I assume it’s more complicated than “this thing makes it go up and down, this thing turns it right or left, and this thing makes it go faster or slower” But how hard is it? I assume a 747 is harder than a beechcraft? How many of those hundreds of switches and gauges are for critical flight operations and how many just turn on the map lights or monitor the cargo hold temperature?
If I’m flying in a private plane and I bump a random toggle switch with my elbow, could the plane flip over and fall out of the sky. If the pilot dies in a heart attack would I have any chance of making a safe landing or should I rummage around in back where the parachutes are kept. Or in an “Airplane” scenario would a small private/miltary pilot have any chance at landing a commerical plane.
One thing that I’m wondering about is how many of those switches and readouts are really necessary on a minute to minute basis or even at all during a flight and how many are there just to make life a little easier, for that once in a lifetime emergency, or for regulatory reasons. In theory, you could add all sorts of readouts and switches to a car to let the driver adjust the fuel-air mixture manually while driving, but it’s generally not needed.
Having actually taken a flying lesson once, I can say that for small aircraft (2-4 passengers) it can be fairly simple. There were a few controls that were only used during takeoff and landing (e.g. switch to lower flaps, engine choke), but you do need to understand how to use half a dozen critical gauges and indicators.
If you’re really that curious, look into taking a flying lesson. You don’t have to become a pilot, but actually taking the controls for a while gives you a new perspective on it.
In the first scenario, yes, you should most definitely put on the parachute and jump out rather than try and land a plane unaided. Anyone in this situation will do what comes naturally, namely they will try and fly a plane roughly the way you drive a car. And if you do this, you will crash. 100% guaranteed. Very likely fatally too. Having said that, most of the actual ‘flying’ only involves basic stick & rudder control. Maybe 90% of getting an actual pilot license is learning about communications (aircraft radios are very complex and equally important), terminology, navigation, map reading, weather etc.
But, something aviation novices need to understand is that a ‘pilot license’ is very different from a driver’s license in that even though driver’s licenses are divided up into categories of vehicles, heavy truck, bus, taxi, tractor-trailer, motorcycle etc. except for a motorcycle most of the others have a great deal of ‘overlay’ (limousine & taxi don’t even involve extra training, just extra fees!). For instance, in NY State if you have a Class 1 driver’s license you can drive everything from a tandem 18-wheeler on down (except a motorcycle). Pilot’s licenses are much more strict. The divisions include very specific equipment like with or without retractable landing gear, variable pitch props, multiple engines, deicing etc., all which can be things on roughly similarly sized and/or model of aircraft. You essentially need to qualify on nearly every single different ‘model’ of airplane (and that doesn’t mean simply prop, jet, helo etc.) And unlike driver’s they don’t necessarily automatically equate ‘down’. IOW a 747 pilot is not automatically qualified to land a prop-engine Beechcraft seaplane.
However, in an emergency, someone with just a basic pilot’s license and, most importantly, a lot of experience in the air could probably land most any prop or even turbo prop plane successfully. A high performance jet, probably not. They’re just too intensely unforgiving. An big airliner? Maybe. Airliners are not ‘harder’ to actually fly, just a lot different (like piloting a barge vs a pleasure boat). Things actually happen a lot more slowly in a big jet. But, if you inadvertently let those small, slow things accumulate they will become very big things happening very, *very *quickly (and irrevocably!)
Well, it does depend somewhat on the private plane (John Travolta owns and flying a B-707 as his own private airplane, for example) but assuming you mean those little 2-4 seat Cessnas and Pipers usually meant by “small airplane” nope, not going to happen. First of all, you’d need to use the yoke/stick and rudders to deliberately turn the airplanes upside down, bumping a switch won’t do it accidentally.
Very few airplanes routinely carry parachutes these days. You’d be better off trying to land the airplane than looking for a parachute that isn’t there.
Best bet would be to get on the radio and yell HELP THE PILOT IS DEAD AND I DON’T KNOW HOW TO FLY HEEEEEEEEEEEEELP! Then pipe down so the other folks on the frequency can talk you down. It IS possible for a non-pilot to successfully land a small plane, it has been done but note that “successfully” means “I survived”, not always that you can use what’s left of the airplane again.
The bigger and more complex the airplane, though, the less likely this would be successful.
Most likely, if you’re talking about big commercial airplanes, only someone with some sort of prior experience with that particular airplane would have a chance of landing one in an emergency.
I’ve done flight instruction (in gliders) and have encountered a few cases of novices who were able to do much of the first flight - including all but the final touchdown of the landing - by themselves, in response to verbal instructions. These are typically young, motivated students who have done a lot of reading.
Could I just pick up the microphone and yell in it, or is some technical skill required? Is someone likely to be listening on the channel it’s tuned to? I assume there’s no “911” button like on cell phones.
