It's not that obvious. You carry that weight well. 😊

Ha, I think you're thinking of someone else.

I think the plane was the piston version of the King Air. What is that, the Beech Baron?

The Baron is a nice plane, but smaller...only six seats, I think. Piper makes a piston twin that rivals the King Air in size. Early models were named the Navajo and had about eight seats. The later model, known as the Chieftain, has up to 12 seats.

How much do pilots know about the physics behind flight? For instance, do you know the Reynolds number of the plane you're flying? Are you taught the physics behind stalling and why you're still stalling even if you return to the conditions just before the stall?

I doubt that many pilots know what a Reynolds number is (it's certainly never mentioned in any airline training that I know of). I don’t and I’m not even curious enough to Google it. My father might know. He was a naval aviator with a masters degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Cal Tech.

As for the stall, we all learned the basics of what causes a stall and the conditions and actions that will exacerbate or mitigate the stall. In many ways, flying is more of a skill job vs. an academic endeavor. It helps to have some understanding of aerodynamics and aircraft systems just for the correlation aspect of learning.

Was watching the movie Sully and a large part centered on the controversy of whether he could have made it back to the airport rather than landing in the river. Do pilots know in general what they would likely do in even of a bird strike, engine failure on takeoff etc.?

Yes. In fact, we discuss contingency plans for each takeoff, covering what we will do if we lose an engine. However, this discussion doesn't cover the loss of both engines. If that should happen (as it did for Sully and Skiles), we will just have to rely on our experience and feel for the airplane in the current situation.

Excellent video but there were many comments on Facebook that many errors were made in the approach and landing at MIA. W0X0F curious if you agree. At 2:33 check out the FO startled reaction to a warning.

https://www.facebook.com/flyhighdrea...4474203406906/

It's funny how different perspectives give a different reaction. I kept waiting for the big screw up after reading the comments you included with your post.

First of all, the TCAS alert was just that: an alert, what we call a TA (Traffic Advisory). It does not require any evasive action and, in fact, no maneuvering should take place unless the offending traffic is acquired visually and the pilot determines that maneuvering is necessary. This is different from a Resolution Advisory (RA) which does require immediate action, as dictated by the TCAS.

I've been startled by a TA before so that wasn't something I'd criticize the FO for. In most cases, the TA is caused by converging traffic that is climbing or descending rapidly towards your altitude. So if I'm at, say, 10000' and traffic departing the airport had been cleared to 9000', his climb could trigger an alert because TCAS doesn't know that the traffic will stop his climb below me.

An RA will be preceded by a TA ("TRAFFIC! TRAFFIC!") and is an aural command such as "CLIMB! CLIMB!" We are expected to click off the autopilot and comply with an RA without question and advise ATC that we are maneuvering to comply with a TCAS RA. (This fact exonerates us from what would otherwise be an altitude bust.)

Maybe I should watch this a second time, but I just saw them looking for the traffic. I don't think they deviated from their flight path.

The second thing in the video was the minor heading deviation around a small puffy buildup. We do this all the time to avoid the unpleasant bump that will result from going through the cloud. If we need a large deviation (more than ~1/4 mile off the intended path) we'll certainly call the controller to request a turn. But jinking a little right and then coming back left onto the path is done all the time. In the old days of VOR flying (pre-GPS), the airways had protected airspace of four miles either side of centerline. With the prevalence of GPS these days, the navigation is much more precise, but the protected airspace is still about the same. So a minor deviation won't cause any great heartburn with anyone, even if the controller notices.

Now, the thing about flying a visual approach vs. the RNAV approach they were cleared for. I think the Captain was just stating that he was proceeding visually, i.e. they were in VMC. I don't think he deviated from the flight path of the RNAV approach. I think I heard him state at one point that he was low. Minor deviations from flight path are okay, as long as they are recognised and the flying pilot corrects back to the lateral and/or vertical path.

So, on balance, I didn't see anything to get so worked up about. I'm always striving for the "perfect flight" and it's elusive. Minor mistakes are usually caught by checklists or the other crew member. The captain even acknowledged, after the FO complimented his landed, that things got a little chaotic prior to that. We judge ourselves, or at least I know I do, and we don't like to look bad in front of our peers.

In summary you would say that they didn't make major errors that it would be foolish of the pilot to make this video public?

Sorry if this has been asked...Did you ever follow the Amerlia Earhart case? Are you satisfied that the case is closed after a researcher determined she did crash land in a remote South Pacific island and made distress calls?

