FYI: Dec 12 MythBusters: Airplane Hour

They tried, in one previous show, to duplicate the old cartoon shotgun
barrel blow up with the barrel unwinding. They tried to use modern shotguns
which are made from solid tubular steel. Shotguns made before about 1920
were generally made by wrapping steel wire around a mandrel and using the
old blacksmith welding with a hammer and anvil.
Those barrels would have flaws and weak spots.

What they showed with landing the NASA simulator is that any person with
some level experience with a cockpit display can control an airliner. Most
FAA controllers would not have the experience to describe the cockpit and
give useful instruction in how to manually fly with the autopilot or where
the switches are located, or how to use the radio to even start the
"rescue."

Maybe they should have an in-flight movie before each take-off on how to fly
the airplane, do you think TSA would allow that?


"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
...
| On Dec 8, 9:32 pm, Jim Logajan wrote:
| "Jamie and Adam take wing to test if a person with no flight training
can
| safely land an airplane and if a plane can take off from a conveyor belt
| speeding in the opposite direction. Tory, Grant, and Kari jump on some
| Hollywood-inspired skydiving myths."
|
| Quoted from the Discovery channel
schedule:http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-schedule...=1.13056.24704....
|
| (My local paper's weekly TV schedule has just the brief summary "Landing
a
| 747" so I presume the plane they attempt to land without training is a
747.
| Will be interesting to see if they try the real thing and are not
limited
| to a simulator.)
|
| I have no doubt that our buddy from France firmly believes he can land
| a 747 if necessary. In fact he's done it hundreds of times.
|
| -Robert

"Jim Macklin" wrote in message
...
They tried, in one previous show, to duplicate the old cartoon shotgun
barrel blow up with the barrel unwinding. They tried to use modern
shotguns
which are made from solid tubular steel. Shotguns made before about 1920
were generally made by wrapping steel wire around a mandrel and using the
old blacksmith welding with a hammer and anvil.
Those barrels would have flaws and weak spots.

More like 1880 than 1920.

"Damascus" barrels were not really produced after the 1880's or so, long
before the introduction of smokeless powder around 1900. Smokeless powder
would easily destroy such a barrel.

Matt W. Barrow wrote:
"Jim Macklin" wrote in message
...
They tried, in one previous show, to duplicate the old cartoon shotgun
barrel blow up with the barrel unwinding. They tried to use modern
shotguns
which are made from solid tubular steel. Shotguns made before about 1920
were generally made by wrapping steel wire around a mandrel and using the
old blacksmith welding with a hammer and anvil.
Those barrels would have flaws and weak spots.

More like 1880 than 1920.

"Damascus" barrels were not really produced after the 1880's or so, long
before the introduction of smokeless powder around 1900. Smokeless powder
would easily destroy such a barrel.

Actually it's not the barrels but the chamber that couldn't take the
higher pressure. I know one gunsmith that has somewhat permanently (red
loctite) installed 20 and 28 gage adapters in 12 gage Damascus steel
barrels. The adapter takes the load from firing the cartridge and the
rest of the barrels are strong enough for the rest. This makes for a
heavy low powered shotgun but it also makes a wall-hanger into a useful
piece.

Tony

"Anthony W" wrote in message
news:AGd8j.22555$Bg7.20727@trndny07...
Matt W. Barrow wrote:
"Jim Macklin" wrote in message
...
They tried, in one previous show, to duplicate the old cartoon shotgun
barrel blow up with the barrel unwinding. They tried to use modern
shotguns
which are made from solid tubular steel. Shotguns made before about
1920
were generally made by wrapping steel wire around a mandrel and using
the
old blacksmith welding with a hammer and anvil.
Those barrels would have flaws and weak spots.

More like 1880 than 1920.

"Damascus" barrels were not really produced after the 1880's or so, long
before the introduction of smokeless powder around 1900. Smokeless powder
would easily destroy such a barrel.

Actually it's not the barrels but the chamber that couldn't take the
higher pressure. I know one gunsmith that has somewhat permanently (red
loctite) installed 20 and 28 gage adapters in 12 gage Damascus steel
barrels. The adapter takes the load from firing the cartridge and the
rest of the barrels are strong enough for the rest. This makes for a
heavy low powered shotgun but it also makes a wall-hanger into a useful
piece.

After the load leaves the chamber, the barrel does...what (with the internal
pressure)?

On Dec 13, 12:06 am, "Jim Macklin"
wrote:

What they showed with landing the NASA simulator is that any person with
some level experience with a cockpit display can control an airliner. Most
FAA controllers would not have the experience to describe the cockpit and
give useful instruction in how to manually fly with the autopilot or where
the switches are located, or how to use the radio to even start the
"rescue."

