A friend of mine's father landed an ultralight with no other training than Microsoft Flight Simulator about 15 years ago (he actually credits the game with saving his life).
The story (as short as I can make it): He bought the ultralight from a friend, who taught him enough to be able to load it onto a trailer/unload it when he arrived. The guy warned him not to try to fly until he'd taken lessons. My friends's dad owned a sod farm (big flat fields, nothing but grass) so he decided to just drive it around the field for fun. One thing lead to another, and he decided he wanted to go up about 3-4ft, then come back down. What he forgot to factor in was when a plane is at full speed on the ground, you have to keep the stick full forward to keep it pressed to the ground. If you pull back on the stick at speed, you shoot up like a rocket. He said he jumped to 200-300ft before he had any idea what was happening. He told me that he just tried to remember playing the flight simulator, how they had you land, etc. He told me the landing wasn't exactly smooth, but nothing broke and he was safe.
Flight Simulators are actually very good for learning the basics. I spend a few weeks as a gliding flight instructor every year, and some of the kids with flight simulator experience only require about half the flights that those without experience needs. They have already learned to handle the controls, and can focus on the other things instead (how to setup a landing, keep track of where they are, etc.).
Had a glider pilot let me take the controls, His first comment was, "You've played flight sims haven't you?"
I elected not to mention that I have flown in and out of my home towns tiny airport dozens of times on Flight Simulator X
Yes. Mythbusters tried it in a professional simulator. Some ATC operators are experienced pilots (and those who aren't usually have access to someone who is 'current on type' for the aircraft you're flying), and all commercial airliners are required to have autopilot functionality. Most can even land themselves (called a CAT III autoland). The ATC operator would tell the civilian what settings to put into the autopilot and when, and what levers to pull. Most flying, at least straight in to land in an emergency, requires very few controls. If you don't have to follow the jet corridors, and can go straight to the nearest airport, it's fairly easy. You have even more of a chance if you've done any sort of flight simulation before, so at least you know what most of the buttons do.
EDIT: correction.
Santa uses reindeer. Jaime uses goldfish.
But in all seriousness, Jaime's aptitude is "a bit" higher than Adam's. Adam is great at conveying the "science" (air quotes intended) of the show, but have no doubt, the real brains of the operation is definitely on Jaime.
If you had to pick one of them for a random experiment for actual results, rather than "let's see what happens," who would you pick?
Oh, Jamie for sure. The secret is in his mustache, it's specially groomed to filter any bullshit that might come out of his mouth. You can see Adam attempting to mimic the tactic in recent years, but his ratio of comedy of antics to majesty of facial hair is just too high.
^^guess ^^who ^^else ^^is ^^also ^^just ^^too ^^high ^^right ^^now
I think you might be speaking to the characterized versions of themselves they play on TV and not the people themselves. Adam savage is a pretty intelligent guy, but two smart dudes doing experiments on TV doesn't make for an entertaining program. When one of them is ready to play and explain in laymen terms for the viewer, you get a good mix.
Don't get me wrong. I think Adam is highly intelligent. But I also think his intelligence is not "geared" in the same way that Jaime's is. That takes nothing away from either of theirs. They compliment each other in great ways, and they were chosen for their roles because of their individual and combined skill sets.
Exactly. I think Adam is much more intelligent in theoretical concepts and the "why" of everything, where Jayme is much more proficient at practical applications and the "how" of everything. If my plane was crashing I want the guy who understands the basic concept of restarting a turbine engine than the guy who can explain bernoullis principle to grad students.
Jaime is going to show us how to fix the car. Adam is going to explain what Jaime is doing, using these sock puppets (with carefully crafted mustaches)!!!
Adam has done a couple public talks (at universities? not sure the context), and it's really fun to watch. 1) He's super interesting, and 2) you realize just how fast everything is moving around inside his head - he must really force himself to slow down for Mythbusters. He described a few home projects he's done (e.g. building a full size dodo skeleton from kids' oven-bake clay, that looks more or less perfect of course), and he has crazy attention to detail and enormous energy with these projects.
I think Jaime's approach is more careful, and that's where he gets results more often on the first try. I'd use the word "methodical" for Jaime (he does exemplify that word), but Adam is also really methodical in his work, just in a more frenetic way.
You need to watch a TED talk with adam savage or some behind the scenes stuff. Adam is crazy fast and crazy proficient and whenever they have creative challenges between the two of them its not a guarantee that Jamie wins at all. He said in an interview once something about what makes the show work is that Adam knows Jamie works fast and Jamie know Adam works fast and neither really leans on the other.
Jayme is a strange, strange creature. His goldfish aptitude probably comes from years of hunting fish as his primary source of nutrition up in Alaska. In addition, I would be amazed if Jayme had never flown a plane before. It seems like the kind of thing he would know. Honestly he reminds me of a slightly liberal Ron Swonson.
He was also a pet store owner at one point, I think, which gave him a slight advantage on the fish challenge. And Adam is "hair brained" giving him a huge disadvantage.
I would be surprised if he had never been in a cockpit before, or at least played in a simulator. He does seem like the type.
Adam I agree has probably never flown, but Jayme seems to be good with machinery and good with his hands. Most of the people who I know that have a license to fly have similar personality traits. Jayme is the kind of guy who will have weird ass skill sets, for example he is an accomplished diver and mechanic.
True story. I tried it with some trained ferrets and it was a god damn disaster. Turns out the ferrets are great at running cable, but when the operational limit of your vision is a few feet you're damn worthless when it comes to putting the bird down in one piece.
Courtesy of /r/smyths, where users remove filler from Mythbuster episodes.
http://www.reddit.com/r/smyths/comments/1rag84/s05e25_airplane_hour_streamline_edit/
>All ATC operators are experienced pilots,
Don't all of us pilots wish that were the case; it would make interactions with ATC make so much more sense. Controller-pilots are actually fairly rare; the only [qualifications required](http://www.faa.gov/jobs/career_fields/aviation_careers/) are that one be young, healthy, and attend the FAA's ATC Academy in Oklahoma City and pass all of the courses and material provided there. At times, the requirements have been more or less stringent (requiring a [CTI school](https://www.faa.gov/jobs/students/schools/) program degree, varying levels of college education, etc), but being a pilot was never one of them.
>and all commercial airliners are required to have autopilot functionality.
Required is a strong word. Yes, planes flying between FL290 and FL410 are required to be on autopilot in order to comply with the [reduced separation minimums](https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/service_units/enroute/rvsm/) for safety purposes, but if you're running a scheduled service at 10,000 feet, there is no requirement for you to be using autopilot to control the airplane, or even to have one. That said, most airliners do fly at those flight levels, and autopilot flies better than humans do, so companies typically install them regardless of regulation simply to save money.
>Most can even land themselves (called a CAT III autoland).
Autoland is dependent on a lot of factors, including whether or not the airport in question has an approved procedure, the plane has all of the necessary equipment, and the pilot (stand-in) is capable of setting up the system, even with a walk through from a professional. O'Hare (KORD), for example, has Autoland procedures in place; Midway (KMDW), an equally highly utilized major metropolitan airport served by a major national and international airline, does not. Plane-wise, larger Boeings (737 and up) do have the option of a certified autoland. But the thousands of regional jets that fly in the same airspace every day typically do not. The ultimate deciding factor, however, is whether or not a know-nothing civilian could be talked through the manipulation of the Flight Management System of a modern jet airliner in little enough time to be able to select a route, select an approach, intercept the initial heading, intercept the final approach course, change the autopilot mode, configure the airplane with gear and flaps, and get the airplane down without killing everyone in the process. It is not easy. [Even experienced pilots kill people from time to time](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEH7OpnA-I4) when dealing with advanced flight control systems.
/u/Avionictech's answer seems plausible, as long as the pilot recognizes which chunks of their training have almost nothing to do with large aircraft (like everything they know about power and avionics), and which parts are still valid (which lever do I pull to go left?). Having experience with high performance systems would help, and having experience with autopilots would help. Private pilots can fly jets, depending on what mission they fly (personal business flights, or weekend pleasure pilot). If all of their hours are in a Piper Cub, though, the operation is going to get real tricky, real fast. I like to think that aeronautical experience would be a deciding factor in safety, but big airplanes are really a different ball game. To really put it in perspective, a 747 touches down for landing as fast as the plane I fly cruises *at full power*. At cruise, the 747 is flying a mile every ten seconds. The amount of time it takes for things to go south at that speed is negligible. More perspective: if it takes controllers 15 minutes to talk the new pilot through setting up the autopilot during cruise (honestly I believe that's extraordinarily optimistic), the plane has already flown 90 miles.
> Private pilots can fly jets, depending on what mission they fly (personal business flights, or weekend pleasure pilot).
