One more data point: I was luck enough to go up with an RAF pilot having never flown before (nor in simulators). He allowed me to attempt to land, with instruction. I got close, but he used his controls at the end. I was having trouble correcting for a slight cross wind. By contrast, I did unassisted loop-the-loops (2g, then 4g), and a barrel role. So my $0.02 - landing not so easy..
I assumed you're saying someone with exclusively sim experience could do a decent landing on the first try (that is: on center line, no bounces, not too hard, no floating for thousands of feet) & without much help. Please correct if my assumption is wrong.
I just don't think that's possible. Most CFIs will be making inputs to make sure the landing doesn't endanger anyone. The student won't even realize it's the instructor making these corrections as they'll think it's the wind acting upon the control surfaces that are pushing the controls a bit. What I'm essentially saying is that the instructor was helping you way more than you think he was.
Sims don't really teach how to make good landings because you don't feel how hard the landing was.
While landing is harder, it is easily done with just a bit of practice in a flight simulator if the weather is fair when you are landing the real thing.
Landing is nowhere nearly as difficult as people make it out to be.
I do not have a pilots certificate, but I've flown real planes a lot in training situations. Granted, that was in a small single engine aircraft, and I've easily spent 100x as much time in simulators.
Thanks to flight simulators, I was able to fly the Cessna used in training alone all the way from engine start to engine stop, including taxiing, takeoff, cruise, 2-minute, 1-minute, and 30-second turns, landing hold pattern, and landing again on my very first time behind the controls. The instructor did not believe that flight simulation games could teach so much until I made that flight.
Instructors are not supposed to let newbie pilots do this, and he was ready at at the controls the entire time.
Anyway, landing is nowhere nearly as hard as people think.
It's not hard, if they had spent time around aircraft they provably had a rudimentary understanding of the controls. The dicey part is staying calm during the final stage of landing. You need to stay slow but not too slow and not panic and do something crazy as student pilots occasionally do early in training (going too fast, trying to force the plane to land but just porpoising down the runway, freezing, flaring too early and holding the flare, etc)
Took off and landed on my very first time as well :-)
(San Diego, Montgomery Field, March 2011).
The explanation my instructor gave me for the landing were perfect: Line up to the runway like this. Lower throttle and add flaps at these intervals. At the last checkpoint, point the nose of the plane at the numbers on the runway, like you were trying to collide with them, except that at the last moment you pull up and cut power to idle.
Worked like a charm. Maneuvering on the runway is harder than flying and landing. ($$@#!#$%! pedals working 2 ways and in the opposite direction from what I expected :-) )
Idk, I’ve only flown 172s and have only landed a handful of times myself, but I think you could fairly easily talk someone through landing with an at least decent chance of survival if the weather was good. I mean this is not an experiment you want to run, of course. But landing in good conditions is pretty intuitive. You can tell if your angle to the runway is good or bad pretty easily and just adjust the throttle. And those things will stop themselves with plenty of runway left. You could probably land a small plane halfway down the runway, not know how to operate the brakes, and still come to a crawl before the end in most places.
I wouldn’t take an even money wager on it but I don’t think it’s terribly unlikely to have a decent landing. Especially since the pilot likely was showing him the controls in air before going unresponsive.
It is fairly intuitive but my first few landings in a Cessna 150 were not pleasant at all. Granted it was a grass runway but I'd have been in serious trouble without my instructor. I'm sure the tower would have been able to give good guidance on pitch, angle, etc. but there's a lot of juggling going on when you're landing a plane, especially when you're inexperienced.
When I took flying lessons the hard part for me wasn't the landing or take off it was straight and level flight.
I would often find myself too high or in a shallow dive or a turn so my instructor would have to mention it to me.
It's not instinctive you'd think you would feel it but you don't. He ended up having to draw a line on the windscreen with a marker where the horizon was. I used the instruments but mainly it was VFR (visual flight rules) only.
My instructor was very hands on one day as we were heading for the runway he said "OK you take control and land." I think on my second lesson onward I took off each time.
