FYI: Dec 12 MythBusters: Airplane Hour

On Dec 14, 2:27 pm, Jose wrote:

Why? It will never take off.

Must resist biting troll hook....

Mxsmanic wrote:
Mark Hickey writes:

It's important to remember that the would-be pilot/savior would have
tremendous motivation to get it right the first time.

Yes. That could help or hurt, depending on the personality of the
individual.

When thinking
through that scenario, I always pictured having three or four people
in the cockpit - each with a limited job that they'd be walked
through by an expert on the radio... maybe each with a cell phone
connecting them to individual team members on the ground. Then it's
just up to those experts on the ground to talk each of them through
about 1/4 of the process of getting the plane on the ground in one
piece (as opposed to making a flawless landing on the numbers).

That seems unnecessarily complicated. Especially with automation, as
long as the person in the left seat can push a button, turn a dial,
and move a lever, he can land the plane--provided also that he can
follow simple instructions on the radio.

hehehe, he said "get it right the first time":
http://www.micom.net/oops/Airbus320_trees.mp4

Darrel Toepfer writes:

hehehe, he said "get it right the first time":

It's not hard to get it right the first time. While most people can't fly
airplanes by hand without making mistakes, everyone has pushed buttons, turned
dials, and moved levers countless times in his life, and if he can also
understand and follow instructions, he can land a 747, which requires no more
than the manipulations just mentioned when the automation is used.

The incorrect assumption made by most people is that the non-pilot would be
trying to fly the aircraft by hand. That happens in Hollywood movies, but not
in reality. There would be absolutely no reason to fly the aircraft by hand,
and it would be dangerous without a qualified pilot in charge (and qualified
means on the aircraft in question, not just someone with a PPL).

Darrel Toepfer writes:

Mxsmanic wrote:

No circumstances have ever required it in airliners, but it's
certainly doable.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0080339
http://imdb.com/title/tt0083530
http://imdb.com/title/tt0065377
http://imdb.com/title/tt0071110
http://imdb.com/title/tt0367085

These are works of fiction. Note also that they don't generally involve
non-pilots flying the aircraft.

"ManhattanMan" wrote in
:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

Yeah, john wayne, robert stack and randolph scott on speed dial just
in case they all have the fish.



You forgot Moses, errrr, Charlton Heston.............. ****, anyone
that can be air dropped into a 747 can't be all bad!




Great actor.
I never liked the way he did airline pilots. Not enough "oh ****"s.


Bertie

wrote in
:

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 01:09:24 +0000 (UTC), Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:

snip

Reminds me of my first time in a full flight simulator, 12 years
ago.

During the course of my pilot training, the school organized an
visit
to a flight simulator manufacturer.

Each student got a chance to shoot an approach in a CRJ FFS. At
that
point of our training, we all had over 100 hours, all had our
private
pilot license and where on our way to our commercial.

The guy trying it out just before me was doing the bush-pilot
specialization, and had time in light singles, and in a Cessna 185,
on
wheel and on float. He overcontroled the aircraft so much on short
final, he basically rolled it and crashed on the runway.

Me (with multi-engine experience), I managed to put the aircraft
down
correctly, only to roll pass the end of the runway thanks to not
applying enough brake pressure and/or engaging the thrust reverser
too
late.

Goes to show that it's not as easy as it might seem.


Yeah, you don't have to be superman, but Anthony's suggestions are
just
ludicrous.

Bertie

Don't know what he suggested, because I don't read any of his stuff.

My first experience in a sim was allegedly in '87. Lear 24 series. Am
not a pro pilot, can't tell you what "generation" it was. I do
remember that in the same FSafety (across the street from Lear in
Wichita) they had just installed their first sim that needed literally
a hole in the ceiling to clear the movement of the "cabin".

This one was not that complex.

I took off in VFR/night conditions went "around the patch" at about
3.000 feet, and landed after about a 5 mile final.

At that time, my flying experience was what I had learned flying along
right seat in whatever piston-pounder was hauling auto parts wherever
in the wee hours.

Allegedly did the same thing in a BAe 800A sim ("later" generation,
lots more movement, still night only) about 7 years ago in Wilmington.

On that take-off, however, was in the sh** at around 800 feet AGL
'cause the instructor hadn't cleaned things up before I took off. I
levelled off at 3000 feet 90 degrees left of the runway heading until
he magically turned the weather back into VFR.

Circled back and landed. Scariest part of that "flight" was when the
instructor turned the motion off on the sim while I was turning
base-to-final, instant nausea. At that time I allegedly had a PPSEL
and about 125 hours in my logbook, and a lot more time goofing around
in the right (and left) seat of whatever piston-pounder was hauling
auto parts wherever in the wee hours.

Can't claim to have much knowledge of the systems/cockpit layout/etc.,
'cause in both cases had just finished up a maintenance initial on a
new-to-me type, and "flew" after spending time doing sim ground runs,
etc. etc.

Fukk Anthony, but don't assume because someone doesn't earn his living
as a pilot, he can't "fly" or that playing even in a jen-yoo-wine sim
necessarily means jakk****e...