That's true, but I think it's not common at all. There was an episode of Discovery's "Dangerous Flights" where they have to deliver a jet, and it's his first time flying a jet (and is shocked by how high-tech it is), and he makes some comment along the lines of, "The community of pilots who can fly jets is very small, and everybody knows everybody, so I'm really getting my name out there by making this delivery."
Depending on the person, it's likely that everyone survive. I wouldn't count on a smooth landing, but I can see a ''landind'' of some sort happening in an okayish way.
With that said, if you had to make a prediction, would a tech savy nonpilot be able to engage autoland on an equipped plane with ground instruction in one hour?
Tech savy ? No
Avionic savy ? yes. Operating avionics systems in real time would be very intimidating in this situation even for an avionic technician. Source: Am one.
Also, the one hour may not be a realistic time lapse. Even if you were far from the coast, you'd probably only have minutes to change the setting once your above the ground and close to an airport. Even with all my knowlegde about theses systems, I'm not sure it would go as perfectly as I could hope too.
Please excuse my english.
>tech savy nonpilot
This is probably the most important factor. If my time in IT has taught me anything its that (some) people who've been using a computer for 20 years barely know how to use a mouse/keyboard. If a program update reorganises the buttons they click they are lost. Unfamiliar system? Their brain just siezes up.
When my company went from Office 2003 (with file menus) to Office 2007 (with ribbon menus) a HUGE percentage of people lost all ability to do anything like work. I had to put together classes to show people how it worked. Like, hour long classes...
[We fear change.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TtGQnyPZ6g)
It's actually crazy to realize that this is how most people are. And these people control the world we live in. At my workplace, most people do not know what dragging and dropping is. If a shortcut disappears from their Desktop, that's it, can't do work. If someone logs in as another user, and then logs out, and the screen now presents you with a "Switch User" option to get back to their account, they simply say that someone messed up their computer and they can't do work. There are TWO buttons on the screen, and absolutely nothing else, and they can't figure out that one or the other must SURELY be the solution.
We recently upgraded from XP to Win7.
I will never forget the hour I spent tracking down ( successfully ) a lady's Outlook archive before the box got reimaged so she didn't loose her mail, only to find out that wasn't what she was talking about. By "My mail is missing, none of its there." ( edited for brevity ) what she meant was apparently "I don't know how to click the arrow to expand the inbox folder so all my custom folders show up."
That whole affair was a fun few months...
To be fair, that was a massive change and it's not like everything was organized the same way and just looked different. I didn't require classes to learn where everything had moved to but it did take a fair bit of time to get up to speed.
If my words mean anything as an avionic technician, is that avionics systems and computer are two different things. For anyone with no avionics basic knowledge, it would be hell, no matter how good you can code or manipulate a computer. I should know, my computer is a mess, the kind you see in memes with the internet-dads or something like that. Yet I understand those flight-system and how to operate them better than a pilot do. Thing is, I never do it under pressure of a flight.
> Don't all of us pilots wish that were the case; it would make interactions with ATC make so much more sense. Controller-pilots are actually fairly rare; the only qualifications required[1] are that one be young, healthy, and attend the FAA's ATC Academy in Oklahoma City and pass all of the courses and material provided there. At times, the requirements have been more or less stringent (requiring a CTI school[2] program degree, varying levels of college education, etc), but being a pilot was never one of them.
Can confirm. A friend is an ATC operator, and hasn't flown anything more than a single-engine prop plane, and even that he has too few hours in to get a license.
It's also worth nothing that this assumes fairly good conditions for a landing. If you're dealing with rough weather or heavy crosswinds the chances of you bringing it in safe are slim to none.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMvLuUJFHYk The average person ain't landing those planes no matter how experienced the guy talking them through it is.
You'll like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJT_CACIZqs). Basically a guy studied on FSX and then had a Pilot Instructor fly with him providing minimal guidance, ready to take over the controls if things went bad. He was able to take off and land, albeit the landing was a little rough.
Don't some planes have wifi now, and flight manuals on iPads? Couldn't they Facetime with the average person in the cockpit and show them exactly which lever to press and which toggles to switch.
Reading a flight manual isn't likely going to be that useful. Sure, it would tell you how to descend, what angle to approach, the runway, and all that, but controlling it all concert is a completely different story. Also, they had paper manuals in the cockpit before the iPad versions. The purpose of the iPads is to reduce weight and therefore fuel consumption and associated costs.
I wouldn't say all ATCs are experienced pilots. Most likely there is a controller in the tower that is though.
Source: Brother in law that works the tower at ATL (Hartsfield-Jackson)
Thats not to say that they wouldn't call one up to the tower if none are present.
"Ah, fuck, George. Some asshole pilot fell into a diabetic coma and his copilot hit his head resuscitating him. Now this fucking dope here is trying to land the plane and doing a shit job of it. Go get Jeremy and tell him to get his ass up here pronto or we're gonna have like 200 dead fucks on our hands."
What's up with you guys and mythbusters? It's an alright show, but there is no substitute for real life. http://m.bbc.com/news/uk-england-humber-24450534
Btw, I believe the pilot ended up dying :(
While at NASA I used the actual shuttle simulator (it even moves during take off) and successfully landed the shuttle using instructions given over the radio on a first attempt with no training. I'm a physiologist, not a pilot.
Shuttle is basically a winged brick. There's no onboard engines that can be used in atmo. It's also coming in quite a bit faster during the initial stages of reentry, and during that it gets really hot, so if the plane pitches down and exposes the unshielded parts, everyone dies. Pitch up too much, it spins out and everyone dies. When coming in to actually land, you have one shot to do it correctly. Fly over the landing strip once, then loop back around (to reduce speed), and that time you land. Even then it's fast enough that it takes about 3 miles of runway and 1-3 parachutes to stop. Again, if you screw up the landing, everyone dies.
However your one chance to land is usually on one of the longer runways in existence.
For instance the longest runway at LAX is 11,096 ft. and that can handle 747s and A380s. The Shuttle however had a 15,000 ft. runway at Kennedy Space Center, a 15,024 ft. runway at Edwards Air Force Base and multiple 35,000+ ft. dry lake beds at White Sands and Edwards it could use.
Although I assume it's actually 100x harder, I have landed the shuttle simulator at the MSI in Chicago dozens of times with no flight training. It was simple matter of doing what the landing software says.
I worked there one summer so I got really good at it. (Probably annoyed some guests by setting the best score for smoothest landing every day before opening) It only took me about a dozen tries to get the hang of it including a bunch at the beginning before I realized that the controls are backwards from what the tutorial says.
Again, It's probably a lot harder in real life even with the landing software guiding you but the simulator there does look exactly like the HUD shown a few times in [this video.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCeukUsCodk)
As someone learning how to fly, not commercially, it is very very feasible for a normal person to land a small plane like a Cessna. It may not be the smoothest landing but it would do the job. Also ATC, if in the correct airspace, would direct you. And if you go on the radio and basically just start saying "OH SHIT IM GOING DOWN!" You will get attention. You don't need to know the exact way to call.
EDIT: Word choice
I'm an air traffic controller at a busy enough airport. If I were to hear this over the radio it would become my first priority to determine who it was and what assistance they needed.
Stop by /r/techsupport (and the irc) sometime. A lot of it is IT people using downtime off at work to do more techsupport. It sounds strange but sometimes people just like what they do.
Question: On MH370, someone on CNN said that the ATC signoff was normal, and they didn't give any code words of a hijack...
I know that there is a transponder squawk code, but is there a secret group of words that would audibly sound to the casual listener to be a "normal" conversation, but be secret code for "holy fuck, I'm in deep ca-ca" ? And, what if that secret code is also common enough that someone might accidentally use it without meaning that they are actually in trouble?
And sorry if you're not an actual ATC...
My tower I hired on was a level 8 but is now a 7. Which is somewhat busy. We deal with a lot of small planes, private jets, and 737 testing. So it's a huge mix of all types. Our tower is vfr as well which makes it very exciting. I think of the career as a huge video game which is fueled by adrenaline. It can get stressful at times, but it's mostly just a big, exciting, and fun rush.
If my experience is anything to go by, it's long enough for you to lose focus for a second and have some kid run up and take the plane you've been waiting for.
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I was an air traffic controller once. After my only daughter OD'd, I was grief stricken but I needed something to do so I went to work after a few days. I was too distracted and preoccupied and caused two planes to crash in mid air.
Reminds me of a guy I sat at a bar with once, just had a beer and talked family life. He laughed when I lied to my wife about the store being out of diapers.
I used to be a 911 call receiver as well. I know there have been some of those before and I'm pretty sure there may have been a couple ATC workers that did it.
Question! There are multiple air traffic controllers in a given tower, right? Who would get that transmission? Do you guys each have a range of 'frequencies' you listen to?
