Solo Pilot goes blind in flight, lands safely

Re: Flying Blind

Hellofa story, but it's nice to see the Brits have just as much trouble IDing planes as American media (that 2 seat Cessna looks an awful lot like a 172 or even 182).
 
Re: Flying Blind

Teller1900 said:
Hellofa story, but it's nice to see the Brits have just as much trouble IDing planes as American media (that 2 seat Cessna looks an awful lot like a 172 or even 182).
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Prob'ly a stock photo ("Hey Dave, get me a photo of one of those little Piper Cessna twin single-engine planes, wouldja? You know- the kind with the engine that stalls before they plummet out of the sky...")

They got more wrong, according to a British poster on another forum: apparently, the pilot did not A: have a stroke or B: go completely blind.
the BBC has retracted the stuff about him being "seriously ill", etc.
Apparently it was possibly severe temporary blindness brought on by glare, or who-knows-what.

At any rate, from the audio clip, you can tell that he's having real trouble seeing clearly... the RAF pilot shepherding him talked him right onto final and he still didn't see the runway until he was almost over the threshold!!

Amazing stuff.
 
Oops, duplicate thread. Mods, please merge with Geoff Thorpe's "Flying Blind"thread.

-Skip
 
Re: Flying Blind

In http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20081108/EU.Britain.Blinded.Pilot/ they merely called the plane a Cessna. They claimed that it was a stroke, but that after a while he was able to distinguish areas of light or dark. For the purposes of flying, that's not much better!

According to a followup article on the BBC, he took eight attempts to land. Also, theyconfirm that it was a stroke. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/north_yorkshire/7717206.stm Amazing that he was able to bring it down safely. I truly don't believe it could have been done if he were totally blind. Think about it. He successfully executed seven go-arounds!
 
Re: Flying Blind

gprellwitz said:
... I truly don't believe it could have been done if he were totally blind. Think about it. He successfully executed seven go-arounds!
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He had to be able to sense the horizon with the light and dark he could see. Otherwise, he'd be like a non-instrument trained pilot in IMC - 30 seconds to the death spiral.

Check out Mythbusters where they got a real, totally blind guy to drive a car perfectly with a passenger coaching - and he did better than the sighted drivers did blindfolded.
 
Re: Flying Blind

mikea said:
He had to be able to sense the horizon with the light and dark he could see. Otherwise, he'd be like a non-instrument trained pilot in IMC - 30 seconds to the death spiral.

Check out Mythbusters where they got a real, totally blind guy to drive a car perfectly with a passenger coaching - and he did better than the sighted drivers did blindfolded.
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Yes, that's what I had in mind when I wrote that, though the figure quoted at a recent safety seminar I attended was 178 seconds to live.

And yes, I saw that episode. Let's see, they've done driving blind, driving drunk, driving backwards on ice, ... Sure wouldn't want to be their insurance agent! :wink2:
 
mikea said:
Check out Mythbusters where they got a real, totally blind guy to drive a car perfectly with a passenger coaching - and he did better than the sighted drivers did blindfolded.
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gprellwitz said:
And yes, I saw that episode. Let's see, they've done driving blind, driving drunk, driving backwards on ice, ... Sure wouldn't want to be their insurance agent! :wink2:
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I love that show. Whatdya say, should they test out the blind flying theory? :eek: :D
 
skyflyer8 said:
I love that show. Whatdya say, should they test out the blind flying theory? :eek: :D
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You know insurance would make someone fly right... its just a matter of telling insurance that they need just one person in the plane.
 
kevin47881 said:
Here's another article of the same event.

Simply amazing.
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The amazing part is they said
zigzagging in his Tucano T1 jet trainer because he could not fly slowly enough to keep pace with Mr O’Neill’s four-seater Cessna.
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while showing a picture of the Tucano with the prop clearly spinning. Oh, I know, it allows you to train to fly a jet, right?:nono:

Edit:
Maybe that's actually what they did mean. They say later in the article
Wing Commander Gerrard, 42, a former Tornado display pilot. He is about to become the chief flight instructor at Linton and was already airborne, flying a training sortie in the Tucano T1, which is used to train future fast-jet pilots and has a top speed of 325mph.
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And yeah, I know. News media getting the details wrong is hardly amazing. Getting it 100% right, on the other hand...
 
