I know it’s possible for a non-pilot trapped in a flying helicopter to be safely talked down, because I saw them do it on an episode of the Blue Thunder TV series. And if it’s on TV, it must be true.
Another comment on flight simulators: A lot of pilots I know find them harder to fly than the real thing, for lots of reasons. One, you are missing a lot of visual, tactile, and auditory feedback. My wife is also a pilot, and she can’t land a plane in Flight Sim.
I tried a force-feedback joystick, and just HATED it. In Flight Sim 2000, about all it was good for was to make the airplane feel like it was shimmying heavily when on the runway. I spent a lot of money to get rid of the shimmy in my real plane - why the hell would I want to pay money to simulate it?
When we get properly modelled force effects, a head-mounted swivel and 3-d glasses that pan the view as you turn your head, then maybe flying the sim will become more likely flying a real plane. Until then, don’t compare them too much.
The one area where simulators really help is in practicing procedures. They make great IFR trainers, because flying IFR is all about procedure. Flying VFR is more like seat-of-the-pants flying.
As for how easy it is to fly a plane - the very first lesson I had I took off, flew around, and landed the plane by myself. My instructor never touched the controls once. She just talked me through it all. This is unusual, but not unheard of. The only reason it doesn’t happen more often is because the instructor is usually a low-time pilot and not confident enough to allow that. My instructor happened to have over 12,000 hours, and she’d flown everything from sport planes to A-26 attack bombers (converted to water bombers - she was a fire bomber for a while).
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- If you’re not that particular about what you’re flying, in the US ultralights don’t require any license or training but training is still heavily advised, as the instruction includes basic meteorology and info on where and when you’re not supposed to fly.
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- Also I recall when the first ParaPlane came out (a powered parachute) the official manufacturer’s line was that it was so simple, you didn’t need any lessons to fly it—they said so, right in the advertisments(!). I don’t know if this is still the official policy, and I think that more than one company makes them now. ~ A small-aircraft pilot I know who has flown one says that ParaPlane-type aircraft are very easy to fly, but are also very slow, have a very short range and are very noisy. Overall he wasn’t much impressed, and said ultralights were much more fun. - MC
Geez, man, I’ve been flying 5 - no, almost 6 - years now and the planes I’m in don’t even have a manifold pressure gauge! You start SIMPLE. Manifold pressure in a fixed-wing is a concern only if you have an in-flight adjustable prop, which the average beginning trainer doesn’t. That’s a major difference between the sims and real life - in real life a competant CFI would try to talk you out of starting in a complex airplane (although if you were insistent he/she would probably give in to your wishes) but in a sim folks jump into a big honking whatsit and wonder why they keep crashing.
I’ve never damaged a plane on landing (knock on wood) even during a forced landing into a hayfield last summer, but for the life of me I can’t land a plane on a flight simulator.
I’ve had a number of instructors tell me they can always spot a flight simulator enthusiast on the first lesson - they don’t look outside the cockpit enough. Sims have their uses, and they can be fun, but they aren’t enough to teach you to fly. Although in a couple of real-life instances it occured to me that it would be very very nice if reality had a “reset” button - you just don’t get that sort of adrenalin rush from a computer game.
Yo! Johnny LA - I overheard a sim pilot talking to a real rotorcraft pilot at our local field:
Simguy: "Hey, Jim! Got a helicoptor sim program and it’s so cool!" (Enthusiastic descriptions)
Rotorguy: “Well, yeah, sounds good - is it down for maintainance 75% of the time?”
Simguy: {Puzzled look} “Uh… no”
Rotorguy: “Then it’s not a very accurate simulation, is it?”
Don’t think they’re really down quite that much, but you rotor guys do seem to require a lot of on-going maintenance.
Good one! Slightly exaggerated, but in fact I have had to cool my jets in the FBO while they put new rotor blades on the Schweizer.
BTW: Even simple helis have manifold pressure gauges. Of course, that’s one big constant-speed prop swinging around up there!
I flew a gyroplane once. It combined the flight speed of a helicopter with the hovering capabilities of an airplane.
Good thread.
I agree it’s not too hard to learn to fly a plane - heck, they gave me a license, and I’m a friggin’ gym teacher!!! I think the issue is more one of committment. It’s not difficult in the same way learning to juggle is not difficult - you have to have patience and keep at it. But you’ll get it if you are so inlcined.
About those flight simulators:
My opinion is that they are not really harder to fly than airplanes, so much as different. The most realistic ones I’ve played on my PC weren’t that close to the real thing.
And if you’re interested, the most realistic sim I have is X-Plane. Beats the crap out of Microsoft FS2000 Pro.
Anyone can “physically” fly a plane with enough training/repetition/practice.
