How to land an airplane if you are not a pilot
eduardo.intermeta.com.br
eduardo.intermeta.com.br
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJT_CACIZqs
The trip report will spoil the outcome, so the video is somewhat more nerve-wrecking.
(the parent is the trip report from the flight instructor)
Very interesting to see his change of perspective and thought process during the flight, especially :
My confidence level was extremely high prior to the flight, as in I really thought I was a pick 'em to do this, as in even money. 5 to 1, 20 to 1, 100 to 1?? No effing way; I was sure I had a really good chance at success.
(...)
There is really no other way to describe what happened next: I panicked. I did quickly bank the plane right to get it back over the runway, and this was pure habit from the simulator, which mimicked this part of the flight perfectly. But in the immediate seconds after take off, the first thing I thought was, I can't do this. (...) But the nose kept generally pointed forward, and the plane kept its general climb attitude, and I settled down. That is, I settled down from a state of total terror, to just general major concern.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta-skymiles/1035853-ask-de...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkOT3fbc1O4
And one for the 737:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7WMQUDGDD4
(there are some other fun videos in there, like making a water landing, recovering from an engine failure, etc., that I find fascinating just for the sheer number of things that A) have been thought about and B) have had procedures actually decided on and written down in checklists)
I know a few pilots who fly medical transfer flights, and sometimes they have critical medical emergencies in the cabin, and can results in the pilot-in-command (captain) declaring a medical emergency, although they may not actually use the word MAYDAY when declaring medical emergency.
Anything that requires EMT trauma response on the runway (eg. life threatening medical situation), Its probably justified in declaring an emergency. A minor scrapes or bruises from turbulence doesn't.
Came here to say this. An untrained person in control of an aircraft most definitely justifies declaring an emergency.
I didn't really like the article. Honestly, if you're in a light aircraft and the pilot conks out you're going to get badly hurt if you survive at all. Landing a plane feels very weird for a very long time. In a big jet you'd have a far better chance: your controller can talk you through setting the autopilot to take you to a big airport, and then have you set autoland. (Of course, that scenario is pure movie fantasy, whereas the first is actually quite likely!)
If anyone is interested in this sort of preparation, I'd recommend taking a $50 intro flying lesson or - better - signing up for the AOPA's "Pinch Hitter" course, which is designed to teach non-flying spouses of pilots how to do just this. It's saved a surprising (alarming) number of lives - a lot of private pilots are fat old men who get heart attacks.
That, and a commercial jet is going to have a co-pilot in the cabin, and possibly at least one person more familiar with a cockpit than you flying in a jumpseat. If it's an international flight, then there's usually going to be another flight crew on board, too.
I did find the comment about stalling somewhat amusing. Non-pilots really have no idea what pilots mean when they say 'stall'. When I intentionally stalled in training, I thought the plane would roller-coaster like a paper aeroplane does. Some people think it means the engine loses power. An actual stall is much more subtle and you have to know what you're looking for to notice it.
I did like the comment about the subtle touch needed for the controls though - in my limited time, I never really mastered this.
I suggested this in another comment, but I wanted to thank you for mentioning it as it should get more visibility.
[1] http://www.askthepilot.com/questionanswers/automation-myths/
But really, when all is said and done, I think everyone would forgive inexperienced people for not respecting differences between countries when it comes to correctly using MAYDAY and PANPAN.
In reality, ATC is going to treat a plane with an incapacitated pilot and an un-trained person at the controls as an emergency regardless of the terminology used.
That said, it's an incredibly demanding job but can be rewarding whenever you make a difference. And it keeps things in perspective. It's difficult to complain about working at 4am, when a kid is fighting for her life behind you with a parent sitting nearby.
The first time I spun an airplane it was by accident (OK, all of them were!): my instructor let it happen so I could learn and for the first few seconds it was like "what the fuck did I just do and how do I get out of it?" Even though I "logically" knew we were in a spin, the disorientation of G-forces, the screaming from the stall warning, and rapidly rising engine RPM made my lizard brain very slow to react. Never been happier to hear "I've got the airplane" coming from the right seat :-)
OTOH, after that first time, "unusual attitude" training became fun. Amazing what a tiny bit of experience does to the brain.
"attitude" or "altitude"?
I could believe the former, but I want to check.
Speaking personally, this is the point at which I start vomiting and panicking, not necessarily in that order.
