GA guys: Could you land an Airliner?

Greg Bockelman said:
Who said that? If you drag a nacelle, you drag a nacelle. Don't necessarily go cartwheeling down the runway.
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Heh. Well true. Mass wins. I just figured it was bad form to leave engine parts all over the place. Scares the folks in back, and we are going for über-cool points aren't we? Haha.

Drag the nacelle if ya feel like it. The point was, most of us single PPLs don't think about huge vacuum cleaners hanging down off the wings.

The 74 being particularly ungraceful in this regard, since it's a four-banger. :)

I kinda left out one other thing... If you're just a dumb single PPL, don't try to get fancy advancing an outboard engine on one side and pulling it back on the other either.

You'll just screw it up. Haha. BTDT. Save the wrist twist for someone who's done it a million times. ;)

Main point still stands. It's an airplane and it flies like one. Speeds are faster but the size difference will fool your eyeballs into thinking you're not going that fast right until the flare and you see crap whizzing by.

At that point you're committed anyway, so just land it.

As far as Ed's comment goes, I definitely never said to not make sure the AP was doing its job and the aircraft was configured. I said don't punch it off as your FIRST act as PIC in a Transport Category aircraft.

It's probably doing a better job flying the airplane than you will. Get strapped in and get some assistance on the horn and they'll help ya check the important stuff in the correct order... No need to screw with it at all, at FIRST...

A lot of folk's first impression of what to do is to punch the AP off... If the thing is flying fine, let it fly. As someone else pointed out, if the silly thing can do a Cat III autoland, your job will be to punch crap into the FMS and set the autobrakes and wait. :)

Otherwise, you'll be hand flying it soon enough. Don't get antsy and think you need to DO something...
 
I once saw a guy with no multi-engine experience at all try to land an airliner. Pulled it off, but man what a disaster. Crapped out one engine along the way, collapsed the gear after landing and slide to a stop. Guy was a menace to everything in the air. Yes, birds, too.
 
I think many pilots could physically land an airliner as long as someone is there to set up the avionics and coach them from the other seat. The real challenge would be having to descend from cruise and end up lined up with the runway at anything approaching the correct speed and configuration. Next time someone offers you a simulator ride have them set you up in cruise without any discussion of how the avionics work, then have them turn their back to you and see if they can talk you down.
 
Everskyward said:
I think many pilots could physically land an airliner as long as someone is there to set up the avionics and coach them from the other seat. The real challenge would be having to descend from cruise and end up lined up with the runway at anything approaching the correct speed and configuration. Next time someone offers you a simulator ride have them set you up in cruise without any discussion of how the avionics work, then have them turn their back to you and see if they can talk you down.
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I suspect there's only a subset of pilots who have the skillset to teach remotely in real time over an audio only link. Asking "any" pilot to do it in a sim, especially one with zero training experience, would often be an unmitigated disaster.

Flying an airplane through someone else's hands you can't see and having to know exactly where to tell them to put them, while essentially blindfolded and talking to them over a half-duplex link... Isn't a normal pilot skill.

Your scenario tests the skilled pilot as much or more as it does the money switch thrower pilot who doesn't know the aircraft.
 
denverpilot said:
I suspect there's only a subset of pilots who have the skillset to teach remotely in real time over an audio only link. Asking "any" pilot to do it in a sim, especially one with zero training experience, would often be an unmitigated disaster.
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Presumably the person operating the sim is a trained sim instructor. They don't just let any pilot come in and turn on their megamillion dollar machines.
 
wabower said:
What did the FO say to the FA when the Captain slumped over and died during a trip?
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My seniority number moved up, want a drink to celebrate?"

But on the question, sure why not unless you are NORDO.:rolleyes:

On a tangent, could a GA pilot make a carrier landing? My F-14 SIM attempts resulted in one bolter, two ramp strikes, one into the island and one OK-3. :D

Cheers
 
Everskyward said:
Presumably the person operating the sim is a trained sim instructor. They don't just let any pilot come in and turn on their megamillion dollar machines.
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Heh. Not nearly as much these days.

I thought you were a night owl. All the fun stuff in sim labs happens well after midnight.

Of course, that's changed too. There's not much down time in sim schedules anymore. The airplanes fly at night and so do the sims.

I've been in 73, 75/76, and 747-400 sims. Two of those were around 1-2AM and the other was in broad daylight but during a holiday.

One escort was a systems trainer (NOT a sim trainer/line pilot/check airman) the others were as you say, by sim trainers.

