Might be a rough landing.
Posted on 02/01/2017 5:00:46 AM PST by Springfield Reformer
OK, this is a call to all FReepers with any experience flying moderate to big planes. I'm writing a sci-fi romance thriller and I have a scene for which I need your expert input. The basic idea is I have someone trying to sneak into Italy on an Amazon Prime Air jet. The article at the link shows the picture. The one pictured is a Boeing 767 modified for freight.
So here's the problem. I have a special agent/scientist trying to do a rogue covert insertion, but his partner turns out to be working for the bad guy, unwillingly. So they are coming in hot when there's a struggle and the pilot is shot and the agent has to land the plane and he can't get outside help. All he's got is intelligence and a good knowledge of physics. He has to safely crash-land the plane on a too-short stretch of mountain highway. We can let him overshoot the road, destroy landing gear, break off wings, as long as the plane never experiences fatal levels of force until it comes to a full stop. I'm thinking he has to dump the fuel to not blow up like Windsor 114 in Die Hard 2(?). But if he does that too soon, he'll never be able to slow down enough to have a prayer at landing. But I'm no pilot, and my physics is mediocre at best. Any theories on how this might be done?
..he would’ve have to have some knowledge just to climb into the copilots seat and go through TAKE OFF procedures just to get in his current snafu...the water landing is the best shot
Too short a section of road, and probably too narrow for the main gear. Doesn’t sound like your hero is long for this world.
Wheels up on a glacier?
Better have at least two miles and it would be a hell-u-va ride.....
Bob-sledding 101
Doesn’t sound like your hero is long for this world.
= = =
OK he crashes and dies.
But that wasn’t him! The dead guy had tied him up and stole his identity.
... Continued Next Season ...
Maybe a water landing in a river like in NYC?
Mr. Peel suggests you look at the movie: Executive Action — in this movie, Kurt Russel a student light aircraft pilot, is thrown into a situation of flying a large 747. Mr. Russell, himself is an actual private pilot. Without any aviation experience, it’s unlikely the amateur could land safely. Having knowledge of only physics does not prepare you for which controls to use. If you don’t know what the primary speed control or altitude control are and how to use them, you will crash the plane.
Have your hero engage the autopilot and set it to assist an emergency landing, with the hero relying on his limited knowledge as a private pilot. Write it so that the fuel load was mostly expended during the flight and the aircraft is empty of cargo. That will make it relatively light and thus easier to land and quicker to stop after landing. Your hero’s grasp of physics makes him realize that under such conditions, he has a chance of surviving a crash landing on the mountain road that he selects.
As #3. Plane skids beyond road bed onto gentle uphill snowy slope. Comes to rest in the snow at a fairly steep angle. Hero escapes. Plane slides back down the slope, past the road bed, and off the side of the mountain. As it falls it triggers an avalanche which buries it. As near to a covert insertion as you could wish given your parameters.
Might be a rough landing.
THAT is exactly what would make the book scary and exciting!
Derring-Do, Risky, Dangerous and Unreal are all things
that enable us to escape the daily grind of our lives.
Never mind that it’s not “realistic”. Reality can be a
bit . . . boring. (Most of us wouldn’t know a Piper Cub
from a Boeing 747. Plus, you don’t want “experts” messing
around with YOUR book anyway. “Experts” can be very boring.
(Don’t listen to Twinkie. She’s a Twinkie.)
Hah! It’d never happen! (A water landing in a river like in
NYC?) Not in REAL LIFE!!! In a book maybe.
Valid point, not a lot of options in the mountains.
Trying to come up with a plausible scenario that would be survivable is challenging, landing in a relatively flat area with a deceleration that will not kill you is the key.
What you’re suggesting is beyond McGuyver implausible.
