Weirdly, I can answer this. (sort of) I was out to drinks with a bunch of coworkers aged 22 to 33 on Friday. Top Gun was showing on the bar TV. They all knew it, and were flabbergasted that I’d never actually seen it. (I’ve seen many parts of it. Just not beginning-to-end).
To your point, though, while they knew it as a great classic movie, I have no idea if they absorbed the “fighter pilots are the coolest” message.
You can’t separate out the effect of the military training. Flying many different types of aircraft under a variety of conditions will inevitably increase a pilot’s ability to manage a plane when things go wrong. Fighter jets and sea landings are pretty extreme.
I’m not suggesting a civilian-trained pilot couldn’t have done what Schults did, just that the passengers were lucky to have her in the cockpit when shit got real.
Yeah, saw that pic on the news this morning. Very strange. The duct in the immediate vicinity of the blade tips is intact, which means it withstood the initial impact of the separated blade. There’s a LOT of ducting forward of the fan that’s missing; I’m wondering how all of that disintegrated so badly. For propelling that loose ducting toward the passenger window, I’m guessing it was aerodynamic forces (on a tumbling piece of duct) rather than initial kinetic energy of the loose blade.
Yeah, I’m in my 50’s, too, I remember those days and being told girls don’t fly airplanes. American Airlines stared hiring women pilots in 1973, the same year the Navy started letting women fly their airplanes.
Anyone flying in the front seat of big Boeing or Airbus is not an average Jane or Joe. Beyond the most basic skills, the techniques and practices of landing a fighter on an aircraft carrier are not the same techniques and practices of landing a commercial passenger jet. I’d certainly expect someone who can do carrier landings to competently learn how to fly passengers but no one jumps from an F-whatever directly into a B737, they have to retrain for the role.
Frankly, I’d say military cargo/personnel pilots are those that have the most experience and training *directly *related to civilian cargo/passenger flight.
I didn’t say it had anything to do with me, I said your implying that pilots trained via the civilian world are less competent than former military pilots is a slap in the face to civilian-trained pilots and that applies regardless of gender.
Yes, the passengers were fortunate have a well trained, competent pilot in the cockpit. And the Navy is certainly one way to get good training. It is not the only way. I get tired of the military-worship in this country and the implication that military people are an uber-race of inherently superior people and no one else can be as good as they are.
Assuming it wasn’t a debris strike to her head that killed her, I can well imagine her head flailing violently in the slipstream outside the window, causing potentially fatal head and neck injuries. Especially if she got one shoulder jammed partway through the window as well.
Actually you can go quite a bit higher if you’re on pure oxygen. At 30,000 feet, atmospheric pressure is 0.3 bar. The minimum O2 partial pressure for normal function is 0.16 psi, so even a 50% O2 concentration is adequate at that altitude. The rapid descent is because the passengers’ oxygen generators only operate for about 15-20 minutes; IOW, you’ve got that long to get them down to a safe altitude before there will be problems with hypoxia.
If that was what was meant it could have been expressed better -* when the Air Force wouldn’t let her fly it didn’t stop her, her next stop was the Navy* - but there have been plenty of amazing women pilots who were not taken by the military at all who still had great careers. And plenty of men you could say the same about. Saying “thank God we have a Navy pilot!” implies that no other could be up to the job.
Maybe because most military flying isn’t any more glamorous than other professional flying and civilian flying doesn’t require you to be sent to war zones where you might have to dodge bullets or missiles.
I’ve known a number of military pilots who later moved into the airlines. I also knew an accountant who used to be a fighter pilot but chose to go into accounting rather than the airlines because he didn’t like flying passengers/cargo (he took his flight skills to the National Guard reserves for awhile after moving to the civilian world), the difference was great enough that chose and entirely different career after his active military years. And all of those choices are valid. But flying airliners is significantly different than flying fighters.
The military training process weeds out all but excellent pilots, but not all excellent pilots go through the millitary. Chuck Yeager would have been a fantastic pilot however he got in the air because of his innate talent, certain physical traits like better than average eyesight, drive, work ethic and other factors. The fact that he was also born at the right time to be of the right age when the air force was looking for young men to train was serendipity that worked in his favor. In his era the military snapped up pretty much all available pilots, including even the women and black men who were flying or wanted to fly at the time. Post-WWII most pilots were ex-military. However, fewer and fewer pilots are being trained by the military these days, for decades the majority of airline pilots haven’t been former military, and the notion that they are somehow not as good is pernicious.
