Passenger Lands Plane After Pilot Collapses and Dies At the Controls 249
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "NBC reports that flying instructors at Humberside Airport, near the city of Hull in northeast England, told a passenger who had never flown before how to land a four-seater Cessna 172 after the pilot collapsed and died at the controls. Passenger John Wildey explained to air traffic controllers that he had no flying experience and that the pilot could not control the plane. 'It came down with a bump, a bump, a bump, hit the front end down, I heard some crashing and it's come to a halt,' said Stuart Sykes. 'There were a few sparks and three or four crashes, that must have been the propeller hitting the floor. Then it uprighted again and it came to a stop.' Roads around the airport were closed while two incoming flights to the airport, from Scotland and the Netherlands, were delayed as a result of the incident. The passenger took four passes of the runway, and there were cheers from the control tower when it finally came to a halt on the ground. 'For somebody who is not a pilot but has been around airfields and been a passenger on several occasions to take control is nothing short of phenomenal," said Richard Tomlinson. "He made quite a good landing, actually,' added flight instructor Murray. 'He didn't know the layout of the airplane. He didn't have lights on so he was absolutely flying blind as well.'"
Well then... (Score:5, Funny)
Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
Re:Well then... (Score:4, Funny)
Bet the pilot is kicking himself for having the fish.
Re:Well then... (Score:4, Funny)
So tell me, Timmy, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?
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That's just plane awesome. (Score:5, Funny)
So he basically winged it and hoped for the best?
Not a pilot but... (Score:5, Funny)
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You want me to come in on runway 30? OK, what's the vector, Victor? Two-niner-zero? Surely you're joking...
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Mythbusters (Score:2, Interesting)
Mythbusters had an episode like this. Basically they stuck Adam and Jaime in a commercial cockpit simulator with no prior familiarization or training and tested to see if they could successfully land a passenger plane with just flight controller coaching. They both were able to do it fairly easily.
I'm sure if you find yourself in this situation in real life, you have the additional element of stress to contend with, but mythbusters did attempt to show that landing a plane isn't all that complicated with mod
Mythbusters . . . hah! (Score:2)
Re:Mythbusters . . . hah! (Score:4, Interesting)
A shitty little Cessna with zero auto controls and instant death on a a mistake is a hell of a lot more stressful and panic inducing than sitting in a large computer/gaming rig.
Its REALLY not that hard.
I remember playing MS Flight simulator on my grandfathers IBM XT with hercules monochrome graphics, and we were, after some practice able to land a cessna.
Now before you rightfully mock me... in practice years later we got to actually fly a cessna, and in reality its much easier to land. (at least in half decent conditions). There's lots more feedback to what you are doing and its far easier to line up the runway in the real life than it was in the game.
In other words, its not as hard as you'd think it is, and its actually easier in hte real world than in the simulators IMO.
At least in good weather / good visibility.
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In other words, its not as hard as you'd think it is, and its actually easier in hte real world than in the simulators IMO.
Better graphics and frame rate too...
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Totally agree. Landing Micro$oft simulator is much harder than the real thing. And yes, I've done both many times.
The simulator is great for procedure training (how to shoot approaches, do procedure turns, holding patterns, navigation etc.) but it sucks when you get close to the ground. In a real airplane, you get all sorts of feedback, motion, sounds, visual and control feel that make it easier to handle the plane. Doing procedure training during flight is harder than necessary and a really expensive wa
Re:Mythbusters . . . hah! (Score:5, Informative)
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A shitty little Cessna with zero auto controls and instant death on a a mistake is a hell of a lot more stressful and panic inducing than sitting in a large computer/gaming rig.
Its REALLY not that hard.
I remember playing MS Flight simulator on my grandfathers IBM XT with hercules monochrome graphics, and we were, after some practice able to land a cessna.
And I was able to bullseye womp-rats in my T-16 back home.
John Wildey? (Score:2)
Good stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
(I am a student pilot, and I fly a Cessna 172)
This guy is clearly a badass, but his best trait is keeping his head on straight, knowing something about how airplanes work, and figuring out how to talk to someone. Landing is also a lot simpler if you don't care about damaging the plane (he had a prop strike) or landing on a runway that's not 4x longer than you'd usually use. Once you can talk to someone who's flown planes, you're pretty much OK as long as you don't melt down - do what they tell you, which will probably consist of a crash course in flying (what the instruments are, what's important about them, how to control the plane, etc) followed by directions to fly the plane onto the runway and hold on tight. Normally there's more finesse involved in touching down smoothly, in a short distance, at a proper approach speed - but that goes out the window in an emergency.