I don;t assume either. It can be done. I know because I have had private
pilots in the sim and got them down. In fact, the best sim student I had
(real airliner sim, not MSFS) was a 16 year old RC pilot who had never
been in an airplane at the time (he;s a world class competition glider
pilot now, though)
What anthony is suggesting is that he could land an airliner using the
automatics because he has been palying with flight sim.
I know he couldn't.

For one thing, he'd try to tell Robert Stack on the other end of the
radio how it should be done.
He'd have to take his finger off the Xmitter long enough to get the
instructions and that is obviously impossible


Bertie

Jim Logajan wrote in
:

"muff528" wrote:
"Dudley Henriques" wrote:
My first time was in the back of a Nash.

What's a "Nash" ? ........ ;^)

,The younger generation

A Nash, as in Nash Rambler!? This video will enlighten you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4W7oZBhAJg

:-)


AMC had dropped the Nash brand by the time that one was built. Rambler was
the oldest name in that group and they eventually narrowed it down to that
one badge before dropping it in favor of AMC in the late sixties.

The whole history of Nash is here..
http://www.histomobile.com/histomob/...16/histo02.htm

Bertie

Dudley Henriques wrote in
:

Jim Logajan wrote:
"muff528" wrote:
"Dudley Henriques" wrote:
My first time was in the back of a Nash.
What's a "Nash" ? ........ ;^)

,The younger generation

A Nash, as in Nash Rambler!? This video will enlighten you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4W7oZBhAJg

:-)

It was a little convertible with solid rails forming the top sides of
the car where the top slid up over them instead of the way a usual
convertible functioned. It was a strange little car to say the least.



Not a Metropolitan?
Sex in a Metropolitan could not have been a good experience unless you are
a dwarf or a contortionist!
My uncle ha one of those. It was a British car made by austin, though
styled by Nash loosely based on the exotic Healy Nash's from a few years
earlier. They're tiny!


Bertie

Dudley Henriques wrote in
:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Dudley Henriques wrote in
:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Dudley Henriques wrote in
:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Looked it up. The Stanleys set a record in 1906 of 127 mph.
Interestingly, in the very early days, land speed records were
dominated by electric cars, the fastest of which was 65.79 mph in
1899..



Bertie



Can you imagine what it must have felt like for those early guys
at 127 indicated on that frame and chassis? Those guys had guts!!

They don't call it the heroic age for nothing. I have driven a 1911
car at about 70 and that was actually not too bad at all. Braking
was not what you could call the best . I once drove this car dwon
the side of a mountain with the wrong gear selected at the top and
didn't dare try to change once i had ealised I was going too fast.
It had a transmission brake as well as the tiny rear wheel brakes,
but they were all on fire and almost completely useless by the time
I reached the bottom. The cars handled better than you might
imagine, though. There were no shocks on them, but the leaf springs
were very long and very supple and that damped out the ride better
than you might imagine. The steering was fairly good on many of
them as well. Tires were skinny, but they were usually about 45 psi
or moe on the larger cars so didn;t deform much on corners, so that
was usually OK. the brakes, though...

the other big concern was that if you had artillery wheels (wood)
they could collapse under side loads. IIRC this was th ecause of
the very first auto fatality.

Bertie

Sounds exciting. Best I've ever done on land was a souped up 500
Kawasaki racing cycle. I got it through the gears balanced on the
rear suspension then took it out to well over 100 and developed a
"vibration" in the front forks. I'll tell you the truth, it was as
scary as I've ever been in or on a machine :-) How those guys ride
those things at Daytona, fall off and survive is beyond me. You see
it happen and watch them get up and back on a bike. More nerve than
sense I guess. I really shouldn't talk. Putting a fighter on her
back at 100 feet didn't scare me a bit.....but I wouldn't want to do
it TODAY
:-)))

Yeah, it's all what you're comfortble with. I've been over 100 on a
bike and it felt fine, but the terrifying aspect is other road users.
All it takes is some asshole in an SUV to be at the wrong place at
the wrong time!
I can;t even imagine doing aerobatics below 500 feet nowadays.. In
fact, i doubt I'd do them below 1500 when I get going again. (the
airplane is moving along anyway.. )


Bertie
That's good. Stay up there out of the marbles. It's a lot better on
your health for sure. If I had it to do over again I'd take it up
higher myself as the average air show fan wouldn't know the difference
anyway.


Well, I won't be doing any shows anyway!


Bertie

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

F. Baum writes:

Jim, I caught just the parts of the show where J and A tried to land
the plane with some coaching from the sim instructor (Mainly to see
how the instructor would do this). These portions of the show were
amazingly brief (Possibly for security reasons ?) . The stuff they
did show was scary and I doubt they could have gotten awhay with some
of it in a real plane. I do watch the show for its "Infotaiment"
value but I remain unconvinced that someone could actually be talked
down in an airliner. I think it has been tried a time or two in GA
after the pilot became incapacitated.

A small GA airplane is completely different from an airliner,

Wrong again, asshole.


Bertie