What sets a real pilot from the wanna-be’s and pretenders is the experience learned over the years, plus the willingness to always learn more. A bit of humility never hurts either, although this post will not evoke any.
At the risk of sounding cynical, the fact that we saw a number of so-called records being attempted by children under the guidance of less-than-scupulous adults shows that while anyone truly CAN maneuover an aircraft, it takes much more than “stick&rudder” stuff to succeed.
Cheers Mike30
(if you must know, 15 years in the profession)
How can you tell if there’s a pilot at your party?
He’ll tell you.
How many pilots does it take to change a light bulb?
One. The pilot holds the bulb and the world revolves around him.
{BTW, tracer: Another good one about the gyrocopter!)
The joke goes jumbo jets are so easy to fly, there’s just a dog & a human in the cockpit. The dog’s there to keep the human from touching the controls, and the human’s there to feed the dog.
ok guys, you want old jokes do you, eh?
(For girls) How can you tell when your dinner date with a pilot is half over? “Well, that’s enough about me, lets talk about airplanes.”
From experience, the basic stick-and-rudder is pretty easy for a person of average coordination. If you can ride a bicycle, you probably could do it. This skill set is in over-simplistic terms “getting it up and getting it back down again in one piece”.
But… learning all the “technical” stuff about Terminal Control Areas, insturment landing systems, Federal Aviation Regulations, etc. is another matter altogether. These things are all very important. These skills are all about what to do and not do once you’re in the sky. Where to go and not go, how to find your way, how not to crash into things, etc. As other poeple have observed, these skills are more complex and somewhat more of an intellectual exercise, as opposed to just the mastery of a physical skill. This part of being a pilot is not for half-wits.
The consequences of screwing up are pretty heavy. You don’t just coast to a stop by the roadside.
RE: JFK jr. accident. He died because he flew into conditions (night and limited visibility, espcially over water) he was not prepared (trained) for. He was a VFR only (basic skills) pilot, not insturment rated. A good exercise to demonstrate the kind of disorientation that lead to his death is to stand unsupported on one foot. With your eyes open (i.e. with visual references), this is fairly easy. But try to do this for over 60 seconds with your eyes closed. I’ve never seen anyone able to do this consistently.
From what I’ve heard, the actual flying is easy, but the landing is dangerous and then there are the major things you need to learn, like navigation so you can get where you want to go, the instruments, flight levels, the altitude and order you need to get to for landing at busy air fields, and then how to handle unexpected things that might affect you in the air. Like air pockets, turbulence, the occasional 747, updrafts, downdrafts and storms.
I’ve flown several times, but not as the pilot. The last time was in a tiny, overhead wing, single engine aircraft that the owner could make hang in the air by the prop. It was impressive, but being real, real high up I decided not to touch anything, least the engine fall off or something, even when offered. We did two night flights over very familiar territory, which was beautiful, but within minutes, I lost the airfield and could only identify large landmarks. Then when we returned to the airfield, I got disoriented on the approach and was not only surprised when he had us lined up for landing but surprised at just how darn fast the ground came up and how wrong I was about guessing our height before we landed.
I decided that I’ll let smarter people than me fly aircraft.
With out any flying experience, this guy did all right. He was an 81 year-old non-pilot who had to land his friend’s 172 after the pilot died of a heart attack. He ended up collapsing the nose gear after bouncing on landing, but he made it out uninjured.
Flying, landing, and taking off aren’t too tough. Most people can land a plane safely after 5 hours of instruction, and can solo after 10. But it take 40 hours total to get your license. It is all the other factors that make flying difficult.
JCHeckler wrote:
He was flying in fog without an Instrument rating? And without an Instrument clearance?!
But … but, that’s illegal! A Kennedy wouldn’t dream of breaking the law!! 
I think part of the problem was JFK, Jr. was about 2/3 of his way through instrument training. In other words, he knew just enough to be dangerous.
To be fair to the man - when he took off that evening the weather at both departure and destination were VFR - it was the space in between the two points that was problematic. He wasn’t the only pilot caught, either, just the only one to die - several pilots filed for IFR in the air that night, and others turned back to their starting point. Either he wasn’t aware the IMC had snuck up on him or else he did realize it and foolishly thought that being partially trained would be enough to get him to Martha’s Vineyard in one piece. He had also traveled that route several times before, and perhaps his famillarity with the route led to some complacency as well.
And, of course, we all know the usual rules don’t apply to Kennedys.
I think that technically it was still VFR, but without lights on the ground to provide reference, he was “virtually” IFR.
This thread took on a whole new frame of relevance recently.
How hard is it to fly a plane ? Too easy apparently.
Actually, I was trying to figure out how many men comprise a “Company” in the Army.
Then you stumbled into the wrong thread. See http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=85199