I don't want to sound like I'm diminishing Mr. Wildey's accomplishment - keeping cool in that situation is very hard, and avoiding being a smoking hole in the ground is even harder with no experience. This guy should take some flying lessons, if this whole thing hasn't soured him on the idea of small planes. Maybe he can even log this in his logbook (not entirely kidding!).
For anybody regularly flies with somebody in a small plane, there are classes out there that will prepare you for exactly such an emergency - a few hours of basic flying, radios, and landings. Don't assume your flight sim experience will do you any good, except for maybe knowing what the instruments are. The most important part is keeping a cool head - you're eventually going to land, and it'll turn out a lot better if you keep calm and think it through.
Re:Good stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
Kudos to the controller on the other end of the radio too, who I'm sure would have been sweating, talking to someone whose life depended on him keeping his cool and telling him exactly what he needed to do.
Re:Good stuff (Score:5, Funny)
If explaining, over a radio, how to land a plane to someone who has never flown before is anywhere near as hard as explaining to your grandparents how to use a computer, over a phone, than that actually might be the more miraculous endeavor that night.
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Re:Good stuff (Score:5, Informative)
This is the very reason I do some basic flight training with anybody in the right seat when I have time. I explain the radio, even let them make radio calls when possible. I let them take the controls and run them though level flight, basic turns, power and trim adjustments to an airspeed. It takes about 5-10 min or so of flight time to get them to master concepts and knowledge needed to land the aircraft. (At least for what I I fly..) I also try to explain what I'm doing when I'm not too rushed, like calling out target airspeeds, altitudes, power settings and check list items. I'm not saying I can teach you how to land in 10 min, only that I can introduce you to all the controls and how to use them. It usually takes a few hours of training to get good enough skills to be good at landing but armed with some basic knowledge, somebody could talk you through it fairly easy.
My goal is three fold. First, I hope to remove any fear they may have and help them feel comfortable. Second, I'm hopefully imparting a love for flying by teaching them as much as I can. Third, something I say or some skill they develop may save their life. Not to mention, I like teaching.
Re:Good stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
(I am a student pilot, and I fly a Cessna 172)
I'm a commercial pilot (who is currently unemployed) - however operating the radio is part of my pre-flight briefing with anyone in the right seat in any G/A aircraft. In this briefing, I also go through what I'll do if we have a radio failure or comms problems - as part of this includes them using the radio (if required). Most people are very attentive - and its with this exact reason in mind - if anything incapacitates me, the least I can do for passenger safety is to get them to talk to someone who can help.
If the person in the right seat is a bit of a fan about flying, I'll teach them a bit about basic flight controls during the flight as well. Most people see if as a bit of fun and enjoy it - but there is a serious reason behind the scenes... The best way to be prepared in aviation is to think ahead.
For less experienced pilots, this is why we always aim to trim an aircraft for the correct attitude and performance as early as possible. The last thing you want to do is to leave the aircraft incorrectly trimmed and have something happen to you. When you step up to jet aircraft, the most important control in the aircraft is the trim. Use it well and often.
Re:Good stuff (Score:5, Informative)
Thanks for the tip about trimming up ASAP for passenger's benefit. Yeah, the further I get, the more I appreciate trim - and I thought I appreciated it plenty! My instructor (I think deliberately) let me struggle through a few landings without trimming every attitude change. I certainly learned my lesson - if you don't touch the trim after midfield downwind, by short final you need so much back pressure you have a hard time rounding out and flaring. This gives you heavy hands, which makes you more likely to over-control, etc. But it creeps up on you, so you don't even realize how much you're fighting the plane until you get trimmed up and it just goes where you want it, no hands. My problem was I was thinking of trimming as an extra thing I had to do - really, it means you have less to do.