Hypothetically, what kind of response would you get if you went to a flight school and said "I want to take a flying lesson, but I’m not interested in hiring you for 50 hours to get a pilots license, I just think it would be fun to go up in a small airplane for an hour or two.
Google searches bring up various flight schools with “introductory” lessons around my area. I’m not sure if they want someone who is at least ostensibly wants to be a pilot or if they’ll taken anyone with money that wants to hire them for whateve length of time.
You’d need to know enough to push the push-to-talk switch/button.
Depends on the habits of the (now deceased) pilot. Probably yes.
Some radios offer a quick way to call up the emergency frequency (121.5 MHz). But you’d have to know something about the radio to do this.
Most likely response would be along the lines of “How about you and flight instructor Fred here hop in that cute red one you see out on the ramp?” IOW, they get this request often, are quite happy to provide you with a plane and instructor in return for money, and (based on experience) have some expectation that you’ll enjoy this and come back for more.
Flight schools do do that. There are plenty of people who want to see what flying is about but don’t want to commit to a full license course. They usually call it an “introductory package” or something like that. Typically it’ll consist of a briefing and then a quick flight while the instructor allows you to take the controls in the air.
They will most likely be very happy to take you up for an introductory, or to have an instructor fly around with you for a while. Money’s money.
Decades ago I earned a private pilot’s license, single engine, land. It was about the hardest thing I’ve ever had to learn. Yes, the very basic parts are not all that hard, but there are a ton of things you have to learn in order to fly solo.
It’s also not cheap. Aviation fuel is expensive. When I was flying, there was an hourly fee for use of the plane, plus fuel. An instructor is also going to charge an hourly rate.
It is harder than it looks. In the Air Force, I served as an aerial photographer, documenting weapon tests in fighters. Essentially, I rode in the backseat of a chase plane filming bomb drops and missile shots from the lead fighter. Often, after the mission was completed, I’d get a little stick time on the way back to base, or during training missions. I was flying in T-38s, F-15s, F-16s, and F-4s. Each model was significantly different than the others. The F-4 has virtually no forward field of view from the backseat, and is relatively slow to react to control input. The F-16 has a side-stick controller that doesn’t move, but the airplane reacts to pressure on the stick…very quickly. Each airplane has different landing speeds, etc.
I was able to land an F-15 from the back seat with coaching from my frontseater, but that happened after I’d logged about 400 hours in fighters. Definitely not something someone could expect to survive without considerable experience in the airplane.
I started flying when I was 15, and got my license at 17, circa 1980. Planes, gas, and instructors were a bit cheaper then.
5 of us split 1 airplane, and leased it to a school for a long time, so we had a plane to do as many hours as we could.
I eventually got mult-engine land and sea, instrument rating, and more.
After 4,500 hours in gliders to twin turboprops, I’ve got a pretty good handle on flight.
Many people have easily 4 and 5 times that, but it’s where I am.
The general consensus amongst high-time jet jockeys is your chance of landing a Cessna 172 when Bob keels over is not bad. Plane may get damaged, but you should walk away.
It does happen occasionally, especially in Florida.
The latest full-sized simulator I tried was Eastern’s 767, so you know it’s been awhile.
If I had to pull Capt. Roy back to the head, and jump into the left seat of a 777, I feel I could set her down with minimal damage, but the jet set says I’ve only got a 20% chance of doing that.
I’d sure like to try it at Edwards, or maybe Dobbins if I had my druthers.
Denver’s nice and long, but a bit high. I guess we just get there sooner!
At a basic level it is no more complicated than driving a car except it takes a lot more coordination because you are controlling the machine in three dimensions rather than two and speed is critical. In a car if you get slow nothing happens, in an aeroplane if you get slow the wings stop flying and you risk crashing. So you use a lot more brain power just flying the aeroplane compared to driving a car. With a bit of practice though, the flying bit becomes automatic and you can devote your brain to doing other things like navigation and communicating with ATC and other aircraft.
The bigger the aircraft the more other stuff there is to do particularly during take off and landing.
Most of the switches are critical in that if one of them is off when it should be on or vice versa bad things can happen. That doesn’t mean the switches get used during flight, just that the cockpit needs to be correctly setup prior to flight for everything to work properly. Same with the gauges.
Do you mean slower in roll and pitch? Because other than that, the big learning curve when moving to a bigger aeroplane is that everything happens much more quickly and you have a lot more to do. A 90 mile leg in a C152 takes nearly an hour and you spend a lot of time sitting idly waiting for something to happen. The same 90 mile leg in a jet takes about 20 minutes and you don’t get a chance to scratch yourself, particularly if you have the joy of operating in uncontrolled airspace with lots of VFR traffic. At 20 miles from the runway in a jet you have about 6 minutes to touchdown, if you haven’t got a plan for slowing down and configuring with gear and flaps out then you find you’re at 10 miles before you know it and you’re too fast to get configured and you get high and fast on the approach and have to have another go at it.