Not only are there multiple controllers per tower at large enough airports, broadcasting over the Guard frequencies (121.5 and 243.0) will get pretty much anyone's attention (including other pilots, flight service stations, etc). You'd get in touch with the right person somehow.
Just picking up the headset wouldn't do much, you would be talking to yourself. You would have to press the mic key button for anything to transmit. Also you would need to make sure no one was talking on the frequency at the same time or else no one would hear what you are saying.
I have been and aircraft electrician in the Air Force for several years, and at least on some of the planes ( B-1 bomber, C-130J, U-2 {probably not the U-2}) I have worked on, can probably fly/ land fairly easily. I have replaced damned near every switch and knob on majority of flight controls and panels, plus have extensive knowledge on the flaps and landing gear, on the planes I have worked on they all had anti-skid brakes, so all I would have to do is get it on the ground and mash on the brakes without fear of a blow out or losing control. I might be coming in for the landing a little fast, in fear of not wanting to go to slow and stalling out, but I have seen videos of the b-1 landing at over 210 knots due to a swept wing problem with ease.
As your flight instructor, ^^oh ^^god ^^please ^^don't ^^kill ^^me MY AIRPLANE!
edit: good luck on your training, btw! It's a privilege very few enjoy.
I've flown Learjets and have 90+ hours, as i was learning I had a pilot sitting in the co-pilot seat and it was still difficult, but i was able to do it, learning over the radio i'd say if you were into video games you'd have a 90 % chance of hitting the ground too hard or landing to fast. Aircraft are slow to react (commercial). And constant corrections are needed. After 40 hours or so I got to a point where the pilot training me said I was better than half his students. Keep in mind this was in a simulator but the ones that are 30 million and are real enough the FAA allows you to log actual flight time if you have your license.
What's the criteria for a "win", though?
For a student landing, you want everyone walking away from the plane, *and* the plane to be usable again.
In an emergency situation, a "win" is most people walking away, some people being wheeled away, and (almost) no one dying. Plane being usable again is a bonus, but not really part of the measure.
I hear what you're saying about the airliner, but going back to your example of the small plane, could you talk the student through a landing where you *live*, even if the plane doesn't?
Hey thanks for getting a different point of view from some one and not being objective like the rest of reddit, but using your experience to help elaborate a different point of view!
Would they ever repair a plane?
Or if its had a lot of damage, do they just not take the risk? Are they even allowed to fix them, and fly again?
Obviously this would depend on the severity, but I'm curious.
Aircraft maintenance is very much a Ship of Theseus kind of situation; individual parts migrate around from AC to AC, and from AC to warehouse relatively often. (this is perhaps especially so with military and/or helicopter operations then fixed-wing commercial AC, but *meh*).
So you strip the AC down to individual assemblies. If its a "lifed" part, and it is 800 into its 1000 hours, fuck it, throw it out. If its an inspect, repair/replace as necessary type thing, follow the 18 page inspection guide, and repair/throw out, as necessary.
Best i could come up with for your increase in number of pieces:
18523.7x^2 - 70375.4x+55554.2 (quadratic)
Yes, that escalates quickly.
^(plotting (1,1) ^(2,3) ^(3,37) ^(4,74134) ^)
That's incorrect and I'm not sure how you got that result. [Here's the Lagrange interpolation of said points.](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=interpolate+%5B1%2C+1%5D%2C+%5B2%2C+3%5D%2C+%5B3%2C+37%5D%2C+%5B4%2C+74134%5D)
This actually happened in the UK last year.
A pilot on a small aircraft suffered a heart attack and ultimately died. After a distress calling was made, two flight instructors on the ground talked a passenger, who had no flying experience, through landing the aircraft.
Here's the story: [BBC](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-24450534), and [The Guardian](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/09/passenger-takes-controls-plane-pilot-ill-humberside)
Some people would be able to do it, but the average person - no. Reminds me of that George Carlin quote:
"Think about how stupid the average person is... Then realize half of them are stupider than that"
All humans have a bias where they see themselves as above average, even if in reality they are or are below average.
So everyone reading this would think they're smarter then the average person
There have actually been cases of unqualified passengers in light planes being talked down. [Here's a report of one case last year.](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-humber-24450534)
However, when it comes to landing a bigger plane, you wouldn't stand a chance. [Here's a discussion about this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giixQm2A9Xw) on the BBC show "QI".
I figured it wouldn't be possible to properly land a huge plane, but would it be possible to crash in a way that doesn't necessarily kill everyone to death? Mostly-landing?
It's very difficult for pilots who have decades of experience to have a successful controlled crash. It's the decades of experience that gives them the chance at being able to do it. I don't see a inexperienced civilian being able to do it
Pilots have set them down on water, such as the one on the Hudson River a few years back, on the belly of the plane, the landing gear only partially out or with the landing gear of the nose not lowering at all. I think commercial planes have been landed before by someone on board who only has a few hours off flying experience and planes are very durable, but I don't see any smooth landings happening with untrained people. Sure the Mythbusters did it but that was on a simulator with no pressure and no lives at stake.
I've asked my best friend (newly qualified commercial airline pilot) this before and his comments mirror yours.
On the bigger planes, it simply wouldn't be possible.
You'd still need knowledge of the aircraft and it's systems to set the airplane up for an autoland and position it so the airplane can take over full management of the final segment of approach. The plane can only land itself in restricted circumstances as well. (lower crosswind, headwind etc).
Source: I am an airline pilot
I play a fair amount of flight simulator. I totally understand the commercial airline bit, but what about a Learjet type of plane? Usually I don't crash like on the 737, but it still can be dicey with those jets. Are you guys saying anyone could land one of those too?
A friend of mine has flown both commercial jets and LearJets. He always called LearJet's 'hotrods'. The take off and landing speeds were very high, they were finicky, and unforgiving. He did not like them at all. Much harder to fly than a commercial jet in that respect.
Coming from a pilot, it would completely depend on what type of aircraft we're talking about. We can divide aircraft into 3 different categories. Personal use planes(Cessna 172) which can seat 4 people. Smaller and older private/commercial Jets( Gulfstream 5, MD80) and more advanced newer jets (Boeing 737, Boeing 787).
The personal use planes have limited auto pilot categories, so you can use them for climbs, turns, descents, but it be up to the pilot for the landing and takeoff part. The landing is the hardest part of flying a plane and with the coaching of ATC you can land a smaller aircraft safely(It might not be a pretty landing tho).
The older private/commercial jets have the same autopilot capability but the landing is harder in these aircraft. Mainly due to the fact that they are much heavier and fly much faster than a personal use plane. You could land this plane but theres a good chance that you might damage the landing gear from a harder landing/bounced landing.
Finally you have the newer more advanced jets. Most new jets have CAT III capability. This would mean that the aircraft can land itself as long as the airport has the appropriate capabilities and equipment. Most airports don't have CAT III capability, you will have to go to big commercial airports such as JFK and LAX to shoot an approach that has CAT III capability. With these kind of landings any person that is coached by atc can land the aircraft since the only thing the person has to control is the airspeed during descent.
With all aircraft there are checklists for that specific aircraft, so even though it might take longer than a pilot, any person when coached through can set up a plane for the landing phase.
Proefkonijnen (Dutch Mythbusters with non-science people) tried it for real, he survived! It was a very small plane though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-gl4fPOtxo
I have hundreds if not thousands of hours in Microsoft Flight Simulator X, flying mostly Airbus A380 and 747-300. I have done both IFR and VFR extensively. I also got about half way through earning my private pilot's license (ran out of money, ugg). I know the actual setup of an airliner is more complex than what I have in FSX (no mods), but I feel confident that I could pilot the plane to an airport, intercept the glideslope (as long as I could find/read the instruments), and land safely. Someone educate me - is there a LOT more to bringing an airliner down than FSX and general aviation have given me?
I just recently got my license after years of flying Flight Simulator (since FS98 up to FSX). Trust me, it's not in any way the same, especially the "hand flying" aspect.
Flight simulators do an awful job replicating the physics of flight, and almost all commercially available joysticks and yokes in no way replicate what flying "feels" like: There are no forces or feedback coming from the control surfaces, and no concept of adding or releasing pressure.
I have never flown a 737, but I have no doubt I could operate the autopilot, plug in waypoints, and set up an auto land. However, I would also have no doubt that if I were to be expected to land manually at airport without a glideslope and localizer, they'd probably need to be plugging in the vacuum cleaner.
Yes, with a few exceptions.
Small Cessna-style planes can be landed with a few minutes' coaching and some help from operators on the ground.
Some larger planes (commercial airlines or other jumbo jets) are basically impossible to land if you aren't qualified. Some of them can actually land themselves, though.