I made a comment somewhere else on this page to the effect of "don't think time in your home computer sim prepares you for flying". Trim is (IMO) the single biggest reason why - or perhaps the reason you need trim is. It's an afterthought at best if you're actually trying to fly a consumer sim, and certainly not emphasized. Plus, it's an extremely tactile thing (in a cables and bellcranks plane) - both to set up trim (just relieve the pressure) and the feedback of "man, I wish I didn't have to push/pull so hard to keep altitude/airpseed", because there's usually no force feedback. FBW and hydraulics usually are free of feedback too, but by the time you get to those planes you've spent enough time in a cables and pushrods plane to know what you're doing regardless.
Re:Good stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
My problem was I was thinking of trimming as an extra thing I had to do - really, it means you have less to do.
The best advice I have ever been given in flying is this: Unload yourself.
What does this mean? Ok, power on, take off roll, reach takeoff safety speed (usually 1.5x stall), rotate, airborne, set your climb attitude. Next thing, trim. With a bit of practice, about 20 seconds after liftoff, you will be trimmed for the climb - this means you can take your hands off the controls and you'll continue to climb at your (usually) 500ft/min. Your speed will be stable, your climb rate will be stable, and you'll keep climbing until you either get disturbed by a gust of wind etc or you change the controls.
Take this time now that you can fly with hands off to glance at your engine instruments - that the RPM is what you expect it to be, oil temps and pressure is ok, airspeed is what you expect, then check your performance again (attitude, power etc). This can all be done within 45 seconds after liftoff. Now you do what any VFR pilot does best - look outside. As you're not struggling to keep the aircraft under control, you can observe what is going on outside. Looking for traffic, obstacles, making sure what you see outside matches the instruments (ie you're climbing, going fast enough etc).
Coming up to your assigned / desired altitude, use the yolk to bring the nose down, power to cruise, trim, trim, trim. Usually up to about 1/2 - 3/4 of a turn on the trim wheel and you're almost able to fly hands off again in seconds.
A good exercise here - trim for the climb, then don't touch the yolk again until you're on final to land. Use the trim for your attitude and rudder for turning. Do the entire circuit using only trim, rudder and throttle. As you would have been taught, the secondary action of yaw is roll - so you'll find you actually start to bank while only using the rudder. It gets tricky - and you'll be all over the place while first trying this - but it is great for learning the relationship as to what you're doing affecting the aircraft.
Anyhow - this isn't flight training 101 on slashdot, but learning to fly has been a highlight of my life - and I'm always happy to share things with people. Feel free to email me if you want to discuss more random things ;)
Re:Good stuff (Score:4, Insightful)
My flight instructor (F-86 combat pilot in Korea) taught me very well: My training led to a successful dead-stick landing after my C172 sucked up a rivet from the carb heat door and wedged itself in a valve. Among the many things I learned from that crusty ex-USAF jet jockey was this one:
When the shit hits the fan, FLY THE AIRPLANE. You FLY THE AIRPLANE until it's no longer moving. Never stop FLYING THE AIRPLANE or you'll surely die.
Panic has no place in the cockpit when the shit is hitting the fan. He drilled this into me with endless engine-out drills, stalls, windows opening in flight, simulated flap jams, and even a spin recovery. He assured me that if I FLY THE AIRPLANE when things start to go downhill, there's a very good chance I'll survive.
Indeed he was right. I was his last student before he passed away from cancer. RIP, Red...
So let us fire the pilots (Score:4, Funny)
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youtube video (Score:4, Insightful)
Looking at the youtube video, that was probably the lousiest landing in the history of the airport. But there are some, particularly me, who would like to buy him a drink.
Re: FAA (Score:2, Funny)
Because Obama has tons of influence in northeastern England.
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No, that's not the meme, get it right. The meme is, "THANKS, Obama!
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Don't sully this with your.... facts.
Re:A GOOD LANDING !! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes.
The proverb among pilots is "Any landing you walk away from is a good landing".
Professional pilots obviously hold themselves to a higher standard than that, but for a first-time flyer that landing met the requirements completely.
Re:A GOOD LANDING !! (Score:5, Funny)
In general, you're doing a good job if at all times you keep the plane between the two lights on the wingtips.
Re:A GOOD LANDING !! (Score:5, Funny)
Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing. Any landing you can walk away from and reuse the aircraft is a great one!
Geez, crumped the nose wheel and the prop! (Score:2)
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No it's not.
But if you've never even had that discussion before, much less training, yeah it might be.
Probably why he had to make 4 passes before landing. Trying to pull back too much, too early.
