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 ...
I’ve been doing MSflight sim since it’s very first edition 40 or so years ago. At this stage all I sim fly are jumbos. I know most of the speeds and flap settings etc for landing Boeing, Airbus etc. And all the procedures to land like butter on bread.
I play with all realism on with absolutely no aides enabled. So yeah, I could land it even without ATC as long as I have the right chart and clearance. After all, I land them all the time in my sim.
When claustrophobia meets a fear of heights.
...for me anyway.
Oh, it was!
It was pretty hilarious. One in our group (long story) kept crashing on takeoff at Schipol. After about the third time the instructor realized the prior instructor had left a 40 knot crosswind dialed in! LOL
It depends on how good the person giving you the advice over the radio is.
If the crew is incapacitated somebody needs to land the plane. With no alternative other than certain death, you need to at least give it a try.
I’m pretty sure that they can now autopilot planes from landing to take off without a pilot, so that sort of system should be added to every plane just in case... In fact, given the propensity of some pilots to commit mass suicide, they should have a system that can take over the entire operation of the plane when needed.
Actual pilots say that flight sims are pretty accurate, so if you can fly one of those, you can fly a real plane for the most part. But the devil is in the details. What do you do when there are cross-winds, for example? Little known factors that don’t happen very often?
I don't know why aviation became such a thing for me(from a very early age)...I got sick on carnival rides, was claustrophobic, afraid of heights...but it's all I ever wanted to do, and spent so much time on it over decades...even AFTER my actual (miserable) flight experiences(LOL).
It's faded now (in my 60's)
Maybe I just liked airplanes..or the fantasy of flight...mistook that for actually wanting to become a pilot.
...just one of those things in life I'll never know for sure.
Simply enough to test.. they have pilot flight Training simulators for most large commercial aircraft. Pick an average group of men to twenty or thirty and put them in the simulator... see how they do
But they always land safely in the movies. Plus I have played flight simulator on my PC.
Yikes 😳
Cross winds, along with most other extreme weather conditions happen in MSFS too. my current simulator has ‘real world’ weather which means it has the actual weather conditions, wind speeds and directions for wherever in the world you go to fly.
If you’ve never flown a simulator, you’d be very surprised how immersive and accurate the current version is. Also how unbelievably good and realistic the graphics are these days.
I’ve played flight sims and WWI/WWII type combat sims over the years. It’s hard enough to land a Sopwith Camel or P-47 Thunderbolt on a computer. I wouldn’t want to try that with a large modern jetliner for real!
Oh, I could land it. Now, how intact it would be I cannot guarantee.
CC
90 degrees into the ground is still a landing.
It’s not a wheel
“Land” is a nuanced term. Won’t planes “land” themselves eventually?
The vaxx will make this commonplace, so we’ll find out soon enough.
You were promised a flying car...
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