at about twenty-five miles-per-hour. Going through air at five miles per-hour is effortless. Going through air at twenty-five miles per-hour requires maximum effort.

At fifty miles-per-hour in a car, if you put your hand out the window and push forward, it takes the same effort as putting your hand underwater in a swimming pool and pushing forward. This means fifty mile-per-hour air is as thick as water in a pool to the vehicle penetrating it.

At eighty miles per hour, air becomes as thick as oil or molasses. Take off speed for an airliner is between one hundred-twenty and two hundred miles per hour. At that speed – as far as the plane is concerned – air is like jello.

Imagine a plane to jello in front of you. A cube of pineapple is suspended in the jello. Pick up the plane and shake the jello. No matter how hard you shake it, you can’t make the pineapple come loose from the jello. Replace the pineapple with a toy airplane. Again, shake the jello. As with the pineapple, there is nothing you can do to make the airplane plunge. The jello holding the toy airplane sits on a plate. The jello like air holding the real plane sits on the earth. Turbulence cannot break the hold of the jello. In jello-like air, there is no place to fall.

Once a plane reaches “jello-speed”, it has to go where it is pointed. Imagine you poke a shish kabob skewer into the jello behind the your airplane. Put the tips against the rear of the engines. When you apply force, you can make the toy plane cut forward through the jello. This is what happens in flight. Engines make the plane cut forward through the jello-like air. The plane can only go where it is pointed.

Next time you fly, as the plane accelerates down the runway, imagine the air getting thicker and thicker until it is like jello. Then, as the plane’s nose rises, imagine the plane being shoved forward through jello-like air. Throughout the flight, picture your plane held solidly in jello that is resting on the earth.

Click Here to learn more

Yours truly,

Tom

Capt.Tom Bunn LCSW

Licensed therapist and airline captain Tom Bunn LCSW has specialized in the treatment of fear of flying since 1980. He founded SOAR to develop methods to deal with moderate and severe cases of flight phobia.

SOAR was established in 1982 because no programs existed that could
help people with moderate to severe difficulties. Even today, no other
program offers help that is effective except for mild difficulties. No
matter how difficult flying is for you, SOAR can help visit :

Click Here for SOAR official site

10 Comments

  • BRIGITTE SABBAGH Reply

    thank you very much for all your information

  • abdallah ashamrani Reply

    this is very good information …thank you sir

  • Louise Reply

    Wow, that’s great information.. I feel calmer already! Thanks so much!

  • Dawn Reply

    wow, thats a great way of looking at it, thanks SO much.

  • Alexia Reply

    Thank you so much. This explanation really helps

  • Lise Reply

    The gello exercise is brilliant! I almost look forward to my next flight when I will have the chance to practice this. Thanks!

  • Bonny Reply

    Thank you for info and taking the time to help me. This info will me when I want to fly again.

  • Minna Reply

    Oh my! Thank you so much for this information, really put the thing in perspective for me 🙂 Im almost cured already!

  • salamoun Reply

    Thank you both Barry and Capt. Tom for all the informations.

    May God Bless you for helping others really thank you…

    Keep it up WISH YOU ALLLLLLLLL THE BEST

  • jill Reply

    Thank you so much! I fly twice a year to Denver, and it is always such a wild ride! Very bumpy flying over the rocky mountains indeed. My panic was getting worse and worse over the years; i was thinking i would have to stop visiting my Colorado family because the flight was just too stressful. Then I came across your description, and it helped me extremely much on my last two flights to Denver. When I would start to get scared from the turbulence, I would close my eyes, pray :o) and picture that toy airplane in a bowl of jello — can’t possibly fall through that thick stuff! Following the jello idea up with the common experience of how thick air feels to my hand from a speeding car — yep, rings very true, which makes the jello comparison all the more convincing. My mental jello has been Orange….Maybe I’ll try for purple when I fly once more to Denver tomorrow…. Thank you!

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