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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

#431

Post by [deleted] »

the_af wrote: post #92
Nextgrid wrote: post #37

Earlier 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…

[deleted]

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

#432

Post by verst »

wrycoder wrote: post #417
verst wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also pilot here (C172 G1000): I personally find landing a plane IRL easier than in MSFS. Much easier when I am able to feel resistance on the yoke, feel shifts in wind and gravity etc. All the MSFS controls are so extremely touchy. Though I agree you need 6-10 hours to get decent at landings :)

I agree. I’ve been flying MSFT since the Sublogic days, using only the keyboard. It was very rare to get a good landing. I have about eight hours in a Cessna, and that was a piece of cake, by comparison.

I play MSFS in VR and have rudders, throttle and yoke... but without any forces on the rudder it's just incredibly hard. I certainly can't fly it very well with the Saitek / Logitech Yoke.

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

#433

Post by [deleted] »

pilot7378535 wrote: post #367
shortstuffsushi wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much weight do you think it would realistically take to alter flight in a plane of this size? For instance, if both the pilot and passenger weighed e.g. 200lbs and sat toward the left of the plane, would that considerably (or perhaps even just perceptibly) impact flight? Same for some of the other variables, is there an appreciable different for things like magnetic variation? Wind, of course, seems reasonable -…

Not sure about the plane from the original post; it looks pretty hefty. And lateral weight is so close to the center of mass that it's unlikely to have much effect. What's more of a concern is having a bunch of weight far from the plane's center of mass, where the weight tries to lever the plane end over end, increasing the risk of a stall. I heard about a crash where the pilot's seat adjuster didn't lock, so when he…

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

#434

Post by eru »

kenrik wrote: post #273
hgomersall wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Pilot here: It could help with some familiarity but generally in MSFS you can get away with ignoring the gauges and just mess around. The tutorial might gloss over some of it. Having an unbelievable number of hours in MSFS when I was a kid ... landing a real plane is considerably harder and a ton of instruction time is just focused on getting you to land reliably. I finished my PPL in just over 40hrs which is close t…

Keep in mind that this guy only did one landing.

He did that one landing well, but he did not show that he can land reliably.

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

#435

Post by eru »

travisgriggs wrote: post #340
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…

Got my PPL 2 years ago (almost), and love taking people for rides to various nearby destinations. It's my "Sunday Drive" and a chance to share with others. These questions often get answered pretty quickly. We get talking on our headsets, now I'm about to taxi, and so I make a call. Shortly there after, when I'm talking to my passenger, there's a nervous 'Can other people hear me??' 'Nope, I push this button right he…

Do you mean flair in a technical sense, or just in the sense of 'looking good'?

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

#436

Post by eru »

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…

> TBH I'm surprised the various Aviation Authorities have not mandated some sort of TLDR emergency/safety guide for small planes and their passengers, unless of course they dont really care if one drops out of the sky killing everyone!?!

Having an untrained passenger is no worse than flying solo. The latter is clearly allowed, and should probably stay allowed?

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

#437

Post by eru »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #402
AtNightWeCode wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or the pilot would have turned it to some frequency where somebody else was listening, and chances are the guy on the other side could give you instructions for how to get help.

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

#438

Post by Hamuko »

rejor121 wrote: post #428
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 lean towards aggreing with you. It’s possible he was prior military. I was an AE and worked on basically all of the flight systems in my eight years in the navy. The fact he knew phonetics just makes me believe he served or at the very least, was heavily exposed in another function.

Or just wanted to know phonetics for any other reason. They're not that hard and they're pretty useful on the phone.

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

#439

Post by jccooper »

eru wrote: post #435
travisgriggs wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got my PPL 2 years ago (almost), and love taking people for rides to various nearby destinations. It's my "Sunday Drive" and a chance to share with others. These questions often get answered pretty quickly. We get talking on our headsets, now I'm about to taxi, and so I make a call. Shortly there after, when I'm talking to my passenger, there's a nervous 'Can other people hear me??' 'Nope, I push this button right he…

Do you mean flair in a technical sense, or just in the sense of 'looking good'?

Probably "flare" in the sense of "pulling up for landing".

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

#440

Post by well_actulily »

rejor121 wrote: post #428
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 lean towards aggreing with you. It’s possible he was prior military. I was an AE and worked on basically all of the flight systems in my eight years in the navy. The fact he knew phonetics just makes me believe he served or at the very least, was heavily exposed in another function.

I was an Army combat medic and I know the NATO alphabet, despite never having been in an airplane cockpit.
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