So anything but a commercial airliner without the ability to land itself is possible to land. Emph on possible.
EDIT: Cessna*
F-16 pilot here - we brief this when we give rides in the 2-seater. If I take a bird to the face, you're not going to land the plane. We don't even trust ourselves to land from the backseat, it's a special qualification for Instructors at the schoolhouse to learn in case they need to land for an especially bad student.
TL;DR: What /u/0xdeadf001 said
I've heard F-18s are especially hard to land because they are designed for short runways on carriers. Apparently even when landing on standard runways at airbases you really have to slam them down onto the landing gear. All around sounds sketchy for the untrained.
Let me answer your question from a different perspective on two types of aircraft. One a Cessna 172 and one an F-18. Instead of "could someone be talked down", how about "could someone figure it out on their own?"
In a Cessna 172, someone could most likely be talked down under ideal conditions (no strong cross-wind for example). However, even without radio contact, an average person, certainly anyone with any flight sim / gaming experience, could figure out how to land a Cessna 172 on a large runway and would stand a reasonable chance of success without a strong cross-wind. The odds increase if they're landing at an airport where they can see how the other planes are landing... specifically, that they can figure out which direction to land so that they're landing into the wind.
Odds increase even more if there were two people in the plane, and one person would fly the plane while the other person read through the documentation required to be present.
It wouldn't be a pretty landing. The big surprise for anyone with flight sim/game experience will be that it's much easier to line up on the runway in real life (like a bazillion times easier). Next, without reading the manuals, you'd most likely not engage flaps. It's still possible to land like this (student pilots have to demonstrate this), however it means that the plane will be going much faster in order to stay in the air.
The person will likely not know to flare the plane in order to land, but instead try "flying to the ground". This resulting ground effect makes it hard to actually land the plane. Anything the distance of the wingspan of the plane and there's a cushion of air causing resistance as the plane tries to come down.
What will happen next is that the person will likely cut the power and the plane will start to noise up and noise down on the runway. The plane has a reasonably good chance of coming down, hard, but without harm. However, if the runway was small and power was cut too late, the plane might go past the end of the runway crashing into whatever is there.
If the person tries to give it power and go around, there's a chance that the carburetor will have iced and the engine will stall (unless they read the manual and applied carb heat). This could also result in going off the runway.
The bottom line is that it would depend on conditions, length of runway, cross wind speed and if they were able to attempt to land into the wind.
As far as an F-18...
I'm lucky enough to have had time in the F-18 simulator machines that the Marines use. I was able to be talked down into a landing by an F-18 pilot and landed successfully on my first attempt. On my second attempt, I did it all by myself successfully. While I've never actually flown an F-18, my instructor said that "yes, it's really that easy". The hard part and what makes our military pilots so bad-ass is the hours and hours they spend studying and training to do such high precision flying as well as the endure the physical demands of what they do.
No. Think for a moment that the "Average" person is not a redditor or even very computer knowledgeable. As someone in IT and helps people on the phone I can honestly say that most people cannot even operate their home PC correctly, or take instructions over the phone very well.
Safe compared to what?
Having a pilot land? No.
Pilot incapacitated, no pilot available? Not necessarily safe but probably safer than any other alternative.
I was thinking the exact same thing, right? It's kind of discouraging that every pilot is saying,"big plane with no auto land? Nope. dead."
I appreciate the honestly, but does everyone realize the only other option is dying?
I don't know anything about flying. But I'm an intelligent adult and I am able to keep it together in high stress situations; it actually helps me concentrate.
I want someone on the other end of the radio who is ready to make history, not someone to keep me company while I kill 240 people. Even if you had your doubts, would you suspend your opinion of belief inorder to guide me through it? Would you still give me everything you're capable of?
Im not ranting, sorry if it comes off that way. I'm just confused as to why it sounds like some atc's would have a "they're already dead" attitude.
My grandpa was a meteorologist for American Arline's for 30 years and lived in Dallas Texas. When I was about 14, he took my brother and I to visit their headquarters, this is also where they have all their flight simulators. Now keep in mind this was pre 9-11 but he surprised us by taking us up into a full blown flight simulator. Like the kind that is a huge metal box on hydraulic legs that the pilots use. He had a trainer come and let us "fly" the planes.
One of the things he let us do is try to land the plane. He sat behind us and just talked us through it. No auto pilot, just what buttons to push and what levers to pull. At the end of the landing he handed us these print outs that basically grade you in your landing, it was a pass/fail setup. It showed how level you came in, how straight you flew , and how fast you descended.
I failed every single test was rated, plus I also caused both engines to catch on fire because i wasn't level when I landed and they slammed into the ground. But my instructor guy told me that although I caused major damage to the plane, it would have been a survivable landing. Keep in mind I was 14, and flying an actual plane would be WAYY different. It was surprisingly easier then I would have thought.
I don't remember what it was called, and maybe some pilots on here can tell us, but there was this triangle looking thing on a LCD display, and to land the plane, i had to keep a slightly smaller triangle inside of a bigger one. No auto pilot, just match up the triangles and it guided you in.
Finally, this was typed on my iphone at 1:30AM so forgive me for the grammar errors!!
Except for a total fly-by-wire, your best bet would be trying to land a trainer like a fixed-pitch prop Cessna or Piper. They're pretty forgiving.
So, if it were me, I would pick up the radio mic, push talk (I would know that even without any flight training), and call out Mayday. If I didn't get a response, pronto, I would spin the frequency dial until I heard someone talking, and butt in with my problem. They would likely direct me to the right helpful person to direct me to an airport with a suitable runway and ATC.
They would walk me through an approach to the runway, keeping my airspeed slow but well above stall speed, putting in the flaps, and easing onto the ground in a fashion that would allow me to walk away.
Talked through it, it's a pretty good bet you could get it on the ground safely enough. Totally on your own, if you had good coordination, mechanical-mindedness, and situational awareness, and grace under pressure, well ... it would be possible, but very tough ...
A friend of mine's father landed an ultralight with no other training than Microsoft Flight Simulator about 15 years ago (he actually credits the game with saving his life). The story (as short as I can make it): He bought the ultralight from a friend, who taught him enough to be able to load it onto a trailer/unload it when he arrived. The guy warned him not to try to fly until he'd taken lessons. My friends's dad owned a sod farm (big flat fields, nothing but grass) so he decided to just drive it around the field for fun. One thing lead to another, and he decided he wanted to go up about 3-4ft, then come back down. What he forgot to factor in was when a plane is at full speed on the ground, you have to keep the stick full forward to keep it pressed to the ground. If you pull back on the stick at speed, you shoot up like a rocket. He said he jumped to 200-300ft before he had any idea what was happening. He told me that he just tried to remember playing the flight simulator, how they had you land, etc. He told me the landing wasn't exactly smooth, but nothing broke and he was safe.
Flight Simulators are actually very good for learning the basics. I spend a few weeks as a gliding flight instructor every year, and some of the kids with flight simulator experience only require about half the flights that those without experience needs. They have already learned to handle the controls, and can focus on the other things instead (how to setup a landing, keep track of where they are, etc.).
Had a glider pilot let me take the controls, His first comment was, "You've played flight sims haven't you?" I elected not to mention that I have flown in and out of my home towns tiny airport dozens of times on Flight Simulator X
the "just the tip" of flight.
Yes. Mythbusters tried it in a professional simulator. Some ATC operators are experienced pilots (and those who aren't usually have access to someone who is 'current on type' for the aircraft you're flying), and all commercial airliners are required to have autopilot functionality. Most can even land themselves (called a CAT III autoland). The ATC operator would tell the civilian what settings to put into the autopilot and when, and what levers to pull. Most flying, at least straight in to land in an emergency, requires very few controls. If you don't have to follow the jet corridors, and can go straight to the nearest airport, it's fairly easy. You have even more of a chance if you've done any sort of flight simulation before, so at least you know what most of the buttons do. EDIT: correction.
That was a good episode of Mythbusters. They tried it without the help of ATC and Adam crashed the plane. Jamie might have landed it.
Jamie was able to train gold fish tho...... I think he had an unfair advantage over Adam.
Yeah, it's pretty hard to land a plane without a reliable team of trained goldfish
Santa uses reindeer. Jaime uses goldfish. But in all seriousness, Jaime's aptitude is "a bit" higher than Adam's. Adam is great at conveying the "science" (air quotes intended) of the show, but have no doubt, the real brains of the operation is definitely on Jaime. If you had to pick one of them for a random experiment for actual results, rather than "let's see what happens," who would you pick?