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Don't forget he had no lights (and this was some tiny plane, so no ILS, glidescope etc).
Damn fine job considering.
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Re:Geez, crumped the nose wheel and the prop! (Score:5, Funny)
My condolences to the family of the Aviator that passed away.
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He's probably better off not having ILS/glidescope/etc. Too much to try to figure out & you'll hit the ground too hard.
Lights don't really help. As long as the runway was lit up, the visibility should have been fine.
It's not like 1 or 2 small lights on the wings make a real difference until you're taxiing.
Re:Geez, crumped the nose wheel and the prop! (Score:5, Informative)
He almost certainly did have ILS, actually, but you'd have to be crazy to try and explain shooting an approach to someone who's never flown before. Much better to say "fly at the runway, once you're over it cut the engine and try not to land".
Re:Geez, crumped the nose wheel and the prop! (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, Flaring is really the hardest part (Score:5, Informative)
Actually yes, it IS difficult unless you've practiced it. And most of us who practiced it had an instructor who recovered the plane when we fucked it up. And every pilot fucked this up in training.
Flare too little / late: you smack into the runway. If you're descending too fast you're basically crashing right now. If you're nose down you could snap the front gear. Hit with all gear and you can still snap the front or wheelbarrow if you're too heavy on the front. Good chance you'll bounce too. If you're going too fast that bounce could be high and far, and you may bounce oddly if you didn't hit evenly - throwing you off to the side or what have you. Porpoising is particularly nasty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5ZzktAFJK4
Flare too soon: you balloon upwards and eat up runway fast. If you don't correct or abort you'll run out of runway fast.
Flare too much: you balloon upwards meaning you're getting high and approaching a stall. Stall and you'll slap down rather hard on the runway, potentially from enough height to kill yourself.
A good flare is a continual thing as well. It's not like you just pull back a bit and you're done... you need to keep pulling back to increase the flare as air speed and altitude decrease. Through that entire process you can go too much or too little, causing the issues above.
Oh, and keep in mind that since the plane is in a nose up attitude you can't really see ahead of you very well. You're judging your altitude over the runway largely via peripheral vision. And you height cues vary depending how wide the runway is!
Now try throwing some cross wind into that just to add to your day.
Screw it up and need to go around? There's more than just throwing in the throttle. You need to reduce your flaps, in stages, as you pull out. Slap those suckers full up and you may lose too much lift to soon and plane meets ground rather harshly.
Personally if the idea of landing a plane with zero training doesn't scare the piss out you, you probably don't have a good enough understanding of what you're about to attempt.
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Mod parent up, and up, and up. Clearly a lot of people around here have spent a lot of time in flight simulators.
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Then again they've also taught me that flying knife edge along the deck of the Golden Gate Bridge is easy...
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The real thing is you need a very sophisticated setup to get something at all useful for training. If you just have a joystick, it's really hard to make precise movements, if you only have one screen it's hard to get the FOV you have while actually in a plane, see the instruments at the same time as outside, etc. My concern about (consumer) sims is that they give people a false idea of what sort of control inputs they'll actually need - especially when it comes to landing.
Re:Actually, Flaring is really the hardest part (Score:5, Funny)
Goddmannitt. Where's the arrow keys on this thing?
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Actually yes, it IS difficult unless you've practiced it. And most of us who practiced it had an instructor who recovered the plane when we fucked it up. And every pilot fucked this up in training.
Only in training? I'd say about 1 in 20 landings is still a fuckup compared to what we aim for... Once you get a few thousand hours experience, you'll probably still fuck up 1 in 50... True, the degree of fuckup is greatly reduced - but professional pilots with thousands of hours still bounce 737's etc.
Re:Geez, crumped the nose wheel and the prop! (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, it is. It's the hardest part of learning to land, which is the hardest part of learning to fly. It doesn't take much to screw up the flare, and it doesn't take much of a screwed-up flare to royally screw up a landing.
Example: If you're going too fast and you flare, you'll "balloon" off the runway. Now you'll be 15 feet off and bleeding airspeed - fast. Unless you are pretty comfortable with flying, you'll stall up there and drop like a stone onto the runway.
If I were the instructor, I wouldn't even risk it. I'd tell him to come in fast (~75 knots "dirty") to keep him well away from stall speed and just fly it onto the runway. He had plenty of runway (~7200 feet, C172 needs ~2000 to be comfortable) and nobody was worried about damaging the plane so a nice graceful flare is wholly unnecessary. It sounds like this is pretty much what they did, because he had a prop strike.
