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

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

#401

Post by Trufa »

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…

I honestly kind of know what all of that is and I have seriously NO idea how to fly a plane.

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

#402

Post by GekkePrutser »

AtNightWeCode wrote: post #222
whimsicalism wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think most people would be screwed cause there seems to a lot of different ways to get the radio to work in the first place. At least for larger planes.

The pilot would have had the radio tuned to the appropriate frequency already and talking is just a button on the yoke.

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

#403

Post by dghughes »

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…

Yeah as a former student pilot (and that is all) I was curious about their specific knowledge and terminology.

Maintaining altitude was what I found most difficult as a student pilot my instructor drew a line on the windscreen with a marker to help me. I could vary 1,000 feet or more up or down before the instructor told what was going on.

Knowing how to get the frequency for the tower or just knowing they had to was telling.

And landing is tricky knowing to aim at the end of the runway as if you're going to crash and then flare as if you're going up again. All counter-intuitive to anyone who is not aware that's what's done. Not to mention speed, flaps, rudder control.

And the barf oh the barf!

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

#404

Post by GekkePrutser »

Macha wrote: post #356
whimsicalism wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They're in a cessna, with one other person piloting. I think spending a significant time around aviation is a given, but I also wouldn't call that flying experience. It's not like being in the cabin in a commercial airliner, you'd see the pilot doing these things, and honestly as far as plane interfaces go, the Cessna is not bad. https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F... Here's the instrument pa…

This was a Cessna 208, not a 172. Possibly glass cockpit and definitely turboprop.

It would look more like this unless it has the glass cockpit of course:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Cessna_2...

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

#405

Post by jhugo »

hgomersall wrote: post #241
whimsicalism wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Genuine question, is my experience playing Microsoft flight simulator any use in being able to answer those questions, because it certainly feels like I can say something sensible about them.

With a better sim (prepar3d, x-plane, etc) and good aircraft models, you can build up a lot of systems knowledge that translates accurately to the real world (instruments, avionics, navigation, fuel system, hydraulics, air, handling failures, etc). But not so much the aircraft handling.

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

#406

Post by jhugo »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #369
loup-vaillant wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Passenger who got to hold the stick for a bit. Flying the plane is easy. Flying it roughly at some altitude in a rough direction you're given is also easy. Now, landing it? That's an entirely different beast for sure.

It is, but it's not as difficult as you think. PPL students are landing the plane solo within 10-30 hours of flight time, during which they will have landed maybe 40 times.

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

#407

Post by GekkePrutser »

Terry_Roll wrote: post #398
vonseel wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dials are in the middle and literally labeled altitude, airspeed in knots, etc. Not a great point from the Reddit armchair scientists but the guy who landed the plane obviously holds up well in stressful situations.

> but the guy who landed the plane obviously holds up well in stressful situations Thats what you need a cool head when everyone else is losing theirs. Not only that if the pilot had any sense he would give any passenger in the front a TLDR for emergencies just as a common courtesy. TBH I'm surprised the various Aviation Authorities have not mandated some sort of TLDR emergency/safety guide for small planes and their…

At our club we had a mandatory passenger briefing but it's simply not possible to convey enough information to get them down safely. So it was basically a "don't touch anything" type of thing.

This is with the exception of auto return to base autopilots and parachute systems like Cirrus's. Those are safe to be operated by passengers. But we didn't have either of those, most of the planes didn't even have an autopilot.

The plane in the article was a Cessna 208 though and probably had one.

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

#408

Post by to1y »

verelo wrote: post #248
littlestymaar wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there's a manual up there, then maybe that will have info? I can't imaging myself getting anything from an unknown manual full of jargon in such a stressful environment!

Not sure if you've ever seen the POH for a C172, but it is thick. Example: https://www.montereynavyflyingclub.org/Other%20Docs/Cessna-1... Personally, ATC is your best bet here. I'd say a lot of people who have ever flown a flight simulator can get the plan low and slow enough to not cause death upon impact. I would anticipate a bumpy landing, some injury and a lost plane...so this outcome is pretty impressive imo.

73 pages isnt that bad, I was thinking 500pg+ for some reason. Guess simplicity is paramount.

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

#409

Post by the_af »

robscallsign wrote: post #365
the_af wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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've been a fairly serious flight simmer for about 20 years now, including 13 years of DCS, and have flown the DCS F-18 since it's initial release 4 years ago. This topic gets discussed a fair bit within the flight sim community, and we mostly conclude that we'd likely get the F-18 into the air, but would most likely kill ourselves: either passing out from lack of tolerance and training to handle the G forces, lack o…

First of all, thanks for the awesome and comprehensive reply, I really appreciate it.

> Particularly electronic warfare, radar performance, modern beyond visible range tactics, modern weapons performance porifiles

Do you mean in, say, DCS F-18 the ECW systems and things like AIM-120 performance are fake, either because the devs don't have access to the real performance data or because they are under obligation not to make it too realistic? (That is, I would not be able to use the AIM-120 in real life in the same way it's used in DCS, because its performance is not the same?).

Regarding BVR combat, the other day I was watching a video teaching this on DCS F-18. The author explained the radar modes, explained what the radar of the F-18 was capable of and how many contacts were actually sent by data link from a nearby AWACS, also explained the tactics of firing the missile BVR before doing a sharp turn and trying to maintain the maximum angle between the nose cone and the target without breaking radar lock, then deployed countermeasures just in case, etc.

Give or take minor details, in this not the right BVR tactic in real life? If this person (from YouTube) had the required physical stamina, would he be able to shoot down a hostile aircraft by following the exact same steps? Or is there some classified step or tactic which is purposefully not being simulated in DCS?

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

#410

Post by jhugo »

neverminder wrote: post #363
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!

I'm not a pilot, but isn't this plane like the easiest to pilot and thus land for someone inexperienced? If this was a jet, the passenger in question would probably be pretty screwed?

No, this wasn't a little Cessna 172. This aircraft is a turboprop and likely has a glass cockpit. Still relatively simpler in terms of systems than most jets, but because it's a turbine it wouldn't be your first choice for someone inexperienced to take over.

Interestingly a big jet might be easier. It would likely be on autopilot and autothrottle when the novice took over. ATC would need to talk them through programming a diversion into FMS and some other systems stuff, but if there was an airport nearby with good weather and a suitable ILS, and nothing failed, they could set up an autoland and never have to actually handle the aircraft themselves.

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