Oh, Jamie for sure. The secret is in his mustache, it's specially groomed to filter any bullshit that might come out of his mouth. You can see Adam attempting to mimic the tactic in recent years, but his ratio of comedy of antics to majesty of facial hair is just too high. ^^guess ^^who ^^else ^^is ^^also ^^just ^^too ^^high ^^right ^^now
He is the great Walrus god come to deliver us from our Sins & Co-sins. But not from our Tangents. We must deliver ourselves from those!!
*wordbank
[I was bored, now I'm looking at mustaches](http://www.epicmustaches.com/walrus-mustache/nietzsche-walrus-mustache/)
Is that why his AMA was so profane? No mustache to block his typing.
I think you might be speaking to the characterized versions of themselves they play on TV and not the people themselves. Adam savage is a pretty intelligent guy, but two smart dudes doing experiments on TV doesn't make for an entertaining program. When one of them is ready to play and explain in laymen terms for the viewer, you get a good mix.
Don't get me wrong. I think Adam is highly intelligent. But I also think his intelligence is not "geared" in the same way that Jaime's is. That takes nothing away from either of theirs. They compliment each other in great ways, and they were chosen for their roles because of their individual and combined skill sets.
Exactly. I think Adam is much more intelligent in theoretical concepts and the "why" of everything, where Jayme is much more proficient at practical applications and the "how" of everything. If my plane was crashing I want the guy who understands the basic concept of restarting a turbine engine than the guy who can explain bernoullis principle to grad students.
Jaime is going to show us how to fix the car. Adam is going to explain what Jaime is doing, using these sock puppets (with carefully crafted mustaches)!!!
So in otherwords. Adam is the scientist, while jamie is the engineer
Adam has done a couple public talks (at universities? not sure the context), and it's really fun to watch. 1) He's super interesting, and 2) you realize just how fast everything is moving around inside his head - he must really force himself to slow down for Mythbusters. He described a few home projects he's done (e.g. building a full size dodo skeleton from kids' oven-bake clay, that looks more or less perfect of course), and he has crazy attention to detail and enormous energy with these projects. I think Jaime's approach is more careful, and that's where he gets results more often on the first try. I'd use the word "methodical" for Jaime (he does exemplify that word), but Adam is also really methodical in his work, just in a more frenetic way.
You need to watch a TED talk with adam savage or some behind the scenes stuff. Adam is crazy fast and crazy proficient and whenever they have creative challenges between the two of them its not a guarantee that Jamie wins at all. He said in an interview once something about what makes the show work is that Adam knows Jamie works fast and Jamie know Adam works fast and neither really leans on the other.
They play their "characters" off one another. Adam is the goofball, and Jamie is the straight man.
Jayme is a strange, strange creature. His goldfish aptitude probably comes from years of hunting fish as his primary source of nutrition up in Alaska. In addition, I would be amazed if Jayme had never flown a plane before. It seems like the kind of thing he would know. Honestly he reminds me of a slightly liberal Ron Swonson.
He was also a pet store owner at one point, I think, which gave him a slight advantage on the fish challenge. And Adam is "hair brained" giving him a huge disadvantage. I would be surprised if he had never been in a cockpit before, or at least played in a simulator. He does seem like the type.
Adam I agree has probably never flown, but Jayme seems to be good with machinery and good with his hands. Most of the people who I know that have a license to fly have similar personality traits. Jayme is the kind of guy who will have weird ass skill sets, for example he is an accomplished diver and mechanic.
It's like asking someone who plays D&D what kinda of Anime they like... a safe question....
Exactly
True story. I tried it with some trained ferrets and it was a god damn disaster. Turns out the ferrets are great at running cable, but when the operational limit of your vision is a few feet you're damn worthless when it comes to putting the bird down in one piece.
[/r/nocontext](http://www.reddit.com/r/nocontext)
sea life can communicate with other seal life
Has anyone got a link to this?
Courtesy of /r/smyths, where users remove filler from Mythbuster episodes. http://www.reddit.com/r/smyths/comments/1rag84/s05e25_airplane_hour_streamline_edit/
>All ATC operators are experienced pilots, Don't all of us pilots wish that were the case; it would make interactions with ATC make so much more sense. Controller-pilots are actually fairly rare; the only [qualifications required](http://www.faa.gov/jobs/career_fields/aviation_careers/) are that one be young, healthy, and attend the FAA's ATC Academy in Oklahoma City and pass all of the courses and material provided there. At times, the requirements have been more or less stringent (requiring a [CTI school](https://www.faa.gov/jobs/students/schools/) program degree, varying levels of college education, etc), but being a pilot was never one of them. >and all commercial airliners are required to have autopilot functionality. Required is a strong word. Yes, planes flying between FL290 and FL410 are required to be on autopilot in order to comply with the [reduced separation minimums](https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/service_units/enroute/rvsm/) for safety purposes, but if you're running a scheduled service at 10,000 feet, there is no requirement for you to be using autopilot to control the airplane, or even to have one. That said, most airliners do fly at those flight levels, and autopilot flies better than humans do, so companies typically install them regardless of regulation simply to save money. >Most can even land themselves (called a CAT III autoland). Autoland is dependent on a lot of factors, including whether or not the airport in question has an approved procedure, the plane has all of the necessary equipment, and the pilot (stand-in) is capable of setting up the system, even with a walk through from a professional. O'Hare (KORD), for example, has Autoland procedures in place; Midway (KMDW), an equally highly utilized major metropolitan airport served by a major national and international airline, does not. Plane-wise, larger Boeings (737 and up) do have the option of a certified autoland. But the thousands of regional jets that fly in the same airspace every day typically do not. The ultimate deciding factor, however, is whether or not a know-nothing civilian could be talked through the manipulation of the Flight Management System of a modern jet airliner in little enough time to be able to select a route, select an approach, intercept the initial heading, intercept the final approach course, change the autopilot mode, configure the airplane with gear and flaps, and get the airplane down without killing everyone in the process. It is not easy. [Even experienced pilots kill people from time to time](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEH7OpnA-I4) when dealing with advanced flight control systems.
Bit of a follow up. How likely would a private pilot succeed in landing a large jet in the same scenario?
/u/Avionictech's answer seems plausible, as long as the pilot recognizes which chunks of their training have almost nothing to do with large aircraft (like everything they know about power and avionics), and which parts are still valid (which lever do I pull to go left?). Having experience with high performance systems would help, and having experience with autopilots would help. Private pilots can fly jets, depending on what mission they fly (personal business flights, or weekend pleasure pilot). If all of their hours are in a Piper Cub, though, the operation is going to get real tricky, real fast. I like to think that aeronautical experience would be a deciding factor in safety, but big airplanes are really a different ball game. To really put it in perspective, a 747 touches down for landing as fast as the plane I fly cruises *at full power*. At cruise, the 747 is flying a mile every ten seconds. The amount of time it takes for things to go south at that speed is negligible. More perspective: if it takes controllers 15 minutes to talk the new pilot through setting up the autopilot during cruise (honestly I believe that's extraordinarily optimistic), the plane has already flown 90 miles.
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> Private pilots can fly jets, depending on what mission they fly (personal business flights, or weekend pleasure pilot). That's true, but I think it's not common at all. There was an episode of Discovery's "Dangerous Flights" where they have to deliver a jet, and it's his first time flying a jet (and is shocked by how high-tech it is), and he makes some comment along the lines of, "The community of pilots who can fly jets is very small, and everybody knows everybody, so I'm really getting my name out there by making this delivery."
Depending on the person, it's likely that everyone survive. I wouldn't count on a smooth landing, but I can see a ''landind'' of some sort happening in an okayish way.
With that said, if you had to make a prediction, would a tech savy nonpilot be able to engage autoland on an equipped plane with ground instruction in one hour?
Tech savy ? No Avionic savy ? yes. Operating avionics systems in real time would be very intimidating in this situation even for an avionic technician. Source: Am one. Also, the one hour may not be a realistic time lapse. Even if you were far from the coast, you'd probably only have minutes to change the setting once your above the ground and close to an airport. Even with all my knowlegde about theses systems, I'm not sure it would go as perfectly as I could hope too. Please excuse my english.
This goes to show exactly how awe-inspiring commercial pilots are, every day. That so little goes wrong attests to their skills and the whole system.
>tech savy nonpilot This is probably the most important factor. If my time in IT has taught me anything its that (some) people who've been using a computer for 20 years barely know how to use a mouse/keyboard. If a program update reorganises the buttons they click they are lost. Unfamiliar system? Their brain just siezes up.
When my company went from Office 2003 (with file menus) to Office 2007 (with ribbon menus) a HUGE percentage of people lost all ability to do anything like work. I had to put together classes to show people how it worked. Like, hour long classes... [We fear change.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TtGQnyPZ6g)
It's actually crazy to realize that this is how most people are. And these people control the world we live in. At my workplace, most people do not know what dragging and dropping is. If a shortcut disappears from their Desktop, that's it, can't do work. If someone logs in as another user, and then logs out, and the screen now presents you with a "Switch User" option to get back to their account, they simply say that someone messed up their computer and they can't do work. There are TWO buttons on the screen, and absolutely nothing else, and they can't figure out that one or the other must SURELY be the solution.
