Posted on 12/07/2023 3:57:00 PM PST by algore
Picture this: you’re nestled comfortably in your seat cruising towards your travel destination when a flight attendant’s voice breaks through the silence:
“Ladies and gentlemen, both pilots are incapacitated. Are there any passengers who could land this plane with assistance from air traffic control?”
If you think you could manage it, you’re not alone. Survey results published in January indicate about one-third of adult Americans think they could safely land a passenger aircraft with air traffic control’s guidance. Among male respondents, the confidence level rose to nearly 50%.
Can a person with no prior training simply guide everyone to a smooth touchdown?
We’ve all heard stories of passengers who saved the day when the pilot became unresponsive.
For instance, last year Darren Harrison managed to land a twin-engine aircraft in Florida – after the pilot passed out – with the guidance of an air traffic controller who also happened to be a flight instructor.
However, such incidents tend to take place in small, simple aircraft. Flying a much bigger and heavier commercial jet is a completely different game.
Once the aircraft comes close to the runway, they must accurately judge its height, reduce power and adjust the rate of descent – ensuring they land on the correct area of the runway.
On the ground, they will use the brakes and reverse thrust to bring the aircraft to a complete stop before the runway ends. This all happens within just a few minutes.
Both takeoff and landing are far too quick, technical and concentration-intensive for an untrained person to pull off. They also require a range of skills that are only gained through extensive training, such as understanding the information presented on different gauges, and being able to coordinate one’s hands and feet in a certain way.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
(heh)...I did read a lot of Popular Science(?).
Long story, but this was *not* a serious training session. More of a “you get to see the cool simulator and play with it a little” after hours, but sanctioned, thing.
Were the men they surveyed actual men, or women who think they’re men?
I did it. Am a “simpilot-MSFS” but back in the FSX day I was demonstrating it to a Delta Pilot. He took me out to the DeKalb Co airport (DuPage) and we took off in a 172. At 1200 feet and 5 miles from the airport he asked me to land it, and I did, in a cross-wind. Yeah, I hopped it, but I landed.
I would love to try it
Having landed many time in a simulator, multiple time in an actual aircraft, plus my FPV landings with my rc airplanes, yes. No problem.
I could land one. I am not saying it would be necessarily a smooth landing.
Yeah, little too ambiguous. Adding “safely” would bump it up a bit.
Yoke. You’d get behind the yoke. Or stick.
Large aircraft are completely different, in a former life I flew B-747’s, doing auto land requires that the arrival be loaded properly, autopilot engaged and lots of other things to be properly done for it to work. Very challenging if you have never done it before.
Remember a “the good landing you walk away from. A great landing you walk away from AND the can reuse the airplane.
If you push all the correct buttons, the airplane will land itself and come to a complete stop on the runway. I think you could probably talk most people through the process if the airplance had enough gas.
I, however, could most definitely land it.
I know I can, but I have a couple airplanes and fly a lot in an effort to produce as much carbon emissions as I can while trying to prevent the next Ice Age, which is guaranteed. My 4 2 stroke motorcycles help a lot too
Any landing you can walk away from is a good one.
Over Nacho Grande?
ZERO HOUR
What an a hole
Surely it is not that difficult.
It’s a different kind of flying!!
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