Want to hear something funny? Those guys who used to fly the space shuttle are top-notch, they go through a screening process even more stringent than military fighter pilots. Some of them have gone to the airlines after their NASA careers but you’ll never find one in the cockpit of a United Airlines airplane - retiring shuttle pilots are all old enough to need bifocals and spending time in space can cause changes in a person’s vision. Not one former shuttle pilot has been able to pass United’s vision requirements, so that’s one airline that has cut itself off from a cohort of excellent pilots. Instead those former shuttle pilots are flying for airlines like Delta and Southwest. All because of a notion that pilots MUST have perfect vision without need for any sort of corrective lens, no matter how minor. For that matter, a former shuttle pilot and Southwest pilot was forced to retire from the airlines on his 60th birthday not because of declining health or ability but because of an age limit set in 1959. Captain Sully was likewise forced to retire at that age, despite his lifetime of experience being a key factor in the “Miracle on the Hudson”. I’d rather be on an airplane flown by a 65 or even 70 year old Sully (assuming he’s still healthy enough to pass the physical) rather than someone just out of flight training because when the shit hits the fan the more experienced pilot is more likely to get you on the ground alive.
Ms. Shultz is near the end of her career. I’d rather keep her in the cockpit until either she wants to retire, or she is no longer up to the task rather than boot her out due to an age rule set down nearly 60 years ago.
The military is also cutting back on the number of people actually flying airplanes and more and more military aviators are drone operators these days. Which is fine, there is definitely skill and training required to fly them, and some of that even overlaps with the knowledge needed to fly sitting in a cockpit. But would you think that a former military drone pilot now flying for the airlines is somehow inherently superior to airline pilots that were trained solely in the civilian world?
It SEEMS to - that does not mean it actually does.
His lifetime of experience was credited with that - of which his military experience was a part but not the whole of it.
The military doesn’t teach fighter pilots how to successfully ditch an aircraft, they teach them to jettison and ride down with a parachute. Sully’s training on how to ditch an Airbus came from the civilian world, not his military training. The part of his military training that likely had the greatest impact on that successful landing was not his fighter-pilot training but his glider training - he achieved the level of glider instructor while at the Air Force Academy and being able to handle a non-powered aircraft is a factor in many successful emergency landings, including the Gimli Glider incident up in Canada. Sully didn’t just successfully ditch an airliner (and I’ll note that the vast majority of such water landings end with a lot of fatalities) he ditched an unpowered airliner. So yes, his military training probably was important, but the most important part of that military experience wasn’t necessarily the part about flying a fighter jet.
Sure. But why do you assume civilian pilots don’t fly “a variety of aircraft under a variety of conditions”? I’m not the world’s best pilot, I really am “merely” a competent amateur, but in my 10 active years of flying I flew 17 different types of airplane, from rickety ultralights to high performance retractable gear airplanes, off 10,000 foot long paved runways to grass strips to actual unimproved fields, from 100+ degrees to sub-zero temperatures, from the Great Plains to the highest parts of the Appalachians, from backyards with a mowed strip to Class B airports like Fort Wayne, Indiana sharing the skies with everything from gliders and single-seat ultralights to landing behind an F-15 and in front of a B737 (that was at Fort Wayne). That’s what an amateur pilot might do, not even trying very hard. Some of my likewise “amateur” friends flew off snow-ski landing gear, had amphibious aircraft that could and did fly off both land and water, flew in the Rockies or across the Pacific ocean to get from one island to another, went skydiving, flew aerobatics, and otherwise had varied experiences. Along with us “amateurs” were quite a few airline pilots on their days off likewise doing all sorts of interesting and varied aviation activities, and only a minority of those airline pilots had military experience. Not that there’s anything wrong with military experience - the tailwheel instructor I had was purely civilian but had learned to fly WWII vintage fighters from former military pilots and was now passing that knowledge on to other civilian pilots who had interest flying the old airplanes. Civilian aerobatics owe a debt to military dog-fighters that goes back to WWI, but no one in aviation would say you have to have a military background and training to be an excellent, or even world-class, aerobatic pilot.
Absolutely. I happen to think that there are a LOT of pilots out there who could have handled the recent emergency on the Southwest flight (and I’d like to think that all the airline captains out there could have done so), but everyone on board was fortunate to have a highly skilled, highly experienced, cool-headed person in command when the not only did the shit hit the fan, but pieces of the fan hit the airplane. But having such a highly trained, highly experienced, cool-headed pilot in charge is more the rule than the exception. Thank Og most of them don’t have to prove it by regularly landing severely damaged airplanes.