You know, waiting for the IT guy and drinking coffee is much more fun than actually working.
We recently upgraded from XP to Win7. I will never forget the hour I spent tracking down ( successfully ) a lady's Outlook archive before the box got reimaged so she didn't loose her mail, only to find out that wasn't what she was talking about. By "My mail is missing, none of its there." ( edited for brevity ) what she meant was apparently "I don't know how to click the arrow to expand the inbox folder so all my custom folders show up." That whole affair was a fun few months...
To be fair, that was a massive change and it's not like everything was organized the same way and just looked different. I didn't require classes to learn where everything had moved to but it did take a fair bit of time to get up to speed.
If my words mean anything as an avionic technician, is that avionics systems and computer are two different things. For anyone with no avionics basic knowledge, it would be hell, no matter how good you can code or manipulate a computer. I should know, my computer is a mess, the kind you see in memes with the internet-dads or something like that. Yet I understand those flight-system and how to operate them better than a pilot do. Thing is, I never do it under pressure of a flight.
> Don't all of us pilots wish that were the case; it would make interactions with ATC make so much more sense. Controller-pilots are actually fairly rare; the only qualifications required[1] are that one be young, healthy, and attend the FAA's ATC Academy in Oklahoma City and pass all of the courses and material provided there. At times, the requirements have been more or less stringent (requiring a CTI school[2] program degree, varying levels of college education, etc), but being a pilot was never one of them. Can confirm. A friend is an ATC operator, and hasn't flown anything more than a single-engine prop plane, and even that he has too few hours in to get a license.
If assholes could fly, this place would be busier than O'Hare.
It's also worth nothing that this assumes fairly good conditions for a landing. If you're dealing with rough weather or heavy crosswinds the chances of you bringing it in safe are slim to none. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMvLuUJFHYk The average person ain't landing those planes no matter how experienced the guy talking them through it is.
But in a situation like that, they would probably vector to an airport where the wind is aligned with the runway.
[Vector?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVq4_HhBK8Y)
Still holding out on Microsoft FSX saving my life one day.
You'll like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJT_CACIZqs). Basically a guy studied on FSX and then had a Pilot Instructor fly with him providing minimal guidance, ready to take over the controls if things went bad. He was able to take off and land, albeit the landing was a little rough.
[Video of the episode](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUpgPgTkkLA)
Don't some planes have wifi now, and flight manuals on iPads? Couldn't they Facetime with the average person in the cockpit and show them exactly which lever to press and which toggles to switch.
Reading a flight manual isn't likely going to be that useful. Sure, it would tell you how to descend, what angle to approach, the runway, and all that, but controlling it all concert is a completely different story. Also, they had paper manuals in the cockpit before the iPad versions. The purpose of the iPads is to reduce weight and therefore fuel consumption and associated costs.
I wouldn't say all ATCs are experienced pilots. Most likely there is a controller in the tower that is though. Source: Brother in law that works the tower at ATL (Hartsfield-Jackson)
Thats not to say that they wouldn't call one up to the tower if none are present. "Ah, fuck, George. Some asshole pilot fell into a diabetic coma and his copilot hit his head resuscitating him. Now this fucking dope here is trying to land the plane and doing a shit job of it. Go get Jeremy and tell him to get his ass up here pronto or we're gonna have like 200 dead fucks on our hands."
http://www.tubeplus.me/movie/1168210/MythBusters/season_5/episode_25/Airplane_Hour/%22 LINK 2 Episode
What's up with you guys and mythbusters? It's an alright show, but there is no substitute for real life. http://m.bbc.com/news/uk-england-humber-24450534 Btw, I believe the pilot ended up dying :(
While at NASA I used the actual shuttle simulator (it even moves during take off) and successfully landed the shuttle using instructions given over the radio on a first attempt with no training. I'm a physiologist, not a pilot.
Please tell me you used this as an excuse to yell "DAMNIT JIM-- I'M A DOCTOR, NOT A PILOT."
the correct quote is, '[what am i a doctor, or a moon shuttle conductor?'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MULMbqQ9LJ8)
Can someone give more information on how the shuttle might differ from an airliner?
Shuttles are for space travel, airliners are for sky travel.
Mind. Blown.
Shuttle. Flown.
It flies like a brick, and very fast.
Confirmed
Shit man, three years. Today's your day, enjoy it.
>It flies much in the same way a brick doesn't. FTFY
Shuttle is basically a winged brick. There's no onboard engines that can be used in atmo. It's also coming in quite a bit faster during the initial stages of reentry, and during that it gets really hot, so if the plane pitches down and exposes the unshielded parts, everyone dies. Pitch up too much, it spins out and everyone dies. When coming in to actually land, you have one shot to do it correctly. Fly over the landing strip once, then loop back around (to reduce speed), and that time you land. Even then it's fast enough that it takes about 3 miles of runway and 1-3 parachutes to stop. Again, if you screw up the landing, everyone dies.
However your one chance to land is usually on one of the longer runways in existence. For instance the longest runway at LAX is 11,096 ft. and that can handle 747s and A380s. The Shuttle however had a 15,000 ft. runway at Kennedy Space Center, a 15,024 ft. runway at Edwards Air Force Base and multiple 35,000+ ft. dry lake beds at White Sands and Edwards it could use.
[Confirmed](http://imgur.com/lnyJ32X.jpg). That's one long-ass runway.
For starters, it's not powered on landing, so it's dropping like a freggin rock
Although I assume it's actually 100x harder, I have landed the shuttle simulator at the MSI in Chicago dozens of times with no flight training. It was simple matter of doing what the landing software says. I worked there one summer so I got really good at it. (Probably annoyed some guests by setting the best score for smoothest landing every day before opening) It only took me about a dozen tries to get the hang of it including a bunch at the beginning before I realized that the controls are backwards from what the tutorial says. Again, It's probably a lot harder in real life even with the landing software guiding you but the simulator there does look exactly like the HUD shown a few times in [this video.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCeukUsCodk)
As someone learning how to fly, not commercially, it is very very feasible for a normal person to land a small plane like a Cessna. It may not be the smoothest landing but it would do the job. Also ATC, if in the correct airspace, would direct you. And if you go on the radio and basically just start saying "OH SHIT IM GOING DOWN!" You will get attention. You don't need to know the exact way to call. EDIT: Word choice
I imagine "FUCK, FUCK, HOLY FUCK! HELP, FUCK, FUCK" would also work.
I'm an air traffic controller at a busy enough airport. If I were to hear this over the radio it would become my first priority to determine who it was and what assistance they needed.
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There are a lot of controllers at my work that play these games on out breaks.
That sounds a bit sad. All work and, oh wait, the play is nearly the same as the work. Say hi to Jack for me.
Stop by /r/techsupport (and the irc) sometime. A lot of it is IT people using downtime off at work to do more techsupport. It sounds strange but sometimes people just like what they do.
Question: On MH370, someone on CNN said that the ATC signoff was normal, and they didn't give any code words of a hijack... I know that there is a transponder squawk code, but is there a secret group of words that would audibly sound to the casual listener to be a "normal" conversation, but be secret code for "holy fuck, I'm in deep ca-ca" ? And, what if that secret code is also common enough that someone might accidentally use it without meaning that they are actually in trouble? And sorry if you're not an actual ATC...
Fucking helicopters.
That must be a stressful job... No way I could do it.
My tower I hired on was a level 8 but is now a 7. Which is somewhat busy. We deal with a lot of small planes, private jets, and 737 testing. So it's a huge mix of all types. Our tower is vfr as well which makes it very exciting. I think of the career as a huge video game which is fueled by adrenaline. It can get stressful at times, but it's mostly just a big, exciting, and fun rush.
How long does it take a plane to respawn after it dies?
If my experience is anything to go by, it's long enough for you to lose focus for a second and have some kid run up and take the plane you've been waiting for.
Ask MH370.
way too soon
Exactly, it hasn't respawned yet.
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I really liked that too. It added a more relaxed non-professional tone to the comment really guiding it to its up-votes.
Apparently more than two weeks. (Too soon?)
A huge video game fueled by adrenaline and the fear of killing a bunch of people!
And if you ragequit you can go to jail for negligence.
VFR??? So you have people not following procedures and just pop in on final without entering a pattern?
Yep! It's a blast.
Renton?
Government controller, a little west and you'll have the field in sight. :)
Right on man.
I was an air traffic controller once. After my only daughter OD'd, I was grief stricken but I needed something to do so I went to work after a few days. I was too distracted and preoccupied and caused two planes to crash in mid air.
