Related question (apologize in advance if this was already asked): If the passengers of 9/11 United Flight 93 had successfully overtaken the terrorists and controlled the cockpit before it was put into a dive, how likely was it that they could have landed safely with help from ground communication, assuming none of them had any piloting experience?

Oh, regarding flight 93, the chatter on the radio was that the plane was shot down, not that passengers overtook the terrorists.

I don't really know what to think about it. I'm not a conspiracy theorist and generally am pretty skeptical of that stuff, however the guy who told us that is probably the last person who's honesty I'd ever question.

/conspiracy

The ground school instructor for the class I took was a kinda kooky old timer and told stories of guys flying small Skyhawks and Pipers to Hawaii from the mainland US from Mendocino County CA. As part of our class exercises we did the flight plan, weight and balance, etc. for such a flight. It is indeed possible for a small person carrying nothing but extra fuel, a fillable fuel bladder in the cabin connected to the tank (apparently with a pump in the skyhawk, gravity should work in the piper), and a .357 in case suicide was desirable.

I don't know if the stories he told were true, but as an academic exercise it is possible. As for the hypothetical, VOR works so locating Hawaii shouldn't be that hard.

It's crackpot nonsense.

What is the definition for each tone sequence you hear while on a commercial flight?

It's worth googling about it (the same way it's worth watching Loose Change or whatever that was called). I'm not coming on here to say something like "LOOK, BUSH CLINTON NIXON ALL IN CROSSBONE CLAN." I'm presenting some knowledge I have on it (that I consider nearly equal to actually hearing it for myself) that correlates to eye witnesses (although if someone linked me to the pages where those interviews with eye witnesses are documented, I'd lol and put them on ignore).

When landing in a snowy blizzard like condition, how hard is it to land. When flying home and landing in detroit, it was a snowy night, and we landed so hard ive never seen anything like it. Everyone on the plane screamed like we just hit a wall. Was this due to bad weather, or bad pilot or both.

If you ever get into KLEB I'll get you high.

Great thread, thanks so much.

What's the weirdest announcement ("PA" right?) you've had to make in your career as a pilot? Ever had some fun with passengers by saying something like "because today is our Flight-Officers birthday, we'll be making 20 loopings" or something like that?

Do you know how hard it is to find a specific plane when it's transponder is turned off?

Hint: the sky is really big.

Radar?

Hint: there were no other planes in the air due to immediate flight restrictions.
Hint #2: ~100 mile radius to White House.
Hint #3: they knew which plane was also hijacked and where it was coming from.

By the way, the last thing I'm trying to do is hijack the thread (lol!). I can't stand trite comments, though.

What are the odds of ME sucessfully landing a modern commercial airliner after the whole crew and all passengers with GA/commercial licenses became sick after eating the shellfish....

before you answer, i'm probalby your worst nightmare, a know it all model aviation hobbyist, building and flying R/C airplanes and helicopters...

I have fairly detailed knowledge (probabably MORE than than the WORST commercial pilots) about airfoils, lift, drag, stall speed, aoa, crosswinds, bank angle, horizon, etc etc etc....

so lets say this is in a fresh 757 with lots of glass and buttons.

so if I could make contact with atc, and have a pilot give me stall speed of the aircraft, tell me where to look for each thing i needed to do (throttle, spoiler, flaps, gear, nav, etc etc etc)....and lets say i had at least 2 extra hours of fuel.....could I do it?

Of course I say yes.....auto-pilot is gonna get me to the airport anyway, or i will be diverted to a field with LLoooonnnngg runway and clear approach (not laguardia or Reagan national, lol), then i'm gonna get a feel for the bird, with 3 or 4 banking runs in a nice big pattern...then i'm gonna set appropriate flaps, maybe a little less and come in hot or maybe more and throttle up a little higher than normal... I'm gonna do a looooonnnnggg approach and likely do the last 2-5 miles at 150-200 AGL assuming clear approach, then i'm gonna throttle down, watch my stall speed and float her in...flare wont be too dramatic, probably come in fairly level and hot...once A wheel touchesdown i will kill the throttle and initiate reverse thrust and brakes.