Re:A GOOD LANDING !! (Score:4, Informative)
The quote is extended among pilots to "and a great landing is where you can use the plane again".
That said, the aeronautical term for this is called a Pinch-Hitter (taken from baseball). Google brings up many courses (online and off), videos, articles etc [google.ca] of being a pinch-hitter pilot. You'll find most are for small GA aircraft where single pilot operations are common.
If you are a pilot, there are plenty of resources to which you can print out to help your passengers in the unlikely event they need to take over - these sheets include instructions on how to radio for help (basically, how to use the radio) and what to radio for help on. Your passenger briefing that you do before starting up should include instructions on how to work the radio as well.
Ground point five (Score:2)
For a more complex aircraft, maybe the next thing is a pencil and paper to copy some checklists? For all but the simplest GA aircraft, you are probably going to need to have a bunch of switches in the right positions?
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IMHO small jetliners are easier to land than piston-engined GA aircraft. Throttle response on turbines is more intuitive, even with the lag. Also, a jetliner will have a full blind landing system, including the all-important glide scope, and a bunch of pilot-assist warning systems to remind you of things you need to do. I'd much rather be at the controls of an unfamiliar 100-seat jet than a 10-seat piston engined GA aircraft.
Re:Ground point five (Score:5, Informative)
IMHO small jetliners are easier to land than piston-engined GA aircraft. Throttle response on turbines is more intuitive, even with the lag. Also, a jetliner will have a full blind landing system, including the all-important glide scope, and a bunch of pilot-assist warning systems to remind you of things you need to do. I'd much rather be at the controls of an unfamiliar 100-seat jet than a 10-seat piston engined GA aircraft.
Not on your life... I want to be landing the aircraft that comes over the fence the SLOWEST as possible. Jets are usually NOT slow on final. The problem is that during landing a lot of things happen between short final and full stop, you want to have as much time to think and react as possible and the faster you are going when you cross the fence the shorter time you have. So I want a slow aircraft and a LONG runway that's preferably wide.
Re:Ground point five (Score:4, Funny)
So most Slashdotters can fly a plane, know unix, can code a language or two, and have girlfriends!?
Riiiight.
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Yes, 121.5mhz AM is International Air Distress (GUARD channel). It's also used by distress beacons etc. Not just aircraft monitor. Hell, I monitor in my car when I'm driving in the middle of nowhere. You never know - your hearing that personal locator beacon just might save someone's life.
If you can figure out how to work it, it's also useful to know how to set the transponder to squawk 7700 (emergency) or 7600 (radio failure). That last one might not help you land it, but at least ATC knows something is wr
Re:Ground point five (Score:5, Informative)
I guess the one thing you need to know about the radio is the international distress channel of 121.5?
In an emergency, the best frequency to use to report that is the frequency you are already talking to ATC on. You don't need to change anything, you have zero chance of screwing up the radio settings, and the guy you're talking to already knows who and where you are (most likely). This guy will know what airports are near you and which way you need to turn to get there. He can pick up a dedicated phone line to neighboring controllers to arrange your clear passage and brief them on your situation if he needs to hand you off.
If you're going to need to land right away, you'll probably be able to stay with the same person all the way to the ground. If not, then at least you started by letting someone who is within the system know you are in trouble and don't have to be so frantic in switching to the right frequency to find someone. You'll also have someone on the other end who can probably instruct you on how to change to another frequency if necessary.
Yes, if you've been flying without any contact with ATC and don't have any clue what frequency to call your closest controller on, by all mean, 121.5 MHz is where to go.
For a more complex aircraft, maybe the next thing is a pencil and paper to copy some checklists?
For a non-pilot, a checklist is worthless. Having to write down instructions is a waste of time and distracts from the task at hand. "When you get to X, push this and then this..." Much better for the guy who is probably watching you on radar, or taking to someone who is watching you, to say "ok, NOW push this..."
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If you're going to need to land right away, you'll probably be able to stay with the same person all the way to the ground.
Are all ATC's certified on small plane operations?
My Sig (Score:2)
Yes.
The proverb among pilots is "Any landing you walk away from is a good landing".