On two of those occasions, the schedule just happened to be open because the silly things broke, went down for maintenance, and when they were put back online, there was a hole between the mechanics/techs saying they were back online, and time to fly crews in and get back to work. Major breakdowns. So that's my old advice to people who wanted to get in them... Befriend someone who works there who also wants to get in them to keep their own skills up, and they'll hunt the "break/fix" schedule holes... Be ready to stay up all night on a moment's notice.

The latter one, the daytime one, new procedures included running SSNs and all sorts of stupidity for security purposes. Showed that the old school way of getting in, is probably gone forever at the big labs.
 
denverpilot said:
I thought you were a night owl. All the fun stuff in sim labs happens well after midnight.
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Uh, no. I'm not voluntarily up after midnight. I really don't like sim session that go until after midnight.

denverpilot said:
Of course, that's changed too. There's not much down time in sim schedules anymore. The airplanes fly at night and so do the sims.

I've been in 73, 75/76, and 747-400 sims. Two of those were around 1-2AM and the other was in broad daylight but during a holiday.
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Was that after 9/11? Not that you can't get in the sims but there are also security procedures.

denverpilot said:
The latter one, the daytime one, new procedures included running SSNs and all sorts of stupidity for security purposes. Showed that the old school way of getting in, is probably gone forever at the big labs.
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True, unfortunately.
 
denverpilot said:
I suspect there's only a subset of pilots who have the skillset to teach remotely in real time over an audio only link. Asking "any" pilot to do it in a sim, especially one with zero training experience, would often be an unmitigated disaster.

Flying an airplane through someone else's hands you can't see and having to know exactly where to tell them to put them, while essentially blindfolded and talking to them over a half-duplex link... Isn't a normal pilot skill.

Your scenario tests the skilled pilot as much or more as it does the money switch thrower pilot who doesn't know the aircraft.
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If I were in the "tower" talking them down they would never touch the throttles or yoke. We would spend time programming the FMC for an autolanding and talking them through the process to get the airplane down and configured for the approach.


(and hope the plane has autoland capability.. :hairraise:)
 
Everskyward said:
I think many pilots could physically land an airliner as long as someone is there to set up the avionics and coach them from the other seat. The real challenge would be having to descend from cruise and end up lined up with the runway at anything approaching the correct speed and configuration. Next time someone offers you a simulator ride have them set you up in cruise without any discussion of how the avionics work, then have them turn their back to you and see if they can talk you down.
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:yeahthat:

The config would be the biggie in my mind going from 300 KIAS to 140KIAS must be done on purpose and in order.
 
Everskyward said:
Next time someone offers you a simulator ride have them set you up in cruise without any discussion of how the avionics work, then have them turn their back to you and see if they can talk you down.
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That was kind of the point that my friend was trying to demonstrate in the 767 sim. That a couple of GA pilots could fly the airplane without any coaching at all just by using basic pilot skills.

He just sat there in the back running the sim (and wouldn't tell us anything) while we had to figure out what to do.

I knew enough that a jet doesn't firewall the throttles on takeoff like a normally aspirated piston and I was shooting for a ballpark approach speed around 150-160 kts. Everything else we figured out for ourselves in the air.




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
Neither FSI's 421 sim or the boat was damaged during my attempted landings on the Enterprise. I never got the plane even close to the carrier. If the sim IP had been a navy guy he might have been able to help, but he didn't know any more about it than I did, which was not nearly enough.

X3 Skier said:
My seniority number moved up, want a drink to celebrate?"

But on the question, sure why not unless you are NORDO.:rolleyes:

On a tangent, could a GA pilot make a carrier landing? My F-14 SIM attempts resulted in one bolter, two ramp strikes, one into the island and one OK-3. :D

Cheers
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LOL, after playing with carriers in sims I actually got pretty good at getting to the ship. Figure it is moving forward about 3 ship lengths a minute and sideways at the angle of the runway. You figure your distance and intercept time, multiply that into ship lengths and find your aim spot in the ocean and head for that. Watch the ship in your peripheral vision to make sure it keeps in the same spot in the window and adjust to keep it there same as you would when crabbing down with a 40kt crosswind. As you get in closer you can start watching the meatball.
 
flyingron said:
IFR (or one of the other Belvoir rags) did a test where they through three guys into a 737 sim to see how they did. One was a high time IFR pilot (Scott Hartwig, also was Rockford tower ATC at the time), one was a student pilot, and I can't remember what the third was.
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"Walter Mitty Lives", IFR, April 1995.


Hartwig (a very experienced GA pilot) did great, put it on the runway and got it stopped without putting a scratch on anybody.