Hero?

What about in an older 737? too hard?

I honestly think someone with all of the technical knowledge, but NO GA experience would do better than someone with a GA license because they will try to fly by sight, whereas I would just assume i was dead and rely on ILS to get me in.

Ok, I don't want to hijack either, but...

Speaking of hijacking, has anyone ever stolen a plane from the ground? Like a disgruntled ex-pilot or something?

Hey, I've got a great idea. Let's not politard this thread up.

This. Please stay on track.

if you are in boston i want in on buying you beers.

thanks for answering my question earlier.

moderately interesting story

Still a great thread but this is an area where my expertise may need to be used. "Best forward speed" is a request I make rather frequently, and it obviously depends on airspace factors but it's very frequently granted. I've also frequently had controllers ask for the same out of me for spacing.

That's not even getting into "overhead maneuvers" that fighters like to use (the reasons are plenty). There's usually alt/airspeed parameters published in different supplements, but when taking a jet on the road I'll usually just check into a tower with "say alt/airspeed for the overhead." If you're in an airport that's not busy or they have a jet-happy operator, you will hopefully get "airspeed and altitude at your discretion." that's when it's time to put the lighter to your hair and plug in the burner.

Ask your military brethren, it's all very common. Around here where I fly it's all military mostly, and even though we're not in a MOA I won't get questioned for anything under 400 kts.

A while ago I broke at 200' doing 0.99 Mach over Grand Canyon's airport. That was cleared through an approach freq and by the tower. The FBO girls were very friendly that day.

Hey just read this whole thing and am amazed Had a few questions if you don't mind...

How exactly are takeoffs and landings scheduled with ATC? Do they have a schedule that you have to sign up for/ be on in advance? Especially as a smaller plane that is leaving between bigger flights can you just radio yourself into the queue?

What's the most serious things that can go wrong with a plane midair and still have it able to fly? About what would go wrong to be the breaking point where you are like, "Oh ****, we're screwed." I'm assuming landing in the nearest airport ASAP would be your next step but what if that was not possible for example you are over the Atlantic or your plane's landing gear wouldn't pop out?

About how much can a tank of gas hold and what is a typical MPG for say a small plane and also a big commercial? About how much do you fill up with in relation to what is needed for the flight?

As you might expect, there are several ways to do this and it varies with the situation. All modern airline planes are capable of LNAV (lateral navigation, the one that keeps it on course) and VNAV (vertical navigation, which plans fuel optimized descents).

If using VNAV, the flight director will command a path for the optimum descent and will adjust autothrottles as necessary to maintain the VNAV speed which is normally derived from a Performance Setting determined by our dispatchers, but we can override that speed if we want to. The descent path has priority, so it may exceed the predetermined speed if the throttles are at idle and it has to increase the descent rate.

If we're not using VNAV, we can set a descent rate on the Mode Control Panel and the autothrottles will try to maintain selected speed, but the descent rate has priority if we've selected it. Or we can descend in Speed mode, in which case the descent rate will be a function of where we set the power.

All of this sounds confusing I know. It's one of those things easier to visualize if you can actually see it in practice. One of the big determining factors in what mode we select is whether or not we have an altitude restriction, i.e. the clearance "Descend and maintain Flight Level One Eight Zero" has no urgency implied, so we will normally just set the new altitude and descend with a comfortable descent rate (perhaps 1000' per minute). Sometimes we get a clearance like "Descend and maintain Flight Level One Eight Zero, be level within 4 minutes" or "Descend to cross 40 miles east of Providence at Flight Level One Eight Zero." Both of these have a restriction and we will hustle down if necessary, letting the airspeed go right up to the barber pole (Vmo) if we haven't also been speed restricted.