Professional pilots obviously hold themselves to a higher standard than that, but for a first-time flyer that landing met the requirements completely.
My sig for a while was "Any landing you walk away from is a good landing. - Flight sim pilot"
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Untrained landings under pressure are heroic feats as it is. Doing so as it's getting progressively darker outside turns it up to 11.
Actually, flying at night is much easier than in the day, if you're anywhere near civilization and the lights they bring with them. It only becomes really hazardous if you're over a large patch of unlit terrain and you lose spatial awareness.
It is SO much easier to find the airport at night when it is all lit up like a Christmas tree. You aren't looking at every empty space trying to determine if it is an airport or not. When you're lined up with the runway, you know you're lined up with the runway. It's
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Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.
Re:And the pilot? (Score:5, Informative)
Ya, it's nice that most of the stories don't say a word about the dead guy. He didn't actually die until after the landing, but he was unresponsive before landing.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/512649/20131009/john-wildey-humberside-plane-landing-pilot-ill.htm [ibtimes.co.uk]
Re: And the pilot? (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, yes, but think - is there really much you can say about someone who
a) You're not allowed to identify
b) Their cause of death is unknown
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"possibly had a stroke"
"had a history of cardiac problems"
"was shot in the head"
"was struck by a bird through the cockpit window"
Any of those little blurbs, even if not the actual cause of death, would have been very useful.
And yes, a bird strike on a small plane can be catastrophic.
http://download.aopa.org/images/epilot/120427bird_strike.jpg [aopa.org]
http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/inst_reports2.cfm?article=3712 [aopa.org]
Re: And the pilot? (Score:5, Insightful)
"possibly had a stroke" "had a history of cardiac problems" "was shot in the head" "was struck by a bird through the cockpit window"
Isn't it nice when the media refrains from absolute wild-ass random speculation and waits for the facts? Wouldn't it be nice if /. posters could be trained to do the same?
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Well, if I read the story right, it was a friend up with him, and the family was notified. It would simply be up to the reporter to ask a few questions, like reporters are suppose to. Hell, they got the play by play of how he got the plane on the ground.
Privacy and avoiding speculation isn't an excuse for piss-poor reporting.
Re: And the pilot? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that the reporter didn't immediately satisfy your every burning question about what happened to other people doesn't automatically make it piss-poor reporting, either.
Re: And the pilot? (Score:5, Insightful)
It would simply be up to the reporter to ask a few questions, like reporters are suppose to.
Shockingly, in many countries, it is still legal for the family of a recently-deceased private person to tell reporters to fuck off. And a few reporters still feel enough responsibility to the truth not to just print wild-ass guesses from random bystanders.
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Isn't it nice when the media refrains from absolute wild-ass random speculation and waits for the facts? Wouldn't it be nice if /. posters could be trained to do the same?
hey, man, that's why Slashdot runs stories a week late - to avoid all that realtime misinformation.
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Any of those little blurbs, even if not the actual cause of death, would have been very useful.
You watch Fox News, don't you?
"I don't care if it's true, I just want someone to tell me something."
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IIRC, the likely reason he was unresponsive and didn't die until he reached the airport is that people don't die on airplanes (unless they crash), they die at the airport once they're pronounced dead. It's more a matter of semantics and policy rather than an indication that he was still alive when the plane landed.
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So airplanes are like a bureaucrat's version of Schrodinger's cat box?
Re:And the pilot? (Score:5, Funny)
He must have had the fish.
Zero Hour (Score:3)
If you are an Airplane! Fan you must watch Zero Hour. Airplane! is completely based in this movie scene for scene. It's supposed to be a drama but once you know all of Airplane jokes it basically acts like the straight man where you can supply they punch lines.
Hi Joey. Have you ever been in a cockpit?
Johnny, how about some coffee?
Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop smoking.
A hospital what is it?
Re:And the pilot? (Score:5, Funny)
Oblig joke: Grandpa died quietly in his sleep. Everyone else in plane was screaming.
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I told the longer version of this joke (bus driver instead of pilot) to a friend who's father had passed a few days before. (yes, I asked if I could make a joke). He started laughing. Way more than appropriate. Turns out his dad actually was a bus driver. (but no, that's not how/where he died).
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Typical pilots don't die mid-flight.