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gprellwitz said:
The amazing part is they said while showing a picture of the Tucano with the prop clearly spinning. Oh, I know, it allows you to train to fly a jet, right?:nono:

Edit:
Maybe that's actually what they did mean. They say later in the article

And yeah, I know. News media getting the details wrong is hardly amazing. Getting it 100% right, on the other hand...
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It also says he was flying at 15,000 feet. I hope he had an oxygen system in that plane. I also hope it is a 182 because a 172 has a ceiling of 13,500 ft.
 
jesse said:
A 172 will fly much, much higher than 13,500.
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Yup. As long as you're not at gross, anything will go higher than its service ceiling. I got the 182 a thousand past its service ceiling this summer and I wasn't even down to 100fpm (the definition of service ceiling) yet. I was probably 300 pounds plus the weight of the fuel I'd burned under gross.
 
rubber314chicken said:
It also says he was flying at 15,000 feet. I hope he had an oxygen system in that plane. I also hope it is a 182 because a 172 has a ceiling of 13,500 ft.
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Actually, they were quoting his son about being at 15,000. I noted that, but attributed it to his son not being in the plane with him. I don't know what type of Cessna he was flying. Four-place could be anything from a 172 to a P210. And with only one person aboard, 15,000 wouldn't be out of the question in just about any of them, as Jesse and Kent mentioned. He had 18 years of experience, so he wasn't a neophyte.
 
Amazing! Blind pilot lands plane.... Really.

No, this one is real:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ILOT?SITE=TXSAE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

LONDON (AP) -- A British pilot who was suddenly blinded by a stroke during a solo flight was talked safely down by a military pilot, the Royal Air Force said Friday.

Jim O'Neill asked for help after he was went blind 40 minutes into a flight from Scotland to southeastern England last week. The BBC reported that O'Neill, flying a small Cessna aircraft, lost his sight 5,500 feet in the air.

"It was terrifying," O'Neill said. "Suddenly, I couldn't see the dials in front of me."
....................
With Gerrard talking him down, O'Neill's plane hit the runway and bounced up again, the RAF said. It did the same on the second touchdown. On the third, O'Neill was able to keep his plane on the ground.

"It's one of those things you might hear about happening in some sort of all-action film but it's hard to believe what they did," Douglas O'Neill said of the RAF. "They were just tremendous."
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Re: Amazing! Blind pilot lands plane.... Really.

That's pretty incredible, and you'd definitely need another plane flying close by to help you.

On Mythbusters they tested the question of whether or not a blind person could drive if instructed by someone in the back seat who could see. They got a genuine blind person and it worked surprisingly well. I could see it working with a plane, it would just be substantially more difficult.

I'm glad the man got down safely, that could easily have become very bad very quickly.
 
Re: Amazing! Blind pilot lands plane.... Really.

Ted DuPuis said:
That's pretty incredible, and you'd definitely need another plane flying close by to help you.

On Mythbusters they tested the question of whether or not a blind person could drive if instructed by someone in the back seat who could see. They got a genuine blind person and it worked surprisingly well. I could see it working with a plane, it would just be substantially more difficult.

I'm glad the man got down safely, that could easily have become very bad very quickly.
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Some MAJOR differences are that in Mythbusters they already had a sighted person in the vehicle, so there wasn't a period of minutes during which the blind person was driving down the street at cruising speed. Plus, the blind person already had experience being blind and using other cues. And on top of that, the blind person didn't have the added distraction of trying to figure out why they suddenly couldn't see. And furthermore, the car only moves in two axes, not three, and isn't going to go into a death spiral on you.

So yes, I'm very glad he got down safely. Had he gone totally blind I sincerely doubt it would have been possible, unless he was on autopilot when the incident occured. I didn't see that mentioned anywhere, one way or the other. Had he been, then his chances of survival would have been greatly improved.
 
Re: Amazing! Blind pilot lands plane.... Really.

gprellwitz said:
And furthermore, the car only moves in two axes, not three, and isn't going to go into a death spiral on you.
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I'd say it'd be four axes- speed, pitch, yaw and roll.

