Video of the landing, it's very nicely done. https://twitter.com/aviationbrk/status/1524410837414391809
Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated
91–100 of 491 posts
Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated
#92I bet this was a guy raised on video games. I was about to make a joke about it but I'm actually serious. Once I, a former Houstonian with no experience driving on ice, was driving through the snowy mountains and lost control of my car. Instead of panicking, my video-game-induced laser focus kicked in and I calmly piloted the car until the wheels gained traction and I could park the car on the side of the road. But l…
Video game experience is absolutely better than no experience. On small general aviation planes, the feature set is quite minimal and most simulators will replicate all of it faithfully enough, so the only remaining thing is the “feel” of the plane which you can hopefully experience a bit during flight before landing. In contrast, a big passenger jet has insane amounts of different systems that need to be configured…
I wonder about DCS "study sims" of combat jets.
No, no, I'm not saying one could actually be a fighter pilot just by flying DCS F-18. But I wonder about the realism. It seems every single knob and button and thingy on the cockpit is clickable. Every subsystem is simulated. The manual is reportedly huge (I don't own it, just watched videos on YouTube). With such a realistic flightsim, TrackIR, a HOTAS setup, and all the gadgets, how far is it from the real thing?
I wonder how far you can go on an actual F-18 with just DCS experience. I suppose a huge detail that is missing is the pressurized suit and the enormous G forces.
(I also wonder how come most of this isn't classified, and is instead generally available to the paying public. I suppose the answer is "because as a private individual, you cannot buy an F-18 with weapons").
Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated
#93Pilot here. I'm floored that a person with no flying experience could put this airplane down without a scratch. Air traffic controllers are not necessarily pilots, but luckily, this one was a pilot and certified instructor. ATC and passenger worked through a stressful situation to produce an amazing outcome. Bravo!
Idk, I’ve only flown 172s and have only landed a handful of times myself, but I think you could fairly easily talk someone through landing with an at least decent chance of survival if the weather was good. I mean this is not an experiment you want to run, of course. But landing in good conditions is pretty intuitive. You can tell if your angle to the runway is good or bad pretty easily and just adjust the throttle.…
> I think you could fairly easily talk someone through landing
The bad news is that it is 10/28 (east-west) and the wind was reported from the north at 11 knots gusting 17.
KPBI 101553Z 02011G17KT 10SM SCT042 SCT046 26/15
A student pilot with 20 hours of training probably wouldn’t have been signed off by his/her/zir/their instructor to operate in that kind of crosswind.
From: https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2022/05/10/a-hero-flies-th...
Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated
#94Pilot here. I'm floored that a person with no flying experience could put this airplane down without a scratch. Air traffic controllers are not necessarily pilots, but luckily, this one was a pilot and certified instructor. ATC and passenger worked through a stressful situation to produce an amazing outcome. Bravo!
>Pilot here. I'm floored that a person with no flying experience could put this airplane down without a scratch.
Also a pilot here. I don't get it, this is a Cessna 208 we're talking about, a very easy plane to land given good conditions.
They even had a very long runway to work with here.
Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated
#95I bet this was a guy raised on video games. I was about to make a joke about it but I'm actually serious. Once I, a former Houstonian with no experience driving on ice, was driving through the snowy mountains and lost control of my car. Instead of panicking, my video-game-induced laser focus kicked in and I calmly piloted the car until the wheels gained traction and I could park the car on the side of the road. But l…
I’m pretty video games saved my life while driving, too. Once I was driving down the highway at 70 miles per hour and the car in front of me stopped on a dime. I always maintain a good distance from the car in front of me but I knew for sure if I would have just hit the breaks I would have hit him. I wound up swerving into the next lane with a reaction time of under a second only to drive by a six car pile up which i…
You talked about reaction time, but not situational awareness. Thankfully there was not a car next to you that you would have otherwise swerved into.
Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated
#96I bet this was a guy raised on video games. I was about to make a joke about it but I'm actually serious. Once I, a former Houstonian with no experience driving on ice, was driving through the snowy mountains and lost control of my car. Instead of panicking, my video-game-induced laser focus kicked in and I calmly piloted the car until the wheels gained traction and I could park the car on the side of the road. But l…
I spent some time on a Cessna 172 Flightgear sim to get an idea for the plane and its controls (to get some background for some fiction that I'm writing). With the virtual cockpit it's possible to learn where all the controls and indicators are and what they do, as well as get an understand of the basics of takeoff, landing, and level flight. Radionavigation and the autopilot system were also interesting items that I didn't know much about until I tried it out in sim.
Obviously this isn't a replacement for real training and experience. But someone with sim experience who knows how to read the instruments and control the yoke, rudder, and throttle would likely have a much better chance surviving than one who would freak out just trying to comprehend the instrument panel. They would probably be under much less stress as well during the event.
Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated
#97Mythbusters did something like this, but it was just using one of those big commercial training simulators instead of a real plane if I recall correctly, and showed that it was possible.
I would wager a small plane would be easier to land than a commercial airliner partially due to the fewer number of switches in the cockpit.
Most modern airliners are equipped with capabilities to conduct Category IIIa ILS approaches with autoland.
One would probably be able to coach a passenger through the steps necessary to get set up this kind of approach.
Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've always said the reason we don't have flying cars yet is because people can't drive in 2D much less 3D. This gives me hope.
Isn’t 3D easier? There sure is a lot more room.
It is considerably more complicated. Apart from added axes of movement (not just vertical, but pitch/roll), you also have to contend with the fact that air is the only source of friction. Acceleration and breaking are much slower than something with wheels on the ground. There is a reason why flying a plane in Grand Theft Auto is much harder than driving a car, even with the simplified physics and vehicle controls.
If we could make aircraft that handle in our atmosphere like the spaceship in Descent, then that would close the gap a bit. But I'm not holding my breath.
Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated
#99I bet this was a guy raised on video games. I was about to make a joke about it but I'm actually serious. Once I, a former Houstonian with no experience driving on ice, was driving through the snowy mountains and lost control of my car. Instead of panicking, my video-game-induced laser focus kicked in and I calmly piloted the car until the wheels gained traction and I could park the car on the side of the road. But l…
Quite a few years ago, a buddy of mine got an incentive ride in the back seat of an F-18 while he was in the Navy. The pilot handed over the controls to him and started to walk him through some aerobatic maneuver when my friend just executed whatever it was (I don't remember the specifics). The pilot was astounded that a novice flyer would perform the maneuver so well and asked if my pal had any simulator time. His r…
I played that game a lot.
What was the maneuver?
Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Video game experience is absolutely better than no experience. On small general aviation planes, the feature set is quite minimal and most simulators will replicate all of it faithfully enough, so the only remaining thing is the “feel” of the plane which you can hopefully experience a bit during flight before landing. In contrast, a big passenger jet has insane amounts of different systems that need to be configured…
I wonder about DCS "study sims" of combat jets. No, no, I'm not saying one could actually be a fighter pilot just by flying DCS F-18. But I wonder about the realism. It seems every single knob and button and thingy on the cockpit is clickable. Every subsystem is simulated. The manual is reportedly huge (I don't own it, just watched videos on YouTube). With such a realistic flightsim, TrackIR, a HOTAS setup, and all t…
I think a big part is also to be able to operate under pressure and not panic. It's one thing to operate a complex machine from the comfort of your office chair, it's another thing to operate the same machine when any small mistake could mean death.