This course has been created by an American pilot - Captain Stacey L. Chance, to help the one in six adults he claims are afraid of flying. Chance uses his experience and expertise to talk “aviophobic” learners through the process of air travel and to reassure them of their safety. He has apparently created this course entirely on his own – possibly as a way to market his book on the same subject. It is not sponsored by any airline or any other organisation.

The course is basically a number of SHTML (Server-parsed HTML) pages with links to photographs, audio and video. The design is quite amateurish – it’s clear that no graphic or instructional designer has been involved, yet the course still succeeds in being engaging and effective. The site uses garish websafe colours that date it as a throwback to another era (2001) when they were still being widely used. It is littered with twitchy little animated gifs which are probably meant to put the anxious user at ease by making the potentially threatening content seem light-hearted and “fun”. They do this, but they are also quite distracting – especially considering all the reading that is involved.

The course is divided into five lessons:-

• Fear
  
• The People Who Work in Aviation
  
• The Aircraft and Its Environment
  
• Your Strategy for Success
  
• Your Flight from Start to Finish

For some people just reading about flying can cause extreme distress and even induce panic attacks. There are reminders throughout the course for those having difficulty to stop, breathe and relax.

Each lesson takes the form of a very long page which the user must progressively scroll down. Users click a button at the end of each page to continue on to the next one. Photos are accessed via hyperlinks within the text and the user must rely on the browser’s “back” button to return to the page they were on. Unfortunately some words are underlined for emphasis and they can be confused with links. Video is indicated with icons and is opened via hyperlinks. Audio and “narrative” audio are linked via easy to recognise icons scattered throughout the course. Audio files are WAV format and video WMV.

The scrolling and large amounts of text aren’t necessarily a huge problem – as long as the user is someone who doesn’t mind reading on screen! Anyone doing the course would have plenty of motivation to continue and hopefully overcome a very inconvenient phobia. There is a lot of reading – the course could be a booklet – if it wasn’t for all the multimedia, which really is what makes it effective. Also, it’s written in a very pleasant style with lots of humour to take the edge off the scary subject matter.

The multimedia is used very effectively. There is an introductory and “goodbye” video from the Captain in his cockpit. He is a reassuring figure who seems all very calm and in control. He’s not a wildly charismatic screen presence (despite looking like an older Ed Norton), but he does inspire confidence – and the human face would no doubt make a difference for nervous learners.

The multimedia is used to best effect in the final lesson where learners can put all their recently gained knowledge and skills to the test by trying their hand at a simulated plane trip – a kind of “practice run” before attempting the real thing. This is done with text describing the journey, photos and lots of audio and video. The journey is broken up into small steps which the learner can choose to experience at their own pace, and even repeat until they feel comfortable. There are lots of photos of scenes you would typically see at an airport and in a plane. There are airport sounds such as people and announcements as well as the sound of a jet engine taking off. There are also videos of various parts of the journey – the user can “practice” walking into a plane, for example. The captain also offers helpful tips for the nervous traveller such as “DO NOT JOKE about bombs, weapons, etc. No one will have a sense of humor about such things…" (!)

Each lesson ends with a summary and a question to focus the learner on what they have learned. Answers are selected from a drop down menu.

Despite breaking many cardinal e-learning rules, this course is effective because it is well structured, nicely written and uses multimedia to good effect. Not bad for someone with no background in online learning!