So we are looking at a vehicle with twice the axes, and remember how they tried to make Adam and Jamie drive blindfolded? Because the pilot had sight before and he knew how to fly, just like Adam and Jamie knew how to drive, he was going to face the same difficulties they did.
 
Re: Amazing! Blind pilot lands plane.... Really.

rubber314chicken said:
I'd say it'd be four axes- speed, pitch, yaw and roll.

So we are looking at a vehicle with twice the axes, and remember how they tried to make Adam and Jamie drive blindfolded? Because the pilot had sight before and he knew how to fly, just like Adam and Jamie knew how to drive, he was going to face the same difficulties they did.
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Uhm..Try three:
Vertical, Lateral, Longitudinal

Movement around the longitudinal axis is roll.
Movement around the lateral axis is pitch
Movement around the vertical axis is yaw.

There is no 'axis' for speed. You're thinking of the forces of flight. Remember that an axis is the line in which the movement occurs around.

gprelwitz said:
And furthermore, the car only moves in two axes, not three, and isn't going to go into a death spiral on you.
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Actually, a car has the same three axes (had to think about this..I wanted to just say roll and yaw at first)...

Movement around the longitudinal axis is roll.
Movement around the lateral axis is pitch
Movement around the vertical axis is yaw.

Obviously yaw is turning with the steering wheel. Roll happens when you turn. Pitch happens during acceleration.
 
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Re: Amazing! Blind pilot lands plane.... Really.

jesse said:
Actually, a car has the same three axes (had to think about this..I wanted to just say roll and yaw at first)...

Movement around the longitudinal axis is roll.
Movement around the lateral axis is pitch
Movement around the vertical axis is yaw.

Obviously yaw is turning with the steering wheel. Roll happens when you turn. Pitch happens during acceleration.
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Right, but in the car you only have direct control of ONE axis (yaw). The movements in pitch and roll are simply side effects of acceleration in the horizontal plane.
 
Re: Amazing! Blind pilot lands plane.... Really.

flyingcheesehead said:
Right, but in the car you only have direct control of ONE axis (yaw). The movements in pitch and roll are simply side effects of acceleration in the horizontal plane.
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They still matter--cannot be ignored--and are indirectly controlled.
 
Well then if you are going to exclude speed from being an axis of control (okay, I realize that was a stupid mistake), then it is 3 to 1 instead 2 to 4, but you do have to control your speed in both a car and an airplane, so while its not an axis, it is still something that must be controlled, and IMHO I think should count.
 
rubber314chicken said:
Well then if you are going to exclude speed from being an axis of control (okay, I realize that was a stupid mistake), then it is 3 to 1 instead 2 to 4, but you do have to control your speed in both a car and an airplane, so while its not an axis, it is still something that must be controlled, and IMHO I think should count.
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You can count "speed" for whatever you want as long as it is not an "axis of movement" because it is not.
 
Re: Amazing! Blind pilot lands plane.... Really.

jesse said:
They still matter--cannot be ignored--and are indirectly controlled.
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You can ignore them, as long as you don't take a corner so fast you roll or skid. In fact, most drivers DO ignore them, along with all sorts of other things (y'know, like other cars. :eek:)
 
Last couple of weeks had an armless woman getting her ticket, and this is a report of a blind man flying London to Sydney!
http://www.aviation-weblog.com/50226711/blind_man_flies_from_london_to_sydney.php
n an amazing feat, Miles Hilton-Barber flew halfway around the world. Blind. The British pilot departed London on March and arrived in Sydney on Monday. The journey was a total of 13,500 miles.

"It's the fulfillment of an amazing dream," the 58-year-old adventurer said after touching down at Sydney's Bankstown airport. "I've been wanting to do this flight for about four years."
 
Re: Amazing! Blind pilot lands plane.... Really.

flyingcheesehead said:
You can ignore them, as long as you don't take a corner so fast you roll or skid. In fact, most drivers DO ignore them, along with all sorts of other things (y'know, like other cars. :eek:)
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Sure, the driver can be stupid and ignore it, but if we're talking about the physics of cars and what their axis of movements are there is no ignoring them.
 
If he was flying the aircraft that is shown in the picture, then he was flying a 182. The plane has one exhaust and cowl flaps= 182. I think. Bob :smile:
 
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