Me and my friends have argued about this quite a bit. If I were aboard a 737 (I’m told its one of the easier jets to pilot of its size) and the aircrew were killed or unconsious, how likely would it be for me to be able to take instruction from skilled pilots on the ground and land the plane without killing anyone? Is it really something that can be taught on the spot step by step assuming the craft has the latest aeronautics equipment? Finally, I have spent about 100 hours on Microsoft’s Flight Simluator. How good is the understanding I’ve gotten about basic aircraft theory (drag, stall, etc) when transfering it to real flight? Does it qualify me more than someone who has zero flight experance?
Even if all the crew were unconscious… No. Just no.
If the aircraft is equipped, the plane can land itself. I don’t know how prevalent it is on large aircraft, so I’ll let someone who knows what they’re talking about answer that better.
As far as flight simulator, the THEORY behind it is sound. By theory, I mean the written down stuff… Like you’d learn in ground school. You might as well read a book.
Very, very little will transfer over from MSFS to real flying. “As real as it gets” is still not real. I’ve found that people who play a whole lot of flight sim have a very unrealistic view of real flying, and have even developed bad habits from it. (Extreme reliance on GPS being a major factor… They fly visually once to get their licence and count on GPS the rest of their life. They don’t seem to realize instruments can fail.)
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy it, but there’s a reason why it’s sold as a game, not a simulator.
Well maybe I’d better keep my hand down if anyone asks for somebody with flight experance.
Surely flight sim might count in “getting the plane on the ground, but having it written off and half the passengers surviving” versus " telescoping into the side of a hill at several hundred knots and ‘goodnight nurse’ for everyone". Might it?
I was once able to run one of the large multi-million dollar 747 cockpit flight simulator things. So this is about as close as one can go from computer flight simulators straight to flying a real jet. My comments on that experience are that:
- There are a whooole lot of buttons you need to press and knobs you need to turn to operate a plane. However, someone telling you what to do is sufficient to be able to find and operate these various buttons and knobs.
- 747s handle a lot better than I had expected. Still sluggish of course, but not bad.
- I did land it successfully–if at a steeper dive than everyone else in the cockpit felt comfortable with
- I distinctly remember the view out the window as looking 3D (i.e. where I could sense depth) even though I was wearing no special glasses. So either my brain fritzed out on this memory fairly quickly after doing this, or the multi-million dollars enabled them to do some pretty impressive visualization
- I don’t think I would have succeeded landing a damaged airplane. If I had a few runs in the simulator then maybe, but getting it right the first time without overshooting the runway or burying your nose into the cement would be unlikely
So, my personal guess would be that if the plane was still in fully working order and you had flown a lot of flight simulators, you would probably succeed with someone telling you all the proper buttons and knobs.
My job is to functional test new 737’s in the factory. At the time my job involves interior lighting and oxygen, I have worked flight control testing in the past and know the layout of the modern 737 Next Generation flight deck fairly well. Given all that I might be able to control on in flight but landing one is another story. The autopilot could put the airplane on the ground but it would still require someone to deploy the thrust reversers, spoilers and flaps. The autopilot would have to be disabled to for the brakes to work and you have to heel push the control pedals to work the brakes. Toe push works the stabilizer control surfaces. Ideally you would want to zero the elevator but depending on wind speed and direction that may not be possible. Given what I know, I don’t think I would want to land one.
It would probably be easier for someone without experience to land a 777, everything from takeoff to landing can be computer controlled. Thats one of the advantages of a fly by wire airplane instead of the traditional cable controlled flight surfaces used on other Boeing aircraft.
FYI, something that has been on every 707, 727, and the first 6,277 737’s built went away a few months ago. The eyebrow windows, the small windows above the regular flight deck window, have been deleted. There was even a small ceremony at work when the last 737 built with them rolled out of the factory.
I think it was mentioned in the first Worst Case Scenario book but most sources seem to vote for not very likely. Salon.com used to have an ask the pilot segment. The link includes his answer to this question. No.
Mind you, if I was flying it I would point out that a crash is referred to as an “unplanned landing”.
For our guest NathanForce, a prior thread on this subject, including the input of various pilots on the board:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=187805&highlight=plane
Actually, for some reason I can’t get the coding to work - could someone more savvy with this stuff help? The title of the thread is “By the way, is there anyone on board who can fly a plane”
As for MS Flight Simulator - hey, it’s not bad. But while it may give a leg up in some (very limited) respects on basic flight knowledge, and possibly give you to background to land a small, simple general aviation airplane (which isn’t that inherently difficult) it’s not going to be of much help with a big jet.
For that matter, having a private pilot’s license isn’t going help much in landing a big jet, either, or so the consensus ran on the other thread. The big airplanes are just too different.
Mind you, if things were really that desparate I’d still give it a try. I mean, what would you have to lose? But the odds of success are not good at all.
Broomstick’s link, with the gibberish peeled off the front of it.
THANK YOU!