Humans tend to have a non-zero risk of sudden death, a quick Google search shows that a United Airlines pilot bound for Seattle had a heart attack and eventually died as recently as September 27th. It just becomes painfully obvious if that pilot is the only one qualified to fly the plane, but it's hardly unique. After all there are a lot of small passenger planes going places with one pilot and no crew, if the pilot has a medical emergency there aren't really any alternatives..
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Inacurate comments are for uninformed, and many of them are on /.
Take another look see. You can get a decent little brand new plane for about the same price as a loaded mid sized car these days ($30K-50). Much cheaper ones can be had if you want a more "windy" experience. What you say was true about 20 years ago when the lawyers were spending all their time suing all the light aircraft companies out of existence. That is no longer the case.
General aviation is a young man's game, but only if he can find
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He didn't say cheap, but if a $30K-50 mid sized car = "toys of the rich" (as stated by the GP) then I guess anyone who buys a small boat or second car is rich in your opinion. Also, many pilots don't own the vehicles that they fly...it's not necessary.
Re: And the pilot? (Score:5, Informative)
FALSE Probably the worst stereotype that exists in general aviation today.
It's expensive, yes, but it's not TOO bad - a reasonable used plane can be had for the low 5 digits, and many, many pilots do split ownership. Or they rent.
All in all, you do want to have a decent income - most pilots are middle income families - not rich 1 percenters. Most pilots also don't fly too much - under 100 hours a year. So split ownership or rental is actually very beneficial - the more an airplane flies, the cheaper it is to run (they want to run - the maintenance and everything goes way down if the engine's constantly turning and burning and such). Top end prices for a fully loaded brand new Cessna is probably around a quarter million.
And that's ignoring the biggest growth segment - light sport aircraft. They're currently expensive new, but the costs are way lower.
Now, if you want to talk jets that cost $1-2M, sure, they're for the rich and famous, but the regular avgas sucking sky-hole puncher is well within reach of someone with a decent salary. In fact, most /. readers working in IT probably make much more than the existing pilot population.
Learning to fly isn't too bad - all in all, probably $10,000 or so. It's cheaper if you can save up and do it in a month, more expensive if you have to spread it out over a couple of years. Or do light sport (you can upgrade it to full private pilot's later).
The benefits are, however, immense. If you could cut down a 10 hour road trip to 3 hours, wouldn't that be fun? And instead of endless highways and dirt, you get to see sights that few ever get to see. Avoiding big commercial airports for the little ones can often put you closer to your destination than flying commercial and dealing with security, lineups, etc. Heck, if you're particularly avid, you can fly into the neighbouring state for breakfast, fly back and have lots of time before lunch (many people do - they're called fly-ins, though the crowds are usually so fun they stay a few hours and end up having lunch as well).
As a career, though, being a pilot generally stinks - learning to fly and getting all your ratings, and you're barely making any rent. Finally get right seat at a region carrier and it's in the low 20s it's a joke. The big airlines aren't any better - most /. people are looking at people with 15-20 years seniority just to get the same salary.
However, if you don't want a career, with its lousy hours and routes until you build up seniority, flying for fun is actually quite affordable. And when the weather's beautiful, there's nothing like popping in the plane, flying to a nearby city and getting takeout for dinner after work.
And if you're a city dweller, night flying is so ... serene and even when you're just 2500' high (I was flying local area), you;re above the light pollution and can see the stars. (And by local, I meant flying to cities that would normally take 40 minutes by car take barely 10 by air - or just when you get up, it's time to descend).
Expensive? It's one of the more costlier hobbies, but you can find golfers and scuba divers who'll plunk down huge cash on their equipment and training as well. Ditto car enthusiasts. Maybe even stamp collectors. Or gun enthusiasts (yes, guns can be had for a few hundred dollars, or many thousands). The only "expensive" stereotype comes from the fact that there's no realy "cheap" option (though many have earned flights by working or volunteering at their local airports). It's I suppose like Apple products - they don't make low end cheap stuff.
Hell, there's always the Coast Guard, and many civilian organizations that can subsidize flight training too (usually for SAR, firefighting, etc). It is a very social thing though - you cannot just fly and leave, you'll need to interact with people.
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Rubbish. I started flying when I was 24. I'm not rich (pretty typical middle class). One of the guys in our flying club when I lived in Houston was a cable guy. He owned a modest Cessna 150 which he kept looking very nice, and made some sacrifices such as not driving a brand new car. Another owner of a Cessna 150 that I knew out there was a lineman for the power company. Both of those guys are as far from "rich" as you can get, but by not spending on conspicuous consumption they could afford it.