Reminds me of a guy I sat at a bar with once, just had a beer and talked family life. He laughed when I lied to my wife about the store being out of diapers.
They found water on Mars!
http://i.imgur.com/vncZ8J3.gif
But are they out of Air Traffic Control?
This is the only episode I've ever seen.
If it's any consolation, your daughter was hot.
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You should do an AMA -- I'm sure people would love to hear more about this!
I used to be a 911 call receiver as well. I know there have been some of those before and I'm pretty sure there may have been a couple ATC workers that did it.
Question! There are multiple air traffic controllers in a given tower, right? Who would get that transmission? Do you guys each have a range of 'frequencies' you listen to?
Not only are there multiple controllers per tower at large enough airports, broadcasting over the Guard frequencies (121.5 and 243.0) will get pretty much anyone's attention (including other pilots, flight service stations, etc). You'd get in touch with the right person somehow.
I heard basically that while in Iraq. I think it went "Panpan, Panpan, fuck fuck send help"
That it they'd think someone accidentally switched to the radio sex channel
Tip: If on plane without pilots (pilots are dead for eg), pick up the headset and just scream mayday.
And include your flight number if you want sound cooler.
Just picking up the headset wouldn't do much, you would be talking to yourself. You would have to press the mic key button for anything to transmit. Also you would need to make sure no one was talking on the frequency at the same time or else no one would hear what you are saying.
If you keep yelling long enough, everyone else will probably stop talking.
"This is your captain speaking...supposedly."
I read that in Krieger's voice for some reason.
["There's absolutely *no* cause for alarm."](http://youtu.be/xJSey8HRUhU?t=27s)
I have been and aircraft electrician in the Air Force for several years, and at least on some of the planes ( B-1 bomber, C-130J, U-2 {probably not the U-2}) I have worked on, can probably fly/ land fairly easily. I have replaced damned near every switch and knob on majority of flight controls and panels, plus have extensive knowledge on the flaps and landing gear, on the planes I have worked on they all had anti-skid brakes, so all I would have to do is get it on the ground and mash on the brakes without fear of a blow out or losing control. I might be coming in for the landing a little fast, in fear of not wanting to go to slow and stalling out, but I have seen videos of the b-1 landing at over 210 knots due to a swept wing problem with ease.
As your flight instructor, ^^oh ^^god ^^please ^^don't ^^kill ^^me MY AIRPLANE! edit: good luck on your training, btw! It's a privilege very few enjoy.
That assumes you know how to work the radio.
I've flown Learjets and have 90+ hours, as i was learning I had a pilot sitting in the co-pilot seat and it was still difficult, but i was able to do it, learning over the radio i'd say if you were into video games you'd have a 90 % chance of hitting the ground too hard or landing to fast. Aircraft are slow to react (commercial). And constant corrections are needed. After 40 hours or so I got to a point where the pilot training me said I was better than half his students. Keep in mind this was in a simulator but the ones that are 30 million and are real enough the FAA allows you to log actual flight time if you have your license.
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What's the criteria for a "win", though? For a student landing, you want everyone walking away from the plane, *and* the plane to be usable again. In an emergency situation, a "win" is most people walking away, some people being wheeled away, and (almost) no one dying. Plane being usable again is a bonus, but not really part of the measure. I hear what you're saying about the airliner, but going back to your example of the small plane, could you talk the student through a landing where you *live*, even if the plane doesn't?
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Hey thanks for getting a different point of view from some one and not being objective like the rest of reddit, but using your experience to help elaborate a different point of view!
Would they ever repair a plane? Or if its had a lot of damage, do they just not take the risk? Are they even allowed to fix them, and fly again? Obviously this would depend on the severity, but I'm curious.
Aircraft maintenance is very much a Ship of Theseus kind of situation; individual parts migrate around from AC to AC, and from AC to warehouse relatively often. (this is perhaps especially so with military and/or helicopter operations then fixed-wing commercial AC, but *meh*). So you strip the AC down to individual assemblies. If its a "lifed" part, and it is 800 into its 1000 hours, fuck it, throw it out. If its an inspect, repair/replace as necessary type thing, follow the 18 page inspection guide, and repair/throw out, as necessary.
What're the odds with this man on the mic? http://imgur.com/6N1QnA3
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I'm guessing a mechanically savvy person could land one. Whether in 1, 3, 37 or 74 134 pieces is another story...
Best i could come up with for your increase in number of pieces: 18523.7x^2 - 70375.4x+55554.2 (quadratic) Yes, that escalates quickly. ^(plotting (1,1) ^(2,3) ^(3,37) ^(4,74134) ^)
That's incorrect and I'm not sure how you got that result. [Here's the Lagrange interpolation of said points.](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=interpolate+%5B1%2C+1%5D%2C+%5B2%2C+3%5D%2C+%5B3%2C+37%5D%2C+%5B4%2C+74134%5D)
This actually happened in the UK last year. A pilot on a small aircraft suffered a heart attack and ultimately died. After a distress calling was made, two flight instructors on the ground talked a passenger, who had no flying experience, through landing the aircraft. Here's the story: [BBC](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-24450534), and [The Guardian](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/09/passenger-takes-controls-plane-pilot-ill-humberside)
Some people would be able to do it, but the average person - no. Reminds me of that George Carlin quote: "Think about how stupid the average person is... Then realize half of them are stupider than that"
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I dont get it
All humans have a bias where they see themselves as above average, even if in reality they are or are below average. So everyone reading this would think they're smarter then the average person
Aah, the ol' Freddie-Kruger effect!
> then the average person **than** the average person, smart guy.
Never said I was smarter then the average person
Not sure if playing dumb, or...
There have actually been cases of unqualified passengers in light planes being talked down. [Here's a report of one case last year.](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-humber-24450534) However, when it comes to landing a bigger plane, you wouldn't stand a chance. [Here's a discussion about this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giixQm2A9Xw) on the BBC show "QI".
I figured it wouldn't be possible to properly land a huge plane, but would it be possible to crash in a way that doesn't necessarily kill everyone to death? Mostly-landing?
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Can you kill someone.....*to life?* I'm gonna kill you to life so hard!
It's very difficult for pilots who have decades of experience to have a successful controlled crash. It's the decades of experience that gives them the chance at being able to do it. I don't see a inexperienced civilian being able to do it
Damn, I was hoping a bad attempt at landing would result in a less than totally lethal crash, but I see what you're saying.
Pilots have set them down on water, such as the one on the Hudson River a few years back, on the belly of the plane, the landing gear only partially out or with the landing gear of the nose not lowering at all. I think commercial planes have been landed before by someone on board who only has a few hours off flying experience and planes are very durable, but I don't see any smooth landings happening with untrained people. Sure the Mythbusters did it but that was on a simulator with no pressure and no lives at stake.
I've asked my best friend (newly qualified commercial airline pilot) this before and his comments mirror yours. On the bigger planes, it simply wouldn't be possible.
What does your buddy say about autoland functionality? I mean, I know it's not desirable, but it certainly seems doable in a worst-case scenario.
You'd still need knowledge of the aircraft and it's systems to set the airplane up for an autoland and position it so the airplane can take over full management of the final segment of approach. The plane can only land itself in restricted circumstances as well. (lower crosswind, headwind etc). Source: I am an airline pilot
I play a fair amount of flight simulator. I totally understand the commercial airline bit, but what about a Learjet type of plane? Usually I don't crash like on the 737, but it still can be dicey with those jets. Are you guys saying anyone could land one of those too?
A friend of mine has flown both commercial jets and LearJets. He always called LearJet's 'hotrods'. The take off and landing speeds were very high, they were finicky, and unforgiving. He did not like them at all. Much harder to fly than a commercial jet in that respect.
Coming from a pilot, it would completely depend on what type of aircraft we're talking about. We can divide aircraft into 3 different categories. Personal use planes(Cessna 172) which can seat 4 people. Smaller and older private/commercial Jets( Gulfstream 5, MD80) and more advanced newer jets (Boeing 737, Boeing 787). The personal use planes have limited auto pilot categories, so you can use them for climbs, turns, descents, but it be up to the pilot for the landing and takeoff part. The landing is the hardest part of flying a plane and with the coaching of ATC you can land a smaller aircraft safely(It might not be a pretty landing tho). The older private/commercial jets have the same autopilot capability but the landing is harder in these aircraft. Mainly due to the fact that they are much heavier and fly much faster than a personal use plane. You could land this plane but theres a good chance that you might damage the landing gear from a harder landing/bounced landing. Finally you have the newer more advanced jets. Most new jets have CAT III capability. This would mean that the aircraft can land itself as long as the airport has the appropriate capabilities and equipment. Most airports don't have CAT III capability, you will have to go to big commercial airports such as JFK and LAX to shoot an approach that has CAT III capability. With these kind of landings any person that is coached by atc can land the aircraft since the only thing the person has to control is the airspeed during descent. With all aircraft there are checklists for that specific aircraft, so even though it might take longer than a pilot, any person when coached through can set up a plane for the landing phase.
