Can we fly the real plane??

[siron]

So I guess its we (simmers) will know some basic and do some good should we be put to a test...or rather when the pilots of the 747 is down...We could do some bits! hahah

[Rocket_Bird]

As a sim pilot for many years as well, Id still wouldnt touch a 747 or most any other airliner.  Flight sim shows you how to fly the plane, but without knowing all the mechanical properties, what all the switches do, knowing just how a plane flies won't help you all the way.

Being in the cockpit and toying with several aircraft, such as the King Air, Cessnas, and then sitting in the pilot seat of a 737-200, i must admit... compared to the smaller aircraft, all those breakers, announciator lights, pressurization controls, oxygen, etc etc.... just looking at that darn cockpit was quite intimidating.  I believe (99.9%) most airline pilots require training on each aircraft they fly.

[TacitBlue]

yes, they do. its called type certification, and I think its provided by the manufacturer. it has to be renewed every so-often (six months I think).

[JBaymore]

[quote]
Everyone would die if it was me, and I have a Commercial licence, multi-rating, instrument rating, and have flown turbines, but nothing bigger than a Twin Otter.

[Jared]

hmmm...

we shall see what happens...

Next semester I'm taking Aircraft systems one with a fairly new professor...

talking to him the other day I found that if everything works out okay we will be going to the local airfield and flying a crj-135... :-)  8)

Supposedly we will be able to do everything but takeoff and landing...this means power up, taxi and all in flight flying... :-)

Now I'm sure that some of these students in the class with me will have a few hours towards a private liscense and perhaps we will have a commercial pilot in the class, but still, the opportunity to do such a thing...

The prof said this semester his group spent over six hours out there "playing" with the aircraft... :-)

I can't wait!  :o

[Scottler]

I agree with most of you, but there's a world of difference between doing it because you happen to have a heavy lying around and doing it in an emergency.

If I just had access to a 767, no, I probably couldn't do anything.  But if we found ourselves in a dangerous situation, maybe we could pull it off somehow.

[jordonj]

Like Kurt Russel in Executive Decision?

[RollerBall]

I'm quite surprised at some of these answers.

At the risk of boring people who already know this, a few years ago I was fortunate to be given the chance to fly the then British Caledonian DC10 full motion simulator at Gatwick. At the time I was a 150ish hours PPL with Single/IMC ratings.

I had no problem taxying, taking off and landing after an initial briefing from the Training Captain on the main controls, speeds and such. I don't know of course how I would have done though if I'd just done it without any briefing at all.

There were three of us and we each had about 20/30 minutes on the simulator. I was the only one of the three with flying experience and the others both crashed it at various times. The special highlight for me was that as I hadn't done, the Trainer set it up for a night landing (graphics then weren't as good as they are now - night was much more convincing than day) on the base leg of the IGS approach at Kai Tak, although I didn't know that then. He told me to 'keep the bars in the centre and just follow the lights' so I did and landed it on Rwy 13.

I would have thought that any competent pilot with my level of experience or better could have done the same.

[birdie]

He told me to 'keep the bars in the centre and just follow the lights' so I did and landed it on Rwy 13.

That is awesome.  But how smooth was your landing?  in the sim an 100ft/min decent when you hit the ground looks smooth even in the class D simulators.  In real life 100ft/min touch down would feel rough and most airliners touch down with a 20-50ft/min touch down and a really smooth landing would be 10 or lessft/min touch down.  That is why most people that have flown on airliners and a smaller plane think the planes that are smaller land more smoothly because you can bring a small plane in slower and at at a less rate of a decent than a big plane even at the last sec.

[dustinbh]

About six months ago I was handed the controls of a 707-320 in flight and actually did pretty good(only owed 2 beers) and since I never even sat behind a cessna's controls before that, I would attribute that to FS.  I also fly on it quite often so after seeing it done alot I could have picked up a few tips from the pilots. who knows?

