Thanks Richard_Pearse. I still don’t see how it was done so precisely. I don’t see how the pilot made a 280 turn in the upper left without an aerobatic maneuver.
Huh?
It was a Cessna 182 RG. The turning radius at 160 knot cruise at a 30 degree bank is about 2/3 mile. At the scale of map @Richard_Pearse cited, 1 mile is just a couple of pixels. And that’s assuming he’s doing the full 75% power cruise and using only 30 degrees of bank. As long as that flight path is, I’d bet he was using a slower, more efficient cruise speed to eke out enough range to do the whole tedious flight nonstop. Which further reduces the turn radius.
It is done precisely by loading all the turn points into a GPS nav and then having the autopilot follow the GPS nav. You of all people ought to be all over how much easier and better it is to let the computer do the navigating.
You will note that there are no long curved segments. The USA-Canada border from western WA eastward to MN ought to be a continuous gentle curve. But that’s not how it was flown. It was flown as a straight line. Because continuous very large radius turns are not something you can program into an FMS-style navigator.
You’re looking at something over 100 miles wide, down to a scale of inches; it doesn’t need to be that precise for you to not be able to notice a slight zig or zag in the turn
ETA: Ninja’d
ETA2: I’ve also seen runners do this; pre-programm a route & then run it on their Garmin/GPS watch to to either spell something or make a picture of some sorts
Zoomed in it looks reasonable.
Thanks for the explanation.
Holy crap. This kind of thing might put me off piloting forever:
I don’t know. Being the pilot myself might be the only way I would ever want to fly again. Then I know the pilot won’t be jumping out of the the plane. Probably.
Perhaps an “Airplane Divorce”? Borrowed from the Alpine Divorce thread. 
“And now, for your final exam. “
We’re 10,127 posts in and you decisively win the thread for all time. Bravo! Well played!
Having flown Cessna 150s / 152s, albeit eons ago, it would take a very dedicated effort to get the door open far enough to slip out, even if one was a skinny person.
If someone were small enough, opening the window (which is hinged at the top and opens outward parallel to the windstream) then clambering out the opening is a lot more doable. But you need to be real slender and not real big to begin with.
ISTM there’d be a bunch of fumbling trying to get out via the door. Not that the other person would have much opportunity to stop them if they were determined.
The article doesn’t mention how far along the student pilot was in their training. The instructor’s last words suggest she was past solo and he did not think he was really endangering her with her unplanned soon-to-be-solo flight.
But yeah, a strong test of pilot sang froid for young Rosario. Who did well.
[aside]
It’s unclear from the article whether Rosario is the student’s given or family name. The usage suggests given, but ISTM that a woman would be named Rosaria, not Rosario. But I’m the barest of hacker at Spanish.
Actually, Rosario is usually a woman’s name. Their full name is typically “Maria del Rosario” — Mary of the Rosary — but sometimes is just Rosario.
Thank you. TIL.
Going back to the Cessna & doors …
When Cessna came up with the 150 Aerobat version which was certificated for intentional spins and mild aerobatics, they had a problem. Legally you need to wear parachutes to perform aerobatics. And need to have a practical means of egress from the cabin. As noted above, opening the door(s) of a typical lightplane enough to get out is very hard if you have much airspeed.
Their solution was to put the hinge pins of the doors on a “ripcord”. So there were handles inside the cockpit on each side which, when pulled a couple inches, yanked the hinge pins out of that door’s hinges. One good push would get the leading edge of the door out into the slipstream a smidgen, then the wind would peel the door right off the plane. The only other door attach point was a single flimsy latch assembly akin to a bathroom door latch at the aft edge of the door. As the leading edge pivoted outwards, that trailing latch would naturally pull out and the door would be free to fall away.
I expect the article would have mentioned if the plane was an Aerobat or the pilot had jettisoned their door. They did not, so it probably wasn’t.
But if I planned to jump out of a plane with or without a parachute I’d sure pick one with jettisonable doors or canopy, or an open cockpit. Soo much easier.
Which leads to an interesting counterfactual …
Consider for a minute the follow-up conversation if the attempted suicide failed because he couldn’t get the door open enough to jump out. So after X minutes of aggressive fumbling and shoving and grunting he gives up and sheepishly sullenly settles back into his seat. What then?
If I was the student and had enough presence of mind, I’d sure be concerned that the instructor would then try to crash the plane with me in it some time before landing. We never formally trained for that scenario, but we did have tabletop exercises about managing a (surprise!) suicidal crewmate. Few good answers to be had.
I’ve walked over any number of bridges that have some variant of “There is help, don’t do it” signs with a phone # to call. (It was typically either 911 or what I presume was the ops center of the bridge authority; now they should all be 988). Some of those bridges (GW, Golden Gate, etc.) are high enough where the fall alone is typically fatal. I’ve read that people who survived that plunge had second thoughts about it on the way down. I can’t imagine having as far, & as long, to fall as he did & getting second thoughts when it’s too late to do anything about it. Horrible way to go.
Pakistani 737 cargo plane water crash.
I find multiple instances of this particular quote being used, unfortunately without attribution.
The unnamed student pilot, who held a license but had limited flying experience, described the moment in detail. “He took his headphones off, arranged his belongings including his mobile phone, took his seatbelt off, opened the door which is very difficult to open and jumped out,” she said, according to the outlet.
I didn’t mention it in the “misread thread titles” thread, but I actually misread that thread title as “Airplane Divorce”.
Couple thoughts since this occurred in Argentina …
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I bet the original statement by the surviving student was in Spanish. Whoever translated that original to English seems to have created the de facto “official” English version.
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Different countries have different licenses and different terminology. I have no clue about Argentinian practice.
In US FAA parlance, a student pilot needs a “student pilot’s license” to solo, and perhaps even to log training hours pre-solo (I forget which). In any case, the “license” is automatic, requires no testing or training, and confers no evidence of expertise. It’s simply a way to get the person into the FAA’s databases. It comes along automatically when the student gets their first FAA medical exam.
Bottom line, it’s possible a reporter who knows next to nothing about aviation is correctly reporting a “license”, without knowing which one it was or what experience it signifies.
Looking at the finely diced bits of wreckage they’ve recovered, I expect they should be looking for finely diced bits of crewmember too. Not much likelihood the aircraft or people were intact enough after it quit moving to launch a raft or even just be floating alive in their inflatable life vests.
I sent my AI robot out to read Argentinian news sources and translate for me. The news media down there seems to think she was truly licensed, just low time.
The Spanish-language reporting says she already had a licencia de piloto privado, meaning a private pilot license, not merely a student-pilot authorization.
The clearest version is from reporting quoting Eduardo Álvarez, the Flying Parrot Córdoba director: he says Bertazzo was flying with “someone who is already a pilot,” that she “already has her pilot license,” and that it was a vuelo de reentrenamiento, meaning a retraining or refresher flight. The same account says she had a private airplane pilot license but few hours, and that the school required her to fly with an instructor or safety pilot.