Of course this was not in the spirit of the question but I thought it was an entertaining answer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Beams
"The Battle of the Beams was a period early in the Second World War when bombers of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) used a number of increasingly accurate systems of radio navigation, developed by Johannes Plendl, for night bombing in England. British "scientific intelligence" at the Air Ministry fought back with a variety of their own increasingly effective means, involving jamming and distortion of the radio waves."
"Thus the beam was "bent" away from the target. Eventually, the beams could be bent by a controlled amount which enabled the British to fool the Germans into dropping their bombs where they wanted them. A side effect was that as the German crews had been trained to navigate solely by the beams, many crews failed to find either the true equi-signal or Germany again. Some bombers even landed at RAF bases, believing they were back in Germany."
(As a rule of thumb, they don't. And even most pilots couldn't help, only pilots who know the aircraft in question and if auto land is an option at all.)
Even small airports have a surprising breadth and depth of experience hanging about the associated flight schools and maintenance sheds, the chances of finding a semi retired 747 (say) pilot lurking about with the older mechanics working on a light aircraft or custom built car are surprisingly high.
But I can guarantee you that they would arrange for someone who did to help you. For immediate help, there would likely be another pilot in the sector that that controller could ask to help keep you in the air. While that is happening, other controllers or supervisors would be calling the airline to get a type-certified pilot/instructor on the radio to talk you through the landing.
I don't know of any cases where it has actually happened on a commercial, but there have definitely been cases in light aircraft where the pilot became incapacitated and ATC talked the non-pilot through a safe landing.
Having sat in an airplane seat for two hours while this exact thing happened, I sure hope their response times are faster if the question is "The pilots are dead, how do we land the plane?"
See this video for an example of an SEP pilot landing a King Air:
Can you imagine the criminal prosecution of those kids if they were to do that today? No "three years of juvie max, likely community service". Particularly in Texas.
Note that this isn't meant to allow you to land a plane, and honestly I doubt many people should try their hands at it by just reading this one article either. I think in most cases it would be better just to have the ATC help you in how to set the autopilot to land the plane for you, when that's an option.
In addition, air traffic control is not responsible for flying the aircraft, that remains the pilots' task for the time being.
In 2008, there was even a fatal accident in Zürich, Switzerland where the inadequate training of air traffic controllers with regard to piloting an aircraft contributed to the accident (although it was not the cause of the accident):
'The following factors created conditions for the accident or favoured its occurrence:
[…]
* An inadequate understanding within air traffic control of the significance of faults and emergencies on single-engine light aircraft flown by a single pilot in challenging weather conditions.'
http://www.bfu.admin.ch/common/pdf/2146_e.pdf
Swiss air traffic controllers do 25 hours of flight training in small aircraft, so they have a basic idea of piloting an aircraft. In case of a declared or suspected emergency, they will give full priority to the aircraft in need and will try everything to get the necessary support. However, depending on the type of aircraft, it might not be possible to find a pilot or another expert within the necessary time frame to do a safe talk down – and even with a talk down, a safe outcome would never be guaranteed.
http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/FAAProposesStallRecover...
That's it - you always need to pitch down first, and then add power. The airplane doesn't care where your nose is pointed, and CG really doesn't matter here.
Sorry - if I'm throwing in full-power first and doing whatever I have to do do to get leveled out and stabilized. Adding power in a single-engine will immediately increase airflow over the wings and thus _reduce_ the angle of attack.
Yes - you will have to fight the tendency of the nose to come up, but low to the ground there aren't really too many options.
It's basically a go-around, and the go-around procedure is power-first.
ATCs might be able to recover from a stall while only losing 100 feet, but most private pilots will need much more and an untrained pilot would not even get close.
If you're really on your toes, you'll end up doing both at almost the same time anyway, but pitching down is what'll get you out of a stall, not adding power.
I will say though, if you're close to stalling in a King Air such that putting the nose down will cause imminent danger, you're already in a lot of danger if a stall about to occur.
But if you don't try to force the glider to maintain altitude by pulling on the stick and just let it fall through, maintaining the same angle of attack, you'll quickly fall a few meters and gain enough airspeed to resume level flight. So you've been below the stalling speed, but you haven't actually stalled the airplane. This maneuver makes you lose a minimum of altitude, but obviously you don't want to be forced to do it at very low altitude.
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/mythbusters-da...
