Talaat Captan built Air Hollywood to give filmmakers a better place to shoot airplane scenes. Over time, the same cabins, jet bridges and terminal sets found a second audience: people who are afraid to fly. FearlessFlight, the fear-of-flying course hosted at Air Hollywood, uses a sound stage in place of a real departure gate so nervous travelers can practice every step of a trip before they ever board a real flight. This is a look at how the course works, who teaches it, and why a film studio turned out to be a natural home for it.
A practice space that did not exist before
Fear of flying has an awkward catch. The usual way to get comfortable with something is to do it again and again in small steps, but an airliner is not somewhere most people can simply walk onto for practice. Airports are busy and secure, and a ticket commits you to the whole flight.
Captan has described this gap in interviews. Speaking to FOX 11 Los Angeles in 2019, he explained that people who fear flying have no easy way to spend time on an airplane, because the fear itself keeps them off one. A studio full of realistic aircraft interiors solves that problem: the aisle, the overhead bins, the seatbelt chime and the cabin announcements are all there, but the plane is parked on a stage and nobody has to go anywhere.
There was also a personal side. Medical Daily, summarizing a 2014 Los Angeles Times report, noted that Captan started the classes after living through an emergency landing in Anchorage during a turbulent storm. He knew from experience how unsettling a rough flight can be.
Who teaches the course
FearlessFlight is led by Captain Ron Nielsen, known to students as “Capt Ron.” According to Air Hollywood’s FearlessFlight page, he has been helping fearful flyers since 1987. He is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and a commercial pilot with more than 20,000 flight hours, most of them on the Boeing 737, and he flew as a captain for a major airline for about 30 years. He also holds an M.A. in Professional Counseling and served on the Air Transport Association’s Human Factors Subcommittee.
That mix of cockpit experience and counseling training is central to the course. Nielsen can explain exactly what a pilot is doing during each phase of a flight, and he can also help students understand what is happening in their own minds when anxiety rises. He is the author of How to Overcome Fear of Flying and created the FearlessFlight Kit, published as Chicken Soup for the Soul Presents The FearlessFlight Kit, a set of guides, audio and video for people to use at home.
How a FearlessFlight class works
Air Hollywood describes the program as a combination of education, exposure therapy and support, delivered in a safe and friendly setting. The format has been reported in some detail over the years.
Learning on the ground. Medical Daily’s 2014 account described students moving through airport sets and wide-body jet cabins while Nielsen walked them through each phase of a flight, from the sounds of taxiing to why turbulence feels the way it does. Students practiced breathing exercises to avoid hyperventilating and even drew pictures of their fears.
Feeling turbulence safely. The studio can make a grounded cabin shake. NPR’s Morning Edition reported in 2016 that on the first day of the two-day class, students sat in a grounded jet on a sound stage while Nielsen explained the basics of flight and the cabin was shaken to simulate turbulence. Experiencing a bump while knowing the aircraft is parked lets students separate the sensation from the fear.
Finding personal triggers. FOX 11’s 2019 report followed a three-hour session in which Nielsen helped students identify what sets off their anxiety. He pointed out that many people start to panic on the jet bridge, before they even reach their seat, which is exactly the kind of moment a studio set lets them rehearse.
The real flight. The course has often ended with an optional short trip on a real airliner. NPR described a flight from Burbank to Oakland; Medical Daily reported a short hop from Burbank to a nearby city and back. It is the moment the rehearsal pays off.
Honest about what it can do
The coverage is notable for not overselling. In the NPR story, Nielsen said the class is not a cure-all, and that shame about avoiding flights can weigh on people more than the fear itself. A USC psychiatrist quoted by NPR described flight anxiety as rooted in a feeling of losing control, and saw the class as a way of giving students tools to regain some of it. Medical Daily put the goal plainly: to reduce anxiety enough that passengers can fly without relying on medication.
For a summary of the NPR report, see NPR: Air Hollywood’s jet helps fearful fliers find their courage.
Part of a larger idea
FearlessFlight is one of several ways Captan has put Air Hollywood’s sets to work beyond film and television. The same thinking is behind Open Sky for Autism, which lets families of children with autism rehearse a full trip, from check-in to boarding, before a real flight. Both programs rely on the same thing that makes the studio useful to filmmakers: a convincing, controllable aircraft environment that can be used again and again.
That environment exists because of a decision Captan made in 1998, after a difficult airport shoot showed him that productions needed a dedicated aviation studio. The story of how that happened is told in How Talaat Captan Turned a Ground Control Setback into Air Hollywood, and the sets themselves are described in How Talaat Captan’s Air Hollywood Films Airplane Scenes Without a Real Plane.
Where to learn more
Class details, Captain Ron Nielsen’s background and information about the FearlessFlight Kit are on Air Hollywood’s FearlessFlight page. The program is based at Air Hollywood in Valencia, California, and the studio has announced a new home on Stage 2 in Valencia. More on Talaat Captan’s work with Air Hollywood is on his founder page at Air Hollywood, and an overview of all his ventures is on the home page.
Sources: Air Hollywood FearlessFlight page; FOX 11 Los Angeles (Gina Silva, April 22, 2019); NPR Morning Edition (May 17, 2016); Medical Daily (September 30, 2014).