The student pilot crashed, but at least it was on airport property.

The third pilot was a 200-hour private pilot with no instrument rating. He got into a side-to-side PIO on final (as did I, when playing with the sim after we'd run the scenarios), and ended up catching a wingtip, running off the side of the runway, and having what was deemed to be a "survivable" crash.


Denny
 
Henning said:
If I have no one to ask, I would start by pulling the AP breakers, eventually that sucker is going to go into alternate or basic law. At this point it makes no difference what I do, we're all dead if I continue status quo so anything I do will have at worst a neutral result.
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CTRL + ALT + Delete should do it.:D
 
RotorAndWing said:
So how are you going to land it? How are you going to program the FMS for the landing runway? How are you going to sequence the approach phase in the FMS? Unless you deselect the autopilot as well as the autothrust the airplane won't land. Also, without proper sequencing of the FMS where are your landing speeds as well as green dot, "S" and "F" speed and Vapp gonna come from?







Everything goes through the MCDU. Turn everything off including autothrust and you will have your hands very full.
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What does the A320 do if the pilot manually moved the throttle lever while autopilot and autothrust are engaged?
 
us AAirways said:
What does the A320 do if the pilot manually moved the throttle lever while autopilot and autothrust are engaged?
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Probably nothing, but AF447 showed us that when the AP goes offline, that sucker goes full manual with no safeties.
 
Airbus designs to protect the airplane from the pilot while Boeing designs to protect the pilot from the airplane. ;)

As long as you understand that you can cope.

Cheers
 
us AAirways said:
What does the A320 do if the pilot manually moved the throttle lever while autopilot and autothrust are engaged?
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In cruise the thrust levers are in the cruise detent. The engines can go from idle to cruise power as needed by the speed commanded. If you move them back you will limit the amount of power the engines can produce (think of the thrust levers as setting the allowable thrust limit). If you bring the thrust levers to idle you will disconnect the auto thrust system and they work like normal throttles until you reengage the system. If you push the thrust levers up from cruise to toga you'll get toga if I remember correctly.
 
Rex Kramer said:
In cruise the thrust levers are in the cruise detent. The engines can go from idle to cruise power as needed by the speed commanded. If you move them back you will limit the amount of power the engines can produce (think of the thrust levers as setting the allowable thrust limit). If you bring the thrust levers to idle you will disconnect the auto thrust system and they work like normal throttles until you reengage the system. If you push the thrust levers up from cruise to toga you'll get toga if I remember correctly.
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So it's not impossible to take over the plane and operate it manually?
 
Rex Kramer said:
In cruise the thrust levers are in the cruise detent. The engines can go from idle to cruise power as needed by the speed commanded. If you move them back you will limit the amount of power the engines can produce (think of the thrust levers as setting the allowable thrust limit). If you bring the thrust levers to idle you will disconnect the auto thrust system and they work like normal throttles until you reengage the system. If you push the thrust levers up from cruise to toga you'll get toga if I remember correctly.
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does the autopilot disconnect too if you move the stick while the autopilot is on?
 
us AAirways said:
That would be bad if it were not easy to take over manual control, I think anyway.:dunno:
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According to Rotor and Wing, it's impossible to control and configure the A-330 without programming what you want into the FMS first if the plane is in Normal Law.
 
Henning said:
So it's not impossible to take over the plane and operate it manually?
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Two clicks. Click off the a/p with a button on the stick and click off the a/t with a button on the throttles. You'll have a VERY stable, easy flying airplane at your disposal. Always in trim and pitch and roll neutral. It will stay in the pitch or bank you command with the stick.

us AAirways said:
does the autopilot disconnect too if you move the stick while the autopilot is on?
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It's been a while, but I don't think so. You have to click it off with the big red button. Can't miss it, right on the top. Hit it with your thumb.

(I could be wrong.. it might disconnect, but it's been a while)
 
Henning said:
According to Rotor and Wing, it's impossible to control and configure the A-330 without programming what you want into the FMS first if the plane is in Normal Law.
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I don't think that's entirely true. If you want to stay in managed mode, perhaps.


Airbus has a bad rep. It's a pretty good design. You want to fly it, it's easy to shut off the automation. The only caveat is it will not let you over-G, over-speed, or stall the plane. That's basically it in a nutshell.


If you want to overspeed/bank/G/stall, you'll need to start pulling CBs or killing flight control computers.
 
Rex Kramer said:
Two clicks. Click off the a/p with a button on the stick and click off the a/t with a button on the throttles. You'll have a VERY stable, easy flying airplane at your disposal. Always in trim and pitch and roll neutral. It will stay in the pitch or bank you command with the stick.