Plausible: An instructor could talk you down. However, as other have pointed out, the controllers would just have someone instruct you to turn on the autopilot. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0J1RS8gDinQ/T1bYK4qr7QI/AAAAAAAAAQ...
I would often find myself too high or in a shallow dive or a turn so my instructor would have to mention it to me.
It's not instinctive you'd think you would feel it but you don't. He ended up having to draw a line on the windscreen with a marker where the horizon was. I used the instruments but mainly it was VFR (visual flight rules) only.
My instructor was very hands on one day as we were heading for the runway he said "OK you take control and land." I think on my second lesson onward I took off each time.
Once I was landing trying to beat a small commuter jet (coming from the other direction!) and he said "See that?" Not the jet but I didn't see anything else "That over there, 2 o'clock low." Nope didn't see anything. Then I saw it a big purple hot air balloon a mile or two away very low with evergreen trees behind it so dark it blended in. So there I was my first or second landing with a hot air balloon and a jet both in my way.
The flare is the most important part but flaps and speed too of course but if there is anything to remember it's the flare at the last moment. Stare at the end of the runway aim for it as if you will crash there then at the last moment flare (pull back a bit) and you ride the bubble of air.
I can't see how a flight simulator would have helped at all other than the basics of instruments and the radio, nothing is like the feel of real flight.
Landing incorporating all of that to set up and execute the pattern, as well as keeping the airplane at a certain airspeed(too fast and you'll land too far down the runway, too slow and you'll stall & crash) and staying aligned with the runway to make sure you actually land on it.
FYI, I'm a private pilot with nearly 200 hours.
First, instead of the first derivation of direction like a steering wheel in a car the stick/yoke of a plane actually controls the second derivation of the heading, meaning that pushing it a bit to the right not only causes a turn to the right but it will turn right faster and faster. So you steer by pushing/turn the yoke a bit to the right/left and wait until you reached your desired turning rate. Then you move it back into neutral position and wait until you (almost) completed the curve. Then you do push it to the opposite side until your plane is level again.
Second, there's not only the rotation along the vertical axis (Yaw) to consider: You also have Pitch (nose up/down) and Roll (rotation along longitudinal axis). What you actually did by pushing the stick to side was rolling the plane which in turn causes it to make a turn because the lifting force of the wings doesn't point straight up anymore but a bit to the inner side of the rotation. So you loose a bit of vertical lift which you have to compensate for because gravity is still the same. To generate more lift you either have to change your angle of attack or your speed. The second can be done by giving a bit more throttle but chanigng the angle of attack is trickier: Your plane hangs 'sideways' in the air so you need both the yoke and the pedals to get it right.
Third, because the plane makes a turn the outer wing is a bit faster because it has the longer path (sadly, there aren't any differentials for wings) and because it is faster it generates more lift. Yet another force to account for.
And the forth thing that comes to my mind (which applies more for gliders than for motor planes): To fly efficiently (and for other obvious reasons) you don't want to fly in another direction that your noise points at. Eg. you want the plane's longitudinal-axis be tangential to the turning curve. In a car this would be equivalent to skidding and is rather easy to avoid but air offers a lot less friction. Think of driving around in a hoovercraft...
Now a landing is trivial: as long as the debris is scattered in the direction of the runway it's considered ok.
Wikipedia says: "Ruddervators provide the same control effect as conventional control surfaces, but through a more complex control system that actuates the control surfaces in unison."
Any landing where everyone walks away is A GOOD LANDING.
Any landing where you can also use the plane again is A GREAT LANDING.
Also, I would describe landing a small plane--and I've heard others describe it this way--as a "controlled crash." You are basically stalling the thing on top of the runway.
I wrote this while it was still very fresh in my mind, right after getting my PPL: http://blog.jasonhanley.com/2010/07/learning-to-fly-airplane...
Now, if someone instructs you to ignore what you see and hear a GPWS I'm 100% sure you would be just fine.
The first time I landed a larger airplane I hit the ground so hard it I ended up going to the hospital because of a herniated disc (had it before the event) at that time I had 950 hours of flight.
That actually happens not only in simulators: when you are used to land on wide runways, the next time you go land on a narrow one you would flare too low (and approach too low), specially at night.
If interested, read this:
Mark one datapoint for "would have died".
The reality is that it doesn't really matter. Landing gear-up is almost always survivable - for the people at least :-)
Distracting someone with trying to find and operate the landing gear would probably be as likely to cause problems as it would be to help.