Great to get your opinion. For those of us that are not pilots it is beneficial to get your explanation vs the options of randoms on Facebook.

I don't think there is anything in the video that would merit a visit to the Chief Pilot's office, but if it were me I don't think I'd be so proud of it that I'd make it part of the public record. I think Swiss Air flight ops managers would prefer it wasn't out there just because of the reactions it elicits among the lay public.

I always thought that Earhart's fate was just what it seemed. She and Fred Noonan missed their intended landing point and ran out of fuel, with the end result being a ditching and lost at sea. I never gave much credence to the theories of capture by the Japanese.

I did some island flying when I lived in Hawaii. Flying from Oahu to Kauai, a distance of some 90 miles, I thought it would be a piece of cake to pick out the island on a bright sunny day. But every cloud's shadow on the water looks like an island from a distance and it would be very easy to be lured into thinking one of those was our destination.

I haven't kept up with this topic and I don't know of this researcher's findings. It could be true, but do you know if he has support of of any reputable groups, or has the U.S. government weighed in on it?

I'm guessing this guy had some flying experience because he was able to get it off the ground and fly around for 90 minutes, but has ATC ever talked an inexperienced person through a landing?



https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle...t-has-crashed/

(That link requires creating an account for Morning Brief. No thanks.)

As for ATC talking someone down, many controllers (I have no idea of the percentage) are not pilots and would have no idea how to help someone fly and land a plane. Even a pilot would find this to be an almost impossible task (imo). Have you ever tried to talk someone through a computer issue over the phone? Talking someone down would have similar issues (you can’t see exactly what they’re looking at; you have communications issues arising from lack of mutually understood terms and specialized nomenclature) with the added time pressure and, of course, much higher stakes. By “time pressure”, I’m thinking of the situation where the guy’s airspeed is getting too slow or too fast. That’s a tough time to be conveying the relationship between pitch, power and airspeed.

https://apnews.com/0f15816f871c4c95b789e1df7c43fd77

I think this link works better. Really incredible in my opinion and this guy must have had some experience, right?

I was surprised to see this in my YouTube feed, on account of how quickly this guy turned the video around.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/...052612431.html

there’s a huge thread on reddit about this, and a guy on twitter went through the entire ATC tape and transcribed the interesting parts...

I know how bad this is.

that said, this guy went out like a mother****ing BOSS. he had an F-15 pilot congratulate him on BARREL-ROLLING A COMMERCIAL PLANE with no flight experience and TWO F-15’S TAILING HIM there’s even a video of it

listen to the ATC tape and watch the video omfg I’ve never been so highly entertained by a suicide.

he didn’t land at the one airfield bc (like it says above), “they’ll rough me up there probably” but also was cracking up the ATC even saying, “NO WAY MAN, they probably got anti-aircraft over there” while laughing.

ATC: okay we gotta have you go left and land now...

Boss: naaah not quite yet, I just barrel-rolled and I wanna just kinda see what else I can do for a bit”

guy posted a video in december link

what i wanna know is how are the fighter jets helping? officials are lauding them for guiding the hijacked plane and making sure it doesnt land into populated areas. how are the fighter jets gonna do that, exactly? feel like if hijacker guy wanted to land in a populated area, the fighter jets arent gonna be able to do much about it beyond firing a missile at it.

listen to the recordings, everyone that talked to him said basically the best possible thing every single time.

that doesn’t mean the f-15’s did anything physically I suppose, but those pilots talked to him and kept him as positive as possible and there was another pilot (of the same type of plane) that broke in and told him how to pressurize the cabin when he was complaining about being light-headed, definitely so that he didn’t pass out and crash wherever.

what he said about the mountains being beautiful “but in a different context”...damn. ☹️

Has it been confirmed that he has no flight experience?

Precisely. There was this thing called 9/11.

i guess im massively underestimating the amount of damage reduction that comes from blowing up the plane versus letting it crash. im a potato.

I just want you to whisper sweet nothings in my ear wow

Man **** being that ATC guy - assuming they have radar in the tower he'd have to see the guy descending and dropping off the radar and killing himself after doing an A+++ job dealing with everything and trying to save him.

The Reddit thread covers it pretty well, but the professionalism by everyone involved is world class

Man lands small Plane, after his friend the pilot has a Heartattack

Here's a less disturbing story of a man with no flight experience attempting to land a plane. It's a smaller aircraft, but still an impressive feat. If you have spare time it's worth watching this short documentary.