Could an average, level-headed person land a plane with radio assistance?

In My Humble Opinion
61

There could be another reason why larger planes would be more difficult in this situation.

For Cessnas, there are thousands of instructors around who are used to working with complete [del]idiots[/del] beginners, know what beginners know and don’t know, and know how explain things on a beginner level. These experience type lessons are common, so they are used to guiding complete novices in actual landings (albeit sitting right next to them).

For larger and more complicated planes, not only is the plane less forgiving, but good luck finding an instructor who has dealt with someone who has absolutely no clue as to what is going on.

62

As a pilot, I think the bigger issue is that while the yoke does move the nose up and down (controlling the pitch), in the landing phase of flight this is not used to adjust the altitude of the airplane. The pitch is used to control airspeed and the throttle is used to control altitude. It’s quite counter-intuitive to someone who has never done it.

63

Interesting. All the other PFDs I’ve seen (not that there have been a lot) have an altitude tape where yours has the vertical speed indicator. I wonder if that’s an Avro thing. My dad used to pick them up at the factory; he might know.

Could also be the way everyone does it now. I know aircraft flight decks are studied and analyzed in great detail, and that the way information is presented is a part of that. If you break things down into “where am I now” and “where am I going to be in 5 seconds”, your PFD has all the “where am I going” information together in one place.

My dad was one of my instructors and we did exactly that. We were up in a 172, trimmed for 80 mph, straight and level, hands off the yoke. He had me push the throttle in and we started to climb, pull it out to level off, out some more and descend, back in to level off. 80 mph the whole time and never touched the yoke. It was a fascinating demonstration.

64

Yeah, I’m not sure. It’s a bit of a hybrid EFIS, not full glass like a modern Boeing. I flew a B777 simulator recently and its PFD was a lot bigger and positioned next to the nav display instead of above it. The PFD had altitude and vertical speed both displayed.

https://goo.gl/images/fcdFDt

My guess is that there wasn’t space for altitude and VSI on the RJ PFD and they decided VSI was more important.

Your Dad might be interested to know that the company I work for currently has the oldest surviving BAe146 (E1002), number two off the production line, and the last RJ ever built (E3384).

This is actually a hotly debated topic in some circles. The issue is that a larger aircraft with a lot of inertia responds better to using pitch for aiming point (where you want to go) and thrust for speed. Landing light aircraft with low approach speeds and low weight it does get taught the way you describe. In reality they both go hand in hand. If you change one you generally have to change the other. Where the debate comes in is that students at airline pilot mills tend to get taught to fly light aircraft the way you fly a heavy jet. So they are flying C152s using pitch for aiming point and power for speed. This does work but a lot of people think they should be taught the technique more appropriate for the aircraft they are actually flying rather than for aircraft they may fly sometime in the future.

65

The second of my instructors did something similar with me. He also demonstrated several other counter intuitive concepts which really speeded up the learning curve.

66

In the photo there’s a superimposed “2000” in green near the bottom of the orange area. Is that the altitude? If not, what does it mean?

67

That is the radalt (radio/radar altimeter). It uses a narrow radar beam to measure distance directly above the ground and is displayed when its value is 2500 feet or less.

68

Well I guess we just found out what happens when a regular guy with issues takes a Q400 for a whirl.

69

I landed a Bombardier commuter jet in a simulator (my brother’s wife’s brother works for the company and got us some simulator time). Granted we had the instructor there with us, in perfect weather, lined up at a familiar airport (LGA) with no other traffic in the sky. But it didn’t feel unfamiliar from playing a videogame.

It’s not like flying an airplane is “hard”, especially if you’ve played videogames and know the basics of controlling an airplane. I imagine the hard part is navigating across the sky so you are lined up correctly with the airport.

70

You are right, it’s not hard, it’s just that the consequences of failure are quite high and it can all go wrong very quickly. It’s a bit like balancing a ball on a flat plate, while the ball and plate stay still it is very easy but if something upsets the balance and you over-correct it goes from being very easy to losing the ball in a few seconds. It also depends a lot on what an “average person” is. Does the average person know the basics of controlling an aircraft? Does the average person play video games?

The major difficulty in the OP’s scenario is that the instructor is not in the aircraft. Most people do their first landing with only verbal input from the instructor with no trouble at all but remove the instructor and their ability to instruct is severely diminished.

The Wright brothers did it ok.

71

“Captain Joe,” a terrifically informative pilot who gives weekly SD types of answers on professional aviation, has a 15-min YouTube exactly on OP.

ETA: No offense to Capt. Pearse and the other pilots here, who also are terrifically informative pilots who give weekly SD types of answers on professional aviation.

72

This thread was the first thing I thought about when I saw the news this morning.

There are always younger guys at the track (car) events I go to that learned a lot of driving skills via videogames. They tend to be overly confident drivers, who go a bit too fast and take more risks. One of my instructors said these kids need to learn that, unlike a a virtual game, asphalt, concrete, and the laws of physics exist and can hurt/kill in the real world. At an HPDE beginner/itermediate course last year one hotdogger ignored his instructor and rolled his car (minor injuries to people, totalled car) and two others did some impressive 360s on a curve that happens after a longish stretch of high speed track.

73

Interesting video. Captain Joe may be a fine pilot, but I don’t think much of his instructing technique. There isn’t much feedback between the two of them, and he uses way too much jargon like “localizer” that doesn’t mean anything to a non-pilot. He tells her to turn the “heading” knob without telling her where it is. Stuff like that.

During the debrief at the end, he says there were parts of the video that were edited out. Maybe that included some orientation and other things that would have made her more comfortable and reassured her that she was doing things correctly.

74

I miss LSLGuy. :frowning:

75

That is really the only difficult part.
Once you have a non-pilot that is coherent, not panicking, and that operated the radio well enough to actually talk to someone for assistance, the rest is not that difficult or dangerous.

Assuming a fully functional plane, and good weather. (lets not introduce anything that will cause real pilots distress…)
Also assume the plane has enough fuel for 2 hours+, allowing time for the controller and non-pilot to actually work through the problem.

Preventing the plane from nosediving into terrain: 98%
basically, this meant preventing the non-pilot from doing something abysmally stupid in the first 30 seconds.

Navigating to somewhere near a suitable landing field: 100%

Lining up with the runway, or more likely with a suitable flat uncluttered piece of ground: 100% (may take several attempts)

Getting aircraft ready to land: 99%
(stuff like flaps, wheels down, etc. Odds this good, because almost everything can be verified before needing it)

Not stalling on final approach, not nosediving before landing spot: 90%

Landing gently enough to not roll/skid/tumble: 60%
vs.
Surviving if landing is botched: 95% (yes, modern planes are quite safe, if you don’t stall and nosedive the ground)
So basically: Safe landing completely unharmed, about 50%
Unsafe but survivable landing, about 45%
stuff up and die, under 5%

Remember that this scenario requires things to be valid:
the plane in question must be a simple, single-pilot, preferably single engine light plane. No large airliner or equivalent!
non-pilot must not panic, freak out, or otherwise go nuts.
non-pilot must be able to use radio well enough to establish initial contact with controller.

76

Sorry, invalid.
The OP explicitly states the condition “average, level-headed person”
The guy that stole a Q400, can in no shape size or form be described as “level-headed”

77

I listened to the ATC recordings with that guy - they’re on VASAvation’s YouTube channel - and wondered how Andy from Parks and Rec got a job at SeaTac.

Tragic story.