Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated

Post by DocTomoe » Wed, May 11, 2022, 7:30 PM UTC

meowface wrote: post #156

93po wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decently sized plane was stolen, did many loops, and flew around just fine for more than an hour: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Horizon_Air_Q400_incident All by a guy with zero flight experience but also credited playing video games

Bit of a caveat on that one, though: >About 1 hour and 15 minutes after takeoff, Russell died by intentionally crashing the aircraft on lightly populated Ketron Island in Puget Sound. I suppose it may not count if it was an intentional crash, but who knows if he would've landed it safely if he didn't want to crash it. Pretty interesting that he managed to pull off maneuvers like that without having any experience fly…

Post by anthk » Wed, May 11, 2022, 7:31 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #37

asdfman123 wrote: post #22

I 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…

Post by eachro » Wed, May 11, 2022, 7:34 PM UTC

loup-vaillant wrote: post #218

civil_engineer wrote: post #13

Pilot 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 student here. I’m not floored at all, for two reasons: my own experience, and selection bias. I once maintained level on a Cessna equivalent with zero training besides video games (I loved flight simulators back in the late 90s), and a tiny bit of model flying (I flew little and crashed a lot). Maintaining altitude wasn’t trivial, but maintaining level was dead easy. I’m sure I could have managed a very slight…

Post by picsao » Wed, May 11, 2022, 7:36 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #172

civil_engineer wrote: post #13

Pilot 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!

Listening to the audio of the conversation, it doesn't seem like the passenger has no flying experience... At minimum they must have spent significant time around aviation or be ex-military. e: From another comment on Reddit > Examples: > The passenger knew what button to press on the yoke to transmit to ATC. > The passenger knew aviation phraseology and phonetics “333 Lima Delta”. > The passenger knew where the alti…

Post by PeterisP » Wed, May 11, 2022, 7:38 PM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #47

tragictrash wrote: post #39

Earlier 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.