Knowing that an airplane somehow uses flaps and landing gear during the landing sequence does not equate to knowing why they’re used. Or how. Or when. F’rinstance, deploying the flaps will cause the a/c to pitch up. The pilot’s mnemonic is “flaps down, nose down,” which is advice to be prepared to push forward on the yoke to hold the nose down as the flaps are deploying (then adjust the trim so you don’t have to continue fighting), else the plane will pitch up and “balloon.” Anyone unfamiliar with this probably will lose attitude control at that point, which, if you’ve already slowed for landing, will move the a/c off the desired approach slope and could lead to a stall. But before reaching a stall condition, the stick shaker will fire.
Stick shaker is a stall warning alarm that causes the yoke to vibrate fiercely. And if you didn’t know what it was, it probably would make you think you’d better go look for a parachute, because you done broke the plane. And if stick shaker firing causes you to hesitate (and you could see where it might cause the uninitiated to do just that) and the a/c slows even more, then the stick pusher fires. The flight control system actually applies about 75 pounds of (forward) force to the yoke to help you lower the nose.
And since your boy isn’t a pilot, he doesn’t have a clue that stick shaker exists. Or stick pusher. So meeting either first-hand probably will make him soil his BVDs.
Likewise, lowering the gear has a dramatic impact on drag — and hence airspeed — and if you aren’t prepared for the increased sink rate, or if you don’t add power to compensate, soiled drawers will be the least of your worries.
If you’re thinking the autopilot could save him, fuggedabout it. For the autopilot to fly the approach and landing would require the use of radio navigational aids, and the published landing chart information will have been predicated on the relationship of these navaids to the runway. They’re of no use when landing off-airfield.
The one thing working in your guy’s favor is the flight crew’s take-off and landing data card (TOLD). Landing any a/c, but particularly the “big iron,” is an exercise in scrubbing off kinetic energy by means of drag management. The plan is to add drag and slow gradually and incrementally so as to be be at precise airspeeds when arriving at different critical nodes. These precise airspeeds are based on the a/c’s calculated stall speed at the intended point of landing, a calculation known as Vref (vee-ref). http://bit.ly/2jwApBw
The crew will have calculated Vref and all the other relevant numbers in advance and recorded their calculations on this TOLD card, which is posted conspicuously in the middle of the yoke so they can reference it as needed. http://oi66.tinypic.com/2q32o2f.jpg
Provided your boy is shrewd enough to interpret the data, it’s better than nothing, but it doesn’t account for the fact that what he needs is numbers for a short field landing, not the normal landing the crew based those numbers for. Plus these numbers were calculated for arrival at the planned destination. Performance data for where he’s being forced to land could be much different. Plus, if they haven’t yet flown as far as the intended point of landing, the a/c will be heavier because it hasn’t burned the planned amount of fuel. Which means the TOLD card numbers all will be too low, and the two things you never want to be in any airplane is too low or too slow.
Ultimately, regardless how smart your guys is, what probably will kill him is that the airspeed of a quarter-million pound airplane takes MUCH longer to respond to changes in power and drag (and return to a ‘stable’ condition) than a Cessna 150, which means if you don’t have a pretty good idea exactly where to move the throttle quadrant to when you change the power setting, or you don’t know exactly where (in space and time) to deploy the next notch of flaps, or you don’t know exactly where (in space and time) to lower the gear, he’s going to waste seconds chasing the proper setting. And when you’re moving at 150 knots (250 feet per second), you have very few seconds to waste.
Not to mention, the slower the a/c gets, the mushier the controls get, and it takes a practiced hand not to overcontrol in the seconds before touchdown, when airspeed is slowest. And I’m ignoring the fact that, in the mountains, there’s almost always crosswinds to contend with.
But don’t think his troubles are at an end when the wheels touch down. He still needs to know how to steer, and how to bring the a/c to a halt as swiftly as possible (made all the more critical because it’s a short field). Top of the list, how does he know the a/c has a steering tiller (on the console to the captain’s left) that controls steering through the nose wheel? (Hint: the yoke, which would appear to be a sort of “steering wheel,” serves no steering function whatsoever on the ground) Does he know how to apply reverse thrust? Does he know where the brakes are on an airplane? Or the speed brakes (spoilers)?