[krylite]

Interesting question I'm sure all of us simmer-only have thought one time or another. Just my opinion having never flown a real plane. Power up, take off, I would probably ruin the engines or something. Suddenly taking over from a level cruise flight assuming a twilight zone scenario where the pilots just vanished. I would be more optimistic landing a 747 even more a 777 although with just a 50%(clear and calm) chance of surviving. (30% at night, bad conditions, overcast)

From Nexus' picture I could see the main controls are just as depicted in MSFS. The autopilot controls are very familiar as a plus. The readout on the main display is the same. My optimistic theory is that the jetliner shields the pilot from the elements more and more designed to fly in IFR. Basically the more computer control and less actual direct hydraulic feel controls , the better for the simmer. (777). Jetliner readouts and displays being for the most part computer displays and the translation of data into discrete numbers may be more comfortable to a simmer, but that's just my theory.

A simmer's first reaction taking over would recgonize the main controls, but most of all the readings, mainly elevation , airspeed, and vertical rate. Maybe experiment a little , throttle down a tiny bit or so. See if power and speed adjustments affect the display similarly to MSFS to get comfortable.

Then the hard part. Navigation. Where you are and where to go. And if landing, maintaining a safe approach.  Hopefully the simmer has done realistic approaches with real sectional, vfr, ifr charts and using real approach plates in a virtual airline. And of course continual help and guidance from traffic control by radio. (hopefully got in touch by now with an ATC person) I wouldn't want to go for a field. I would plead for a closed runway suitable to land in .

As for the small prop planes, maybe a single engine like the Cessna i'd go for 80% survival with no experience.
2 engine or more based on what i hear from all you fine folks, 20%.They sound real complex. Basically to be lucky and don't make  critical mistakes. Of course I may be all wrong about this. But there's my 2cents on this fun topic.

[GunnerMan]

A 747 I can not say for shure but if ya got it in the air you MAY be able to fly it. Now if it was a cessna and you are sitting here at home with your rudder peddals, yoke, throttle quadrant and you were an avid simmer you could fly a cessna from T/o to landing and have it look like you ever used it. I have about 25 hours in a cessna and belive it or not some of it is easyer than what you experience in FS and some is harder but I think people that fly FS like its thier life could fly a cessna no problm providing the weather is fair, there is no traffic and no ATC. (I just thought of a joke hehe)

[Nav]

Sadly, this suggests that it is only too possible.....

"Authorities have been working for months to build a paper trail of purchases made by the hijackers in the weeks before September 11.

"Sources have said that another of the 19 attackers, Ziad Samir Jarrah, purchased a GPS device at a store in Miami. Investigators say Jarrah was aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania.

"Investigators believe at least three other GPS devices were purchased, one for each hijacked plane.

"In addition, the federal indictment of alleged would-be hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui -- now facing terrorism charges in a federal court in Virginia -- says he purchased flight deck simulator videos for two types of Boeing 747s on June 25, 2000, from Sporty's, an Ohio pilot's store.

"On November 5 and December 11, 2000, Atta also purchased flight deck simulator videos for Boeing 747, 757, 767 and Airbus A3-20 aircraft, authorities said. The videos, which show the cockpits of various airplanes, can be used by pilot students for flight training.

"Nawaf Alhazmi, a hijacker on American Airlines Flight 77, which slammed into the Pentagon, also bought flight deck videos from the Ohio store, including simulators for the 747 and 777, according to the indictment."

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/05/22/hijack.paper.trail/

[B767-300]

Hmmmm....I have a friend who has been playing Flight Sim since 98, and he flew and landed a Cessna 172 after the start-up process was done by someone else...

I hope to do this soon too!

[Bazza]

Like the last post, I too have simmed since 98.   I have a few hours in Cessna's and find takeoff and flying a piece of cake. In the case of an emergency I am sure I could land as well, I mean the speed is so low a surviveable landing shouldn't be a problem.

On my first flight, I found everything followed my simming to an amazing degree  -  my home airport height and direction was perfect to the sim.    The instruments were slightly different but familiar.     My main flying fault was that I was too gentle with the controls (I was flying a 150 Aerobat.)

Anything more complex than that would be sheer idiocy - fortunately the licensing is strict enough to keep all the dreamers out of cockpits.