In an airplane, in a hot air balloon, skydiving... we're different people when we're off the ground. How does being up in the air change you?

Read on to find out what's on the show, or click "Listen" to hear the podcast. (Originally aired Mar. 31, 2012)

 

Some of us chat to our neighbours when we fly. Some of us keep to ourselves. For Laura Wilkinson-Sinton, a chance conversation with a stranger on a plane was life-changing. She'll tell us why.

We Met On a Plane is a site dedicated to helping  people who made fleeting connections in the air find each other. And it was founded by a guy who knows whereof he speaks - Will Scully-Power. He'll tell us about meeting his special someone on a plane - and why romance blooms in sky.

Here are six words you don't want to hear while flying: "Is there a doctor on board?" Now imagine you're the doctor. We'll hear from Dr. Bill Miller, who had to spring into action... at 30,000 feet.



What's it like when your job takes you up in the air - with only a rope and harness to keep you up there? Sook-Yin will talk with sky-high window washer John Donaldson. (Below: John's eye-view, and a shot of John in action.)


We'll hear from reporter Mary Agnes Welch, who got to suit up and fly with the much-heralded Snowbirds. She'll tell us how it changed her whole point of view... and not just with respect to the scenery.

There are enough things to make fliers nervous - and you'd hope a fellow passenger wouldn't be one of them. Sook-Yin tells us how an air rage incident turned a routine flight ugly - and takes to the street to ask how you deal with your fear of heights.

Do you feel like human interactions on planes are becoming more and more tawdry and impolite? Well, you're not wrong, according to Heather Poole. The flight attendant and author of Cruising Attitude: Tales of Crashpads, Crew Drama, and Crazy Passengers at 35,000 Feet will share some tales of bad behaviour while up in the air.

You know how in cartoons, characters can tie some balloons to a chair and float away? Well if they can do it on TV... Kent Couch will tell us what actually happens when you take to the sky with a lawn chair, and many many helium balloons...

Doug Holmes tells us how he discovered people on planes are very different from people on the ground...

Not many of us would voluntarily climb a mountain without a safety harness or rope... and then leap off the top once we get there. But that's exactly what Dean Potter loves to do. He's one of the world's most renowned rock climbers and base jumpers, which means he regularly leaps off the tops of structures, wearing only a wingsuit and a parachute that he releases at the last minute. We've talk with Dean about why he does it. (Below: Watch Dean in action in National Geographic's The Man Who Can Fly.)





Heading into the summer of 1961, a teenaged Patricia Crocker knew she was in for a bad time. She was about to spend her vacation stuck in a wheelchair, with both legs in plaster casts. Patricia had just undergone the final surgery to correct her polio. She hoped it would help her to walk....but what she didn't know was that it would help her to fly. She'll tell us how that happened, and how she became a member of the The Ninety-Nines, the international organization of women pilots.

And here's this week's music playlist:

Frank Sinatra - "Come Fly With Me"
Emilie Mover - "Ordinary Day"
No Sinner - "Boo Hoo Hoo"
Anne Murray - "Snowbird"
The Shimmering Stars - "Nervous Breakdown"
In-Flight Safety - "Model Homes"
Arkells - "Where U Goin"
Air - "Sexy Boy"
Tom Petty - "Free Fallin'"
Nelly Furtado - "I'm Like a Bird"