Maybe they should have an in-flight movie before each take-off on how to fly
the airplane, do you think TSA would allow that?

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.
FB

F. Baum wrote:
On Dec 13, 12:06 am, "Jim Macklin"
wrote:
What they showed with landing the NASA simulator is that any person with
some level experience with a cockpit display can control an airliner. Most
FAA controllers would not have the experience to describe the cockpit and
give useful instruction in how to manually fly with the autopilot or where
the switches are located, or how to use the radio to even start the
"rescue."

Maybe they should have an in-flight movie before each take-off on how to fly
the airplane, do you think TSA would allow that?

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.
FB
The big rub in the equation are of course the variables. They are HUGE
in this equation and any one of them could take out the airplane.
Just off the top of my head, one has to factor in the EXACT aircraft in
the scenario, as each airline has the option to customize their cockpits
to whatever the chief pilot wanted installed at the time of the contract
signing with the manufacturer. This aspect alone might well require a
company pilot completely familiar with the cockpit of THAT specific
airplane, as even in type, changes are made to the cockpit
configurations during a manufacturing run as requested by the front
office, so that you might have one airplane with a switch or lever
"here" and another with it "there".
Then you have the issue of getting this company guy familiar with THIS
cockpit on the radio and in touch with the guy trying to land the airplane.
THEN you need a guy in the cockpit who can not only follow directions
NOW, but follow them CORRECTLY and in real time.
Notice we're talking here about a manually controlled landing. If the
aircraft AND the landing facility are BOTH equipped accordingly,
autoland might be a possibility and negate the manual landing.

All things considered, my vote goes to doing it in the simulator with
the help of the sim instructor but a high risk factor for losing a real
aircraft in the manual mode.
Could be done of course, but I wouldn't want to be a passenger on that
one for sure :-)

--
Dudley Henriques

F. Baum wrote:
On Dec 13, 12:06 am, "Jim Macklin"
wrote:

What they showed with landing the NASA simulator is that any person with
some level experience with a cockpit display can control an airliner. Most
FAA controllers would not have the experience to describe the cockpit and
give useful instruction in how to manually fly with the autopilot or where
the switches are located, or how to use the radio to even start the
"rescue."

Maybe they should have an in-flight movie before each take-off on how to fly
the airplane, do you think TSA would allow that?


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.
FB

I had the opportunity to "fly" a American Airlines F-100 in their full
motion simulator with an instructor. He was able to talk me through a
landing at O'Hare Airport without crashing the airplane. However,
without someone familiar with the aircraft the intimidation of the
lights, buttons, dials, radios, switches, etc would overwhelm anyone.

--

Regards, Ross
C-172F 180HP
KSWI

Ross wrote:

F. Baum wrote:

On Dec 13, 12:06 am, "Jim Macklin"
wrote:

What they showed with landing the NASA simulator is that any person with
some level experience with a cockpit display can control an
airliner. Most
FAA controllers would not have the experience to describe the cockpit
and
give useful instruction in how to manually fly with the autopilot or
where
the switches are located, or how to use the radio to even start the
"rescue."

Maybe they should have an in-flight movie before each take-off on how
to fly
the airplane, do you think TSA would allow that?


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.
FB


I had the opportunity to "fly" a American Airlines F-100 in their full
motion simulator with an instructor. He was able to talk me through a
landing at O'Hare Airport without crashing the airplane. However,
without someone familiar with the aircraft the intimidation of the
lights, buttons, dials, radios, switches, etc would overwhelm anyone.


Oh, BTW, at the time I probably had about 800 hours and I have a
CPSEL/IA. However I fly for self entertainment

--

Regards, Ross
C-172F 180HP
KSWI

Ross wrote in
:

F. Baum wrote:
On Dec 13, 12:06 am, "Jim Macklin"
wrote:

What they showed with landing the NASA simulator is that any person
with some level experience with a cockpit display can control an
airliner. Most FAA controllers would not have the experience to
describe the cockpit and give useful instruction in how to manually
fly with the autopilot or where the switches are located, or how to
use the radio to even start the "rescue."

Maybe they should have an in-flight movie before each take-off on how
to fly the airplane, do you think TSA would allow that?


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.
FB

I had the opportunity to "fly" a American Airlines F-100 in their full
motion simulator with an instructor. He was able to talk me through a
landing at O'Hare Airport without crashing the airplane. However,
without someone familiar with the aircraft the intimidation of the
lights, buttons, dials, radios, switches, etc would overwhelm anyone.


And that's only a little fartbox of a jet!


Bertie

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, but in any case,
it has been done successfully in small planes. No circumstances have ever
required it in airliners, but it's certainly doable.