The shorter the field, the more critical he uses every braking asset available. If he can’t steer, can’t reverse thrust, can’t brake or can’t deploy the speed brakes, he’s just hurtling along at 200 feet per second in an out-of-control aluminum tube.
My advice is to pretend you’re a global warming advocate: ignore the science and just make crap up.
As mad_as_he$$ posted a YouTube link showing it's impossible for someone with no experience, you should watch that video and write down the actual steps. Then try to find workarounds.
Here's another one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7y7WVW0qLM
I also write fiction, albeit under a different name. YouTube has helped enormously in getting details for landing procedures. (I can't point to anything better than the other videos, as mine was in WWII.)
If it were me, I'd either have him get someone on the phone, or modify the character to someone with a private pilot license. That makes it somewhat more believable, but still adds tension.
If he gets someone on the phone, he can still lose contact at some point, perhaps out of cell range, or when he gets below altitude.
Make sure you find out what the landing gear widths are.
I was an aircrewman in the Navy, but wasn't a pilot. The biggest advice I can give on that score is that you shouldn't make any assumptions based on knowledge you have with cars. Some of it could apply, but the terms might be different.
But as a writer, I'll reiterate what's been said before: The story is more important. You'll want it to be both thrilling and believable. But thrilling and partly-believable is better than believable and partly-thrilling.
Autoland. ILS Cat IIIC. No need to crash anything.
Thanks for the suggestions. Yes, Amazon has their own fleet now. I don’t know if they’re all as big as a 767. If they had a smallish one that would make it a lot easier. Another angle to look at anyway. I just don’t want this someday getting made into a movie and then mythbusters shows it can’t be done. There may only be a 1/100th percent chance of making it, but if there is, it’s my job as a writer to help my character find that tiny little slot and squeeze through it. I just need to know under what combination of variables would there be such a chance.
Peace,
SR
Yeah
But as a pilot, watching a scene like that would completely take me out of the movie. It would be like watching “Captain America” or “Spiderman” - mindless fluff.
And it’s not just planes, the same goes for guns, cars, you name it.
It has to be believable or it is fantasy.
Yeah, actually, Mythbusters did do this. As I remember it, they said it can only be done with help from the radio.
I was going to mention that, but it slipped my mind when I saw the video that basically says the same thing.
Ok, just looked at the mythbusters summary for that episode. Like they say, it could be done with radio help. But my guy is coming down in hostile territory, so no local radio. But, what if he has a young video game kid call him on his cell and the kid tells him what to do? Certainly better than nothing. There’d be a question of figuring out the controls for that specific type of aircraft, but much more doable, based on what I’ve been hearing here. And he could start out cocky. I already have him saying, how hard could this be. Then he realizes how hard it is, class his friend, theyvland the plane, still rough enough to slide down the mountain abut, but enough force reduction to survive. “Plausible, Jamie?”
Peace,
SR
But, see; most people aren’t pilots and find a lot of things
plausible that real pilots find to be fantasy. (I was also
joking about a pilot not being able to land on a river.
Captain Sullenberger did it in a commercial plane with a
planeload of passengers; however, he had been all business
all his life and flawlessly conscientious - the man for the
job - prepared his whole life for that one BIG terrible
emergency. I know what you mean, though. The deal in
“Jurassic Park” where they had fully grown prehistoric trees
ready in a few months took me out of the movie and diverted
my attention to trying to figure out HOW. We have been out
here on the river for over 30 yrs. & our trees have grown a
lot - but not that much. Also, when the herd of dinosaurs
were running past some people, it was like the “noise” of
a herd of balloons flying past instead of HEAVY animals
stampeding. I guess it was best I didn’t live back in
cavemen days. I’d have probably decked Grog in the head
with a rock & FANG would have REALLY been my “husband’s”
name. :o)
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