I read somewhere that pilots, as a group, are disproportionally afraid of heights. The statistic was something like 90% of all pilots have a higher than normal fear of being in high places. It must be a control thing...
I think it's more of a lack of exposure to an environment than lack of control that causes the problem. Hanging by a single rope 50-300ft up in empty air gives one a sense that there is a lot of gravity down at the bottom that's looking for any way it can to yank them out of the sky and splat'em on the ground. That can be creepy. In a plane, the person has a safe comfortable box to sit in that disconnects them from the reality of being exposed to empty air far away from the ground. Also objects 2000-10,000 feet below don't appear personally realistic. It looks like a toy train set down there, not real size cars and people. Planes transition through the reality height range (50-300ish feet or something like that) too fast while the pilot is too busy flying to look down and say "eieieyikeeiey" while the box they're in gives them a safe place to be. Add those three conditions together and suddenly they can handle the height.
I've taken a few people that are afraid of heights up a little ways. Some on ladders, some on rope, some next to empty air cliff edges. Give them something to do instead of looking at all the gravity down there and they tend to not have much of a problem even if they look out horizontally after a bit. Once someone trusts themselves, their equipment, whoever they're with and concentrating on something else, it's not the big deal while it was before. Once someone can force themselves to quit thinking of the distance off the ground and potential consequences, they tend to be ok.
IMHO being way up high isn't much different than being suspended the same way 5 feet off the ground. You're busy doing what you're doing and not worrying about how high you are or how bad it'll hurt if the Earth were to jump up and slam into you. As long as you ignore the ground and don't do anything stupid, it'll ignore you as well.
Just a thought. Could be completely wrong.
Hmmm. I have a friend that has a degree in psychology. I'll have to bring the fear of heights on edges vs in airplanes thing up next time I get a chance.
That made me queasy
Then don't look at these:
(You looked didn't ya? I told you not to look but nooooooo, you just had to look anyway.
)