I’ve been all thumbs lately. I am definitely getting a second cup of caffeine before heading to the airport this morning…
Nathan,
Airline pilot here. The very short version is “almost certainly no”. You’ll probably be dead within 3 minutes after you sit down in the seat.
Here’s another thread where we ended up discussing this topic http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=24732,
and here’s another one that started out on this topic http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=260326
Just what is the 737 Next Generation anyway? It seems like Boeing has come out with at least nine versions of the 737 already over the years (I think my last Southwest flight was in a Boeing 737-900.) Is it just a 737 with the newest electronics and the like, or does it have something new going on, like fly-by-wire instead of cables?
From 1969 to 1993, Boeing built what is now called the 737 Classic. And there are 2 variants of that. The first model built was the -100, a fairly basic 138 passenger aircraft. In 1979, the -200 was added, it was 16 feet longer and could carry up to 168 passengers. In 1986, Boeing updated the airplane. The old -200 became the -300. A longer version that could carry up to 189 passengers, the -400 was introduced. Later, a shorter 128 passenger -500 was released. In 1993, Boeing introduced the Next Generation models, new electronics, new interiors, upgraded landing gear and flight controls. 4 models were introduced, the -600, the shorty of the bunch, the -700, which would be the Southwest 737 you flew on, the -800 a stretch of the -700, and the even longer -900, which can carry 189 passengers. Soon, Boeing will introduce the -900X, which will be able to carry up to 218 passengers. It will fill the whole left by the recent demise of the 757. Instead of the small overwing escape hatches, a regular sized entry door will be placed over each wing. We have also built AWACS versions for Australia, Combi’s for the US Navy, and military command versions for some smaller countries. Boeing also sells a stripped down version called the business jet, or BBJ for short. It is a -700 or -800 that is sold to private parties and is designed to be customized by the customer. You can search the Boeing for a lot more info.
I think I agree. I had considerable multi engine experience a long time ago and I really doubt that I could have safely landed a modern jet airliner even 25 or 30 years ago. Maybe I could have gotten it on the ground without quite killing everybody but that’s about all.
Oops. That first link should be http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=247324 .
That second link, http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=260326 , includes links to two even earlier threads on-topic.
I guess I’m a little surprised at the difficulty of flying large aircraft. It sounds as if an untrained pilot - one that has is untrained in large aircraft that is - grabs the controls and the things just about immediately spiral into the ground. Three minutes and you’re probably dead. That’s scary!
What a difference from small aircraft where they just about fly themselves when trimmed up correctly.
Still, my vote is to give it a shot if someone comes running back asking if anyone can land the thing because the entire crew is out of commision. So much the better if you’ve played around with a simulator. You’d at least be familiar with the panel and the location for air speed, rate of climb gauge, flap controls, and throttles. And you’d be familiar with the relationship between flap position, air speed, banking, throttle position, and stalling. Not stalling - that’s a good thing. The mathematics are well understood and the games get it close.
With luck, someone would line you up with a very long runway with something soft at the end, talk you through reducing your altitude so you arrive at the start of the runway at the right altitude, putting on some flaps, and explain a little about maintaining your air speed, and making sure your landing gear is down. Perhaps they could tell you when to close the throttles and pull back on the wheel a little. And maybe, just maybe, you’d roll safely to a stop.
A multimillion dollar simulated cockpit is not a real airplane of course, but it was my understanding that being able to land one by oneself would essentially mean that someone could land a real large-scale passenger airplane with approximately the same difficulty.
There wasn’t a copilot and the guy telling me which buttons to press was behind me amongst a crowd of five or so people (most of whom were yelling because they were used to a more professional landing and the simulator did feel that real.)
I believe that it was one of the “Full Flight Simulators” at SAS Flight Academy but I can’t find an image of the outside.* It looked like the nose of an airplane on a stick as I recall it. They don’t seem to have a 747, so it might have been a 737 or a non 7X7 plane, but definitely one of the larger craft.
Not arguing. Verifying that there is that much of a difference.
- The school was either in Helsinki or Stockholm, and this place looks right from a quick google.
Helix it’s not so much the actual flying of the jet aircraft, but just how quickly you can get yourself into an unrecoverable situation in a jet. Take an airliner at cruise, kick off the autopilot and bump the yoke to induce a bank…if no one does anything for 15 seconds or more then you are most likely not going to recover the aircraft. The swept-wing, aerodynamically-efficient design of passenger jets means that when they are pointed down they will pick up speed amazingly fast. Fast enough that recovery might not be possible.
As for attempting to land the thing…read the previous threads. If you are familiar with the layout of a large airplane cockpit then you are definitely someone who can help. But as for actual landing…use your aviation knowledge to program the airplane for an autoland and then just sit back and watch it do it’s thing.
All of this can be done with an autoland. All you have to do is program the autopilot and lower the gear and flaps.
141,
Welcome back. How was the trip?
LSL Guy, thanks.
Not a bad trip - three days with a decent layover in San Diego in the middle. Now if I could just figure out a way to bring that San Diego weather back with me I’d be set.