We usually stay fast as long as they'll let us. At FL180 we'll be out of the mach regime and be going by IAS...probably about 310 kts or so.

Again, this depends on what restrictions we are given by the controller. If there were no additional restrictions, we could just set 8000 in the FMC (Flight Management Computer) and on the MCP (mode control panel) and let VNAV do its thing. It will automatically adjust descent to achieve 250 kts by 10,000 before continuing down.

If flying without VNAV, we can come screaming down at 310 kts and then dial in 250 kts at around 13,000 and the plane will be close to 250 by 10,000. If we see it's not going to be completely slowed, we can step in and adjust the descent rate to, say, 500' per minute down and it will slow quickly at idle power. Failing all that, we can hit Altitude Hold at 10,000 and it will level off and then slow quickly and then we can continue down.

Lots of ways to achieve the goal. The easiest is just to let VNAV do its job.

Since you're not in VNAV, try adjusting the speed as you pass about 13,000 and see how that works, or try adjusting Vert Speed to 500' per minute and you pass around 11,000.

Using the hands is a classic rookie tendency and a transference from your driving experience. You'll get used to steering with your feet. If the winds are light, try taking your hands completely off the wheel when at taxi speed.

Thanks.

Any idiot can drive a car, but you have to be a least a moron to fly a plane.

Learning to fly is harder, but any reasonably intelligent, coordinated person can learn. One of the biggest obstacles to learning can be anxiety and fear, because it's something so different (and, of course, the ever present imagined specter of a fiery death is not conducive to learning). For some people, the thrill of flight eliminates all these concerns.

Surprisingly we do, but it's almost always due to having really good Flight Attendants. I've often stood at the door saying goodbye to passengers ("Buh-bye now") and heard several passengers say what a great flight it was. I'm with you though: it's a rare flight for me as a passenger which is more than something to be endured.

Well, it's not on radar because no ground based radars have that range. We do make position reports every 10 degrees of longitude, and that report includes the estimate for the next reporting point, so Oceanic Control always has a good idea of our progress and this is relayed to Delta. But yeah, it's kind of a black hole out there.

Well, what's the point of mentioning it to the passengers? I think they're aware that it's bumpy. The stability of the air mass you're in is kind of a hit-or-miss thing. We'll have flights as smooth as glass and then have others, like you had, that have low level bumps most of the way. And, yes, it is normally more noticeable in the tail just due to being out on the end of the moment arm (farther from the airplane's Center of Gravity).

Well, it was up until today's sessions. My set of kings got cracked by a guy who hit runner-runner flush and that cost me most of what I had worked so hard for. I'll give karma another chance as soon as I finish answering a few more of these. (I'm sitting in the Starbucks at Luxor right now).

I'm a much better pilot than I am a poker player. I just need to come to terms with that.

Here's an offer: flying lessons for poker lessons. Anyone out there who teaches, let me know.

Do you have a hotel rewards program card? I talk to a lot of people in the airline industry (I work hotel reservations for a few NY airport properties).

If you are a "platinum" member or the equivilent at another company do you cash in on the perks?

OP, on the flight experience quality aspect:

In my experience, limited admittedly, having flown on the Korean airlines (KoreanAir, Asiana) the flights there are so much better staffed outside of the pilots. I feel like paying more for those extras, good service from the FAs being the main one, to be entirely worth it. Do you ever see this model working in the US? It seems, like you mentioned, that certain airlines, I'm thinking American here, are more and more dominated by regional carriers and just aren't funded for this kind of positive flying experience for the passenger.

I imagine that my overseas flights in Korea (domestic and international) we much like flying used to be 30 years ago, and as someone in his mid 20s I wouldn't mind seeing a carrier jump back to that business model to provide a little more luxury for its average coach passenger at a slightly increased cost. Southwest already does the cheapo way correctly. Why can't someone offer more?

Can it work here?