You are right about how small errors can accumulate though. In the cruise flying at Mach 0.8 a one degree change in pitch will result in an 800 foot per minute climb or descent, just one degree change will do that. In many light aircraft you’d rarely see any more than 500 - 1000 fpm climb or descent in normal operations. In a jet you can very easily get rates of descent over 3000 fpm just with mild mishandling.
You need to push the transmit button, this might take you some time to locate or you may never locate it. You need to have the appropriate radio selected, most likely the last radio the pilot talked on would be selected. In the aircraft I fly the mic could be selected to any one of four radios or the service intercom (for talking to the cabin crew), or the PA for talking to the passengers. You also need the right frequency dialed in but that should already be there.
That’s quite normal. Lots of people have a trial flight to see if they like it and then don’t take it any further.
yes, you could hit an elevator trim switch and pull the plane up into a stall.
Yes, you could land the plane if you know 2 numbers and how to control them. You need to know the stall speed and the Velocity Never to Exceed. To lower the speed pull the nose up, to raise the speed push the nose down. if you keep it between those numbers you can drive it onto the runway like a car and then shut the engine off. it won’t be pretty but you’ll walk away.
Like I said, in aviation communication is vitally important to flying safely and aircraft radios are very complex to a non-pilot. As an example, here’s a picture of my brother’s home PC flight sim setup (he has a private pilot’s license, as well as flies his own ultralight and experimental gyrocopter). Notice the stack of** LED number display** devices on the right. The top four (actually it’s two, each has two rows of displays) are USB aviation radio simulator interfaces! Essentially the same thing as the USB yoke and throttle input accessories that a lot of PC flight sims will have, but these are simply to help simulate using the radios correctly! They’re certainly a niche product, and no kid who just wants to run fighter plane shoot 'em ups is going to have them, but just the fact that they exist at all for serious home flight sim training shows you the importance of radio skills in aviation!
Obvious question with a probably obvious answer:
If one is good at a serious flight sim like the above post, or Microsoft Flight Simulator, or even Wing Commander are the chances better in the “oh no the pilot is dead and I’ve never flown a plane” scenario?
Note: The software my brother runs on that above system is indeed Microsoft Flight Sim X (the last one they made).
As to the question of would experience on it help in a real world scenario? Yes, but to what degree would be an open question. If you logged hundreds of hours on MS Flight Sim it would certainly make you hugely more prepared to take over the controls of a real plane compared to someone who had no training whatsoever. As long as you could also successfully handle the emotional pressure & extreme verisimilitude of being in an actual aircraft & controlling it (as opposed to sitting at your computer desk), and if you were reasonably close to an airstrip, had clear visibility, no weather, no other significant traffic, plenty of fuel, no mechanical issues, and it was a simple, stable, easy to fly airplane I’d say your chances of landing successfully would be pretty good.
Believe it or not, landing is much, **much **easier & safer than taking off. If you have a major issue on takeoff, your options are severely limited compared to when landing.
Alright, so the next question is, who exactly is he going to be talking to on those simulated radios? Does the flight simulator software actually have recorded lines from ground traffic controllers to give him flight clearances and such over them?
As far as safety, I see your point, and actually the engine is at a higher stress at takeoff since it’s operating on maximum rpm’s at that stage, and if something goes wrong a few seconds just after takeoff, you’re limited in choices on where to land it. While during landing, the throttle is pulled back, engine is usually at idle or thereabouts, and if you’ve done your flight pattern correctly, if engine goes out then you’ve established enough height to be able to still make it to the runway.
However, the skills required to land a plane vs taking off are much more difficult to acquire. Landing is everything, and is the last thing to learn. It’s much easier to take an aircraft from ground to air, but transitioning from air to ground isn’t so easy. This is even more true when you have a fairly good crosswind. You also have to judge the flare right. Taildraggers are even more difficult. I’m no instructor, but I’ve taught a few to take off in a short amount of time. I even had one friend that had flown radio controlled models all of his life, and he actually took my tri-cycle gear plane off the very first time without any help from me. I couldn’t believe it.
Don’t know if you ever heard of the Barefoot Bandit. He learned to fly only by flight simulators he had on his computer, and didn’t have any instructors or friends teach him anything. By learning to fly, I mean he learned to take off planes that he stole. He stole something like seven or so (forgot how many), and every time he was able to take it off and fly the airplane. The one thing he didn’t get right once was landing. He crashed every single one of them. As they say though, any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.
