I'm presenting a paper at the biggest international conference for my field, with other members of the project I am working on. It is in America in May and I am getting nervous already about flying. I have never done a long haul flight and the more I have flown in the past the more nervous I have become. This is only with flights of less than two hours.
I spoke to my supervisor earlier this week and expressed my concerns and tried to think of other reasons to justify my perhaps not wanting to go. She said I should speak to the project leader and I could tell that it probably wouldn't go down well.
This morning I have just got an e-mail from the project leader saying I would be reckless to turn down such an opportunity, I would be letting everybody down, especially as I am funded by the AHRC and going to the conference was part of the plan all along.
I have two problems really, firstly I am very annoyed that my supervisor told this woman without asking me as I wanted to think about it all again before making any decisions.
And now because of this severe(almost threatening) e-mail it looks like I don't have any options unless I really want to piss everybody off.
If I wanted a career in academia then it would be vital to go but, as has been dicussed in other posts, people are having to look for alternatives and I am focusing on other careers now. I am nearly at the end of my funded three years so will be looking for full time work while writing up.
Any ideas/advice on how I should approach supervisor/project leader/fear of flying?

Why are you scared of flying? is it the safety, or the feel of it? I get REALLY air sick - its embarrassing. I'm usually ok on big planes, but was sick the entire flight on one of those 'flying doctor' type planes when i went to africa - it was awful! and I feel really sick on the big planes when they start to spiral near the airport.

I have heard that you can ask the doctor for a sedative which will pretty much knock you out for most of the flight - Mr T style so you may want to try that.

I have no idea what I would say to supervisors - I find I can never say no to anything!

I feel claustrophobic and feel trapped, it's not too bad if you know you will be able to get off after a couple of hours, but for a long flight I'm worried I'll start to panic. I'm also concerned for safety (I know what the statistics say) but I feel more in control in a car, train, boat etc because if there is an accident there is at least a chance to escape. I know it's irrational so maybe a sedative might be a good idea, but then I would start worrying about any side effects. (Can you tell I'm a worrier!!)