It's been a while, but I don't think so. You have to click it off with the big red button. Can't miss it, right on the top. Hit it with your thumb.

(I could be wrong.. it might disconnect, but it's been a while)
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How about slats, flaps, and gear? Can I control those with switches on the panel rather than making the FMS configure the plane? IOW, what would it take to be able to fly a visual approach in full manual reversion? Say I'm down to 10,000'.
 
Rex Kramer said:
If you want to overspeed/bank/G/stall, you'll need to start pulling CBs or killing flight control computers.
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Dave, I feel myself getting slower. Why are you doing this to me, Dave?

Daisy . . . Daisy . . . give . . .. me . . . . .. your . . . .. answer . . . . do.
 
bartmc said:
Should I start the "Can an airline pilot land a Single Engine Piston?" thread now?
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My airline pilot friend flew right seat with me down to charleston last weekend. He did the radio for our IFR flight. He kept accidentally using the call sign acey, and said after we landed 'man I don't think I could land a small plane anymore, would have flared way too high'
 
Henning said:
How about slats, flaps, and gear? Can I control those with switches on the panel rather than making the FMS configure the plane? IOW, what would it take to be able to fly a visual approach in full manual reversion? Say I'm down to 10,000'.
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There's a flap handle on the center console. 10,000' or any other altitude and you want to completely hand fly it? Click, click, it's yours.


There will still be the over speed/g/stall protections, but you will not notice them.
 
Rex Kramer said:
There's a flap handle on the center console. 10,000' or any other altitude and you want to completely hand fly it? Click, click, it's yours.


There will still be the over speed/g/stall protections, but you will not notice them.
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So in other words in the OP scenario, it's quite simple to be able to take the plane over by hand and divert to another airport on vectors and fly a visual or PAR type approach, control the thrust, flaps and gear without going into the computer and being able to program it and without having to go in and fail things, and I get to keep all the normal law protections.That's what I suspected, thanks. Makes some previous postings pretty interesting.
 
Henning said:
So in other words in the OP scenario, it's quite simple to be able to take the plane over by hand and divert to another airport on vectors and fly a visual or PAR type approach, control the thrust, flaps and gear without going into the computer and being able to program it and without having to go in and fail things, and I get to keep all the normal law protections.That's what I suspected, thanks. Makes some previous postings pretty interesting.
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Well yeah it (the Airbus logic) will let you control pitch and thrust like any airplane. It's still a different airplane compared to a 172. I won't get into the xwind technique regarding airbus, either.. :)
 
Rex Kramer said:
Well yeah it (the Airbus logic) will let you control pitch and thrust like any airplane. It's still a different airplane compared to a 172. I won't get into the xwind technique regarding airbus, either.. :)
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I was told it was impossible to configure the plane for landing without being able to program the FMS and having it do it.
 
Everskyward said:
Was that after 9/11? Not that you can't get in the sims but there are also security procedures.
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Yup. Thus the comment about the SSN and what-not for the latest one.

The terrorists took all the fun out of begging sim time from friends in the middle of the night. :(
 
Henning said:
I was told it was impossible to configure the plane for landing without being able to program the FMS and having it do it.
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No you weren't. I was pointing out to you that as usual you don't have a clue as to your inane rambling.

Henning said:
So in other words in the OP scenario, it's quite simple to be able to take the plane over by hand and divert to another airport on vectors and fly a visual or PAR type approach, control the thrust, flaps and gear without going into the computer and being able to program it and without having to go in and fail things, and I get to keep all the normal law protections.That's what I suspected, thanks. Makes some previous postings pretty interesting.
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It would be fun to watch, I admit, especially if you miss a few key items.

The Airbus is not as simple as you wish it to be, and if you do start monkeying around with the wrong things you could find yourself in an interesting predicament, especially at your given pilot skills coupled with a very complex aircraft. The Airbus wasn't designed to be flown by amateurs (such as yourself).

Your rambling on about "pulling circuit breakers" to downgrade the laws of the aircraft were equally amusing. I admit it would be fun to watch though. Oh, and I liked the one about looking through the pilots bag for his "cheat sheet".

Dream on Henning, dream on.........
 
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bluee said:
My retired airline pilot father tells me if I can land a 172, I can land a 747, but remember to flare 50 feet off the ground.
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If that is the case, I'd have no problem. :lol:
 
We're supposed to be confident and willing to embrace challenges as pilots. Sometimes this leads to unrealistic expectations.
 
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