While you ce
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Your differing opinion is not justification for modding a comment a "troll", read your guidance.
Yeah it's getting trollish these days. Half of the threads seem to have someone who failed to read the last half of the website tagline ("stuff that matters"). Basically it's crap.
The website was always (originally) Rob Malda's blog. He posted stuff that was interesting. Mostly tech, but not always. It's still essentially the same site.
Anyway, some guy operates complex and unfamiliar piece of machinery with only
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"Slashdot News for Nerds", not "News to make you feel good". I don't see other stories here of similar nature, like the guy rescuing a cat from a tree.
No, I'm not trying to get reaction. I posted my opinion in answer to my own question. I never ever post for reaction. You can review my post history if you like, and should have done that prior to making a false accusation. I post my opinion and statements of fact.
Posting for reaction would be critiquing the guys landing and claiming if they were of a p
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They've taken the "News for nerds" lines out everywhere except for one place that is only seen for a fraction of a second anymore because of pedants like you who feel the need to criticize every article that deviates from your perceived expectations of the site.
You don't need to be the person doing it in every article, but there is always someone. You just happened to draw the card today. We're sorry Slashdot doesn't base all its article decisions on what your personal beliefs are regarding the nature of th
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Cessna 127 doesn't have autopilot AFAIK, a Garmin (display upgrade) at best /pedantic nerd mode.
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Great movie for the puns..
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While he's in the air, he's still able to see other planes (they have their lights on) and there really isn't a lot of anything else he might need to see in the air. Blind? Hardly.
And the airport, well, they have these modern spiffy things called ... lights. They mark the runway. That's how you can
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That is one of the most asinine statements in that article. It appears from a picture in the article that he landed at night. So, not having "lights on" means he's ... flying without lights on. That's about it.
While he's in the air, he's still able to see other planes (they have their lights on) and there really isn't a lot of anything else he might need to see in the air. Blind? Hardly.
And the airport, well, they have these modern spiffy things called ... lights. They mark the runway. That's how you can see the runway at night.
One of the things that private pilots get trained in when they want to go night flying is how to land at night without "lights". That would be the landing light, of course. Having one isn't mandatory. I've done it, both with an instructor as part of training and when I wound up getting home later than I planned in a plane where the light had burned out. Yes, I know, this guy isn't a pilot (although the article says he is believed to have flight experience), I'm just pointing out that landing at night without a landing light is far far from being "blind".
The other fascinating statement is that the propeller "hit the floor". And then it "uprighted again". It takes a lot for a small airplane to get in a position where it needs to be uprighted, and most airports don't have floors outside.
I thought the whole point of those big bright landing landing lights was to illuminate the ground when you're near touch down (and for taxi/takeoff). Runway markers may may it easy to see the runway from afar, but aren't going to be as useful for an untrained pilot to see how fast the plane is approaching the ground since a few fast moving dots of light streaming by aren't the same as a broadly lit surface).
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I thought the whole point of those big bright landing landing lights was to illuminate the ground when you're near touch down (and for taxi/takeoff).
In a C172, those "bright" landing lights aren't that bright. They may give you a hint where the ground is, but it is better to refer to the runway lights for that reference.
Taxiing at night, perhaps. But take-off? The main function of landing lights during take off is to make you very visible to anyone in the vicinity of the airport, especially at an uncontrolled airport with a potential for someone to be landing the opposite direction on your runway.
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I thought the whole point of those big bright landing landing lights was to illuminate the ground when you're near touch down (and for taxi/takeoff). Runway markers may may it easy to see the runway from afar, but aren't going to be as useful for an untrained pilot to see how fast the plane is approaching the ground since a few fast moving dots of light streaming by aren't the same as a broadly lit surface).
Heh - the 'bright light' called a landing light in a C172 is almost as bright as a single car headlight (if you're lucky, like the high beam). It does sweet fuck all to illuminate the runway. If you're waiting to see the runway via the landing light before you flare, you're going to have a bad time - and probably crater. Larger aircraft have much brighter lights, but the effect is still the same.
Night landings are hard. There are no floodlit runways that I know of in existence. The only form of reference yo