* Of course everything is always at the discretion of the TSA agent, they can prevent you from getting on a plane because they don't like the shirt you are wearing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Recovery_Systems#Pro...
Your Cessna 172 isn't doing Mach 1. It's certainly possible to open the door at any speed a light aircraft can achieve. The door/canopy my get ripped off, but that's kind of irrelevant.
I took some flying lessons a long time ago but decided I'd rather let someone else fly me where I want to go on a much larger plane.
I have been designing, building, flying and crashing model airplanes and helicopters of all types since I was a kid. Slow, fast, gliders, jets, three-foot to ten-foot wingspan. I've even done the in-plane FPV camera thing --where you mount a camera in the plane, radio the video down to the ground and wear goggles that make you feel like you are inside the plane.
Flight simulators have never felt real. Never. Even with zero wind. And, if you do have wind, and, in particular cross-wind, landings can be a handful if you don't know what you are doing. And, yes, these are toys --sometimes $10,000 toys, but toys nevertheless-- yet the laws of physics are pretty much the same (save some scale effects).
I would never consider doing what this guy did. Kudos for having the stupidity to try it. I wouldn't. I've seen too many very nice model airplanes in the hands of experienced flyers get trashed on landing. Anyone can take off with a little instruction. Flying, turning, maintaining altitude, lining-up with the runway at the right place, time and speed and flying it in are entirely different matters.
I also have a relative who flew 747's. He couldn't land a model airplane to save his life. I put him on FPV and he'd grease the thing in. Interesting.
No one could ever take off without some instructions, try to use your left foot to brake your car and see what happens.
I think I screwed up my post. It actually refers to the guy who tried to fly and land the Cessna using his flight sim experience. That was dumb.
As for your article, good attempt but what do you think are the chances that someone will remember all of that without conducting drills once or twice a week? In other words, what you do in flight school.
I have enough trouble having people remember to manage energy and fly --as opposed to "drive"-- a model airplane around. That's why I start everyone with a pure glider (no motor). With such an approach they have no choice but to learn what flying is really about and manage energy at all stages. Flying is a beautiful and complex art.
Once you get into 45° and 60° banks the forces are disorienting and it's far easier to look out the window at the ground and the real horizon.
Training or not, it's far easier to look out the window to make turns. You can see if the horizon is starting to move. If you sit there and watch the compass you can easily enter a stall or a dive without realizing it. Especially since your turns are not going to be coordinated (you won't be using the rudder effectively so the forces on your head will not be what you're used to).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_compass_turns
However if you do, then you have a backup instrument that never fails.
STEP 0: Don't touch anything.
STEP 1: Find the transponder. It looks like one of these: http://www.free-online-private-pilot-ground-school.com/image... or http://www.funkwerk-usa.com/funkwerk/trt800h/trt800h-lg.jpg
STEP 2: Set it to 7700 (emergency) or 7500 (hijacking)
STEP 3: Put on the pilots headset and wait, someone will start talking to you and explain how to respond.
STEP 4: If you don't hear anything for an extended period of time try to figure out why the radio doesn't work. Then start to panic and put into practice crazy things you read on the internet.
AVIATE: Keep the plane straight & Level.
NAVIGATE: Don't hit anything, turn to avoid any mountains etc, otherwise stay straight & level until ATC/Other pilot assistance directs you to the runway.
COMMUNICATE: Broadcasting MAYDAY on any common channel is a good first step. CTAF (Common Traffic Aerial Frequency) used by light VFR aircraft. ATC/Tower is also monitored. Most likely the current channel is good to start with.
DO NOT Squawk 7500 on the transponder unless a hostile action (hijacker etc.) caused the pilot to become disabled. Squawking 7500 results in armed fighter jets scrambled and SWAT teams meeting you on the runway. Squawking 7700 is the emergency code to use in case of a disabled pilot.
Aviate, Navigate, Communicate concept is drilled into every student pilot.
Someone who does not know how a plane works and does not have a conscious PIC shouldn't touch anything without direction from the ground unless a collision is imminent.
I assumed the (hijacking) and (emergency) labels were pretty obvious.
In a heavy aircarft, e.g. passenger airliner? Has this even happened?
I don't know if anything like that has ever happened in a heavy aircraft. However, commercial pilots have pretty big health requirements to make situations like that less likely.