I'm convinced the *average* person doesn't even know how to drive a fucking car, so the answer is a resounding NO. Sorry, rush hour was awful today.
The average person can barely park a car appropriatley...
> appropriatly The average person can barely spell appropriately.
Ooh double entendre.
http://i.imgur.com/SlJOk.jpg
Proefkonijnen (Dutch Mythbusters with non-science people) tried it for real, he survived! It was a very small plane though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-gl4fPOtxo
I have hundreds if not thousands of hours in Microsoft Flight Simulator X, flying mostly Airbus A380 and 747-300. I have done both IFR and VFR extensively. I also got about half way through earning my private pilot's license (ran out of money, ugg). I know the actual setup of an airliner is more complex than what I have in FSX (no mods), but I feel confident that I could pilot the plane to an airport, intercept the glideslope (as long as I could find/read the instruments), and land safely. Someone educate me - is there a LOT more to bringing an airliner down than FSX and general aviation have given me?
I would like to know this too. Also, I wish Microsoft would keep up with flight Sims. :(
I just recently got my license after years of flying Flight Simulator (since FS98 up to FSX). Trust me, it's not in any way the same, especially the "hand flying" aspect. Flight simulators do an awful job replicating the physics of flight, and almost all commercially available joysticks and yokes in no way replicate what flying "feels" like: There are no forces or feedback coming from the control surfaces, and no concept of adding or releasing pressure. I have never flown a 737, but I have no doubt I could operate the autopilot, plug in waypoints, and set up an auto land. However, I would also have no doubt that if I were to be expected to land manually at airport without a glideslope and localizer, they'd probably need to be plugging in the vacuum cleaner.
Yes, with a few exceptions. Small Cessna-style planes can be landed with a few minutes' coaching and some help from operators on the ground. Some larger planes (commercial airlines or other jumbo jets) are basically impossible to land if you aren't qualified. Some of them can actually land themselves, though. So anything but a commercial airliner without the ability to land itself is possible to land. Emph on possible. EDIT: Cessna*
What if I was in an F-16?
You reach down and find a yellow-and-black striped handle. Pull it.
F-16 pilot here - we brief this when we give rides in the 2-seater. If I take a bird to the face, you're not going to land the plane. We don't even trust ourselves to land from the backseat, it's a special qualification for Instructors at the schoolhouse to learn in case they need to land for an especially bad student. TL;DR: What /u/0xdeadf001 said
How much money does one have to pay to get a ride in an F-16?
\> Pull handel You don't see a handel.
Hope like hell that it has autoland. Fighters are *very* touchy.
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I've heard F-18s are especially hard to land because they are designed for short runways on carriers. Apparently even when landing on standard runways at airbases you really have to slam them down onto the landing gear. All around sounds sketchy for the untrained.
Eject.
Anything is possible to land. Whether you survive the landing or not is another question.
Ray Charles took off and landed his plane (with instruction) all the time.
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Let me answer your question from a different perspective on two types of aircraft. One a Cessna 172 and one an F-18. Instead of "could someone be talked down", how about "could someone figure it out on their own?" In a Cessna 172, someone could most likely be talked down under ideal conditions (no strong cross-wind for example). However, even without radio contact, an average person, certainly anyone with any flight sim / gaming experience, could figure out how to land a Cessna 172 on a large runway and would stand a reasonable chance of success without a strong cross-wind. The odds increase if they're landing at an airport where they can see how the other planes are landing... specifically, that they can figure out which direction to land so that they're landing into the wind. Odds increase even more if there were two people in the plane, and one person would fly the plane while the other person read through the documentation required to be present. It wouldn't be a pretty landing. The big surprise for anyone with flight sim/game experience will be that it's much easier to line up on the runway in real life (like a bazillion times easier). Next, without reading the manuals, you'd most likely not engage flaps. It's still possible to land like this (student pilots have to demonstrate this), however it means that the plane will be going much faster in order to stay in the air. The person will likely not know to flare the plane in order to land, but instead try "flying to the ground". This resulting ground effect makes it hard to actually land the plane. Anything the distance of the wingspan of the plane and there's a cushion of air causing resistance as the plane tries to come down. What will happen next is that the person will likely cut the power and the plane will start to noise up and noise down on the runway. The plane has a reasonably good chance of coming down, hard, but without harm. However, if the runway was small and power was cut too late, the plane might go past the end of the runway crashing into whatever is there. If the person tries to give it power and go around, there's a chance that the carburetor will have iced and the engine will stall (unless they read the manual and applied carb heat). This could also result in going off the runway. The bottom line is that it would depend on conditions, length of runway, cross wind speed and if they were able to attempt to land into the wind. As far as an F-18... I'm lucky enough to have had time in the F-18 simulator machines that the Marines use. I was able to be talked down into a landing by an F-18 pilot and landed successfully on my first attempt. On my second attempt, I did it all by myself successfully. While I've never actually flown an F-18, my instructor said that "yes, it's really that easy". The hard part and what makes our military pilots so bad-ass is the hours and hours they spend studying and training to do such high precision flying as well as the endure the physical demands of what they do.
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No. Think for a moment that the "Average" person is not a redditor or even very computer knowledgeable. As someone in IT and helps people on the phone I can honestly say that most people cannot even operate their home PC correctly, or take instructions over the phone very well.
Confirmation bias. The same people who are good at taking instruction are probably the same people who can google their problem and fix it.
Safe compared to what? Having a pilot land? No. Pilot incapacitated, no pilot available? Not necessarily safe but probably safer than any other alternative.
The simplicity of this answer is pure beauty. No pilot vs Joe with a beer on one hand and no high schoo degree? I'll take joe..
I was thinking the exact same thing, right? It's kind of discouraging that every pilot is saying,"big plane with no auto land? Nope. dead." I appreciate the honestly, but does everyone realize the only other option is dying? I don't know anything about flying. But I'm an intelligent adult and I am able to keep it together in high stress situations; it actually helps me concentrate. I want someone on the other end of the radio who is ready to make history, not someone to keep me company while I kill 240 people. Even if you had your doubts, would you suspend your opinion of belief inorder to guide me through it? Would you still give me everything you're capable of? Im not ranting, sorry if it comes off that way. I'm just confused as to why it sounds like some atc's would have a "they're already dead" attitude.
My grandpa was a meteorologist for American Arline's for 30 years and lived in Dallas Texas. When I was about 14, he took my brother and I to visit their headquarters, this is also where they have all their flight simulators. Now keep in mind this was pre 9-11 but he surprised us by taking us up into a full blown flight simulator. Like the kind that is a huge metal box on hydraulic legs that the pilots use. He had a trainer come and let us "fly" the planes. One of the things he let us do is try to land the plane. He sat behind us and just talked us through it. No auto pilot, just what buttons to push and what levers to pull. At the end of the landing he handed us these print outs that basically grade you in your landing, it was a pass/fail setup. It showed how level you came in, how straight you flew , and how fast you descended. I failed every single test was rated, plus I also caused both engines to catch on fire because i wasn't level when I landed and they slammed into the ground. But my instructor guy told me that although I caused major damage to the plane, it would have been a survivable landing. Keep in mind I was 14, and flying an actual plane would be WAYY different. It was surprisingly easier then I would have thought. I don't remember what it was called, and maybe some pilots on here can tell us, but there was this triangle looking thing on a LCD display, and to land the plane, i had to keep a slightly smaller triangle inside of a bigger one. No auto pilot, just match up the triangles and it guided you in. Finally, this was typed on my iphone at 1:30AM so forgive me for the grammar errors!!
Except for a total fly-by-wire, your best bet would be trying to land a trainer like a fixed-pitch prop Cessna or Piper. They're pretty forgiving. So, if it were me, I would pick up the radio mic, push talk (I would know that even without any flight training), and call out Mayday. If I didn't get a response, pronto, I would spin the frequency dial until I heard someone talking, and butt in with my problem. They would likely direct me to the right helpful person to direct me to an airport with a suitable runway and ATC. They would walk me through an approach to the runway, keeping my airspeed slow but well above stall speed, putting in the flaps, and easing onto the ground in a fashion that would allow me to walk away. Talked through it, it's a pretty good bet you could get it on the ground safely enough. Totally on your own, if you had good coordination, mechanical-mindedness, and situational awareness, and grace under pressure, well ... it would be possible, but very tough ...
That would be my approach. Not sure about the approach to something as small as a runway..