Yes, that is definitely a possibility. One of the witnesses speaking to the TV crowd didn’t got into great detail, but did say that it was obvious there had been a great deal of head trauma to the woman. Lots of blood as well. Trauma could have been caused by either the debris or having her upper body impact the airplane whether when her head went through the window or by being battered by the windstream. Debris -whether from the engine, the ducting, or the shattered window - could have sliced her up badly, even sliced open major blood vessels in her neck. When they pulled her fully back into the airplane passengers laid her out on the floor and started performing CPR, which would indicate she was already in pretty dire shape. Low oxygen probably didn’t help the situation, either. She could have died from debris injuries, bleeding out, head/neck trauma, or all of the above.
Most of the guidelines about such things were set by testing fit, healthy young men. That does not describe the majority of airline passengers. The elderly, the ill, those with impaired lung function for whatever reason are going to be worse off. Some people experience symptoms similar to a mild case of the bends when suddenly exposed to the conditions at 30,000 feet, even fit, healthy young men. So yes, it’s expected that people will survive a decompression at 30,000 or even 40,000 feet, but that doesn’t mean it will be entirely without consequences.
But yeah, you want to get the airplane lower because the emergency oxygen generators only work for a brief period.
When I first heard the name Jennifer Riordan (the woman who died) I thought I recognized it. We work with Wells Fargo, so I looked her up on social media to see if she rung a bell. Turns out I don’t, but her profiles are somewhat public on Facebook and Twitter.
She seems like a really nice and positive woman, but what struck me was how absolutely normal her last twitter messages were. She’s exactly my age and reflects so many people I’m around every day. She was in NYC for business, had some fun pictures with her contacts, posted a few yelp reviews of restaurants she ate at in NYC (she obviously enjoyed herself). It’s just completely crazy to realize how quickly a life can go from routine to over.
From what I’ve read pilots at major airlines the big majority are former military pilots. Many go right from Air Force or Navy to the airlines. Pilots who are trained outside the military normally start out with smaller airlines and might be able to move up to Delta, United, etc. after they get experience.
Talk about a perfect set-up.
" I flew single engine fighters in the Air Force, but this plane has four engines. It’s an entirely different kind of flying, altogether. "
I hope the poor woman died quickly and was spared any pain and fear.
Can anyone in the know comment on this article I recently read in Vanity Fair? Both as to the accuracy of the content about the current state of commercial airplane maintenance, and as to the reporting integrity of Vanity Fair.
I always keep my seatbelt fastened throughout the duration of an entire flight because you just never know. On my flight to Vegas over spring break, we suddenly hit some violent turbulence passing over the mountains. I was fine, but a few people who had apparently ignored the pilot’s admonishment to refasten their seatbelts got tossed around pretty good.
Maybe that wouldn’t have saved her life but, then again, maybe it would have.
That has not been the case since the late 1990’s/early 2000s, most airline pilots these days are NOT former military. There certainly are a good number of former military pilots around (even, as I mentioned, some former astronauts), but they are not the majority anymore. Yes, most former military turned airline pilots do go straight from the military to the airlines, but one reason for the rise and expansion of civilian training for airline type flying is that the supply from the military has dropped off so much.
Since the late 60’s/early 70’s military pilots are now the most senior (like Ms. Shults) they will be occupying the most senior seats in the airlines, but those folks will all be retired due to age restrictions within the next decade and the will be ever fewer former-military in the airlines.
Really, since the Vietnam era pilots have reached retirement age or gotten old enough that various health problems dropped them out of the profession the number of former military pilots in the airlines have dropped significantly.
I implied no such thing. If you inferred it, that’s due to your own insecurity and nothing else.
If the Navy had rejected her, and she had become a civilian pilot, the next sentence would have been “Fortunately for everyone on that plane, [whoever trained her] let the lady have her wings.”
I just saw an article confirming that the top half of her torso was through the window. This is an impossible fit for a healthy adult, but given that cabin pressure during cruise is about 11 psi, and outdoor pressure at 32,000 feet is about 4 psi, that’s a differential of 7 psi, which is more than enough to cause a violent force-fit. Once that window got shattered and blown out, and she got drawn into the outdraft, that’s many hundreds of pounds of force trying to shove her body through that hole. In addition to the flailing-related injuries I described upthread, she probably broke numerous bones in her shoulders, ribs, and upper back (with concomitant internal organ damage) as the outrush of air tried to extrude her through the window hole.
It sounds like Broomstick is maybe bitter because she didn’t cut it in the military? I don’t know…and I’m not trying to bust her chops about it, I’ve just encountered that attitude before. Nevertheless, her posts are informative and interesting, so I appreciate what she’s contributed here and I am sure she is a good pilot.
This eyewitness said she had her seatbelt on, so that would have probably limited how much of her was sucked out the window. He also said she became unconscious from the window blast, although I’m not sure how he could be sure if this if she was immediately sucked towards the hole.