Once I was landing trying to beat a small commuter jet (coming from the other direction!) and he said "See that?" Not the jet but I didn't see anything else "That over there, 2 o'clock low." Nope didn't see anything. Then I saw it a big purple hot air balloon a mile or two away very low with evergreen trees behind it so dark it blended in. So there I was my first or second landing with a hot air balloon and a jet both in my way.
The flare is the most important part but flaps and speed too of course but if there is anything to remember it's the flare at the last moment. Stare at the end of the runway aim for it as if you will crash there then at the last moment flare (pull back a bit) and you ride the bubble of air.
I can't see how a flight simulator would have helped at all other than the basics of instruments and the radio, nothing is like the feel of real flight.
"Landing: This must be the hardest part of flying to teach, because you can understand the concepts, theory, and techniques fully, and still make an absolute mess of a landing. So much depends on the "feel" of it, which varies significantly based on the plane you're in (even of the same type), the weather, and especially the wind."
"There is a simple way of... [accurately ascertaining] if a novice can indeed land an airliner, according to Patrick Smith: use a professional flight simulator, the kind airlines train their pilots with.
"Stick a person in a true, full-motion airline simulator at 35,000 feet, with no help, and watch what happens," he says. "It won't be pretty."
If you have a reasonable hang of the mechanics, I think most (sober, attentive, able-bodied) people could be coached into a survivable landing, given an airworthy plane and few passes at an airstrip. Un-aided, most, I agree, will fail.
I held a private pilot certification for a short while, and landed my 2nd ever time on the controls, albeit in a tiny single-engine cessna. While larger planes are slower to react to inputs, the basics still apply. But a crash off the coast suggests a landing attempt was not his penultimate manuver.
Wow, the pilot sticks the landing. That has to be difficult. The model appears to be moving much faster than a typical R/C plane. If you add the pilot's viewing angle... it must take a lot of practice.
It’s not that difficult to land; especially in a sim where you can experiment without worry.
It’s all in the setup - as you line up on your final approach, make sure you are at a prescribed speed and rate of descent; generally in a small plane (172 etc), you’re aiming for around 300-500ft/m at 70-80kts, and the plane is pointing to hit the runway at the threshold (piano keys / white lines).
Counter intuitive: Throttle controls rate of descent, elevators control speed. Mess around until you feel these two things clicking.
When you’re around 20-30ft above the threshold, reduce power to idle, keep the aircraft straight and level or the nose just slightly high and just let the plane drop on to the runway!
Whatever you do - don’t force it, take your time and you’ll have far more fun actually going to places and stopping there!
My flight simulator experience taught me that landing a big airplane is extremely more difficult than taking off, specially if unassisted by airport instrumentation.
I'm just learning to fly, and 4 FPS is plenty for me to land most of the time using VFR in fair weather (but even with some wind and realism settings turned up).
I fly only small, one or two prop planes and gliders, and do so pretty much by the seat of the pants -- no GPS, even an altimiter is not really that critical. I mostly just look out the window and use an airspeed indicator to make sure I'm not coming in too fast or slow.
I was just landing Piper Cubs this way all day today. Now steering those things on the ground is a real pain, even with real rudder pedals. My taxing skills are pretty weak.
Absolutely true. The odds of an untrained person safely landing on their first attempt are astronomical, but that doesn't mean you get to throw in the towel. If you are now the pilot, you better start acting like one in short order. First priority is getting the plane straight and level. Pick a distant object and head straight for it. You can't be afraid of the plane or doing something wrong. Of course if its on autopilot just leave it alone, but otherwise you have to take charge and straight and level is the first step. Then get on the radio and ask for help using plain English. But don't delude yourself thinking airplanes land themselves these days. It might make people feel better, but its not true. You are going to need help to have any chance.
There have been several experiments done for youtube videos where an untrained person is talked through a landing, sometimes without the benefit of ILS autoland. The latter is... not always successful.
I wonder if someone used to simpler aircraft might have done better at identifying the problem in AF447. Any pilot should know that given full power, an unknown airspeed, a nose-up attitude and a high descent rate that the airplane is probably in a stall.
We can probably assume it's a small passenger plane. I'm not a pilot but I've landed them a few times in flight sims.
It's a matter of getting the right level of descent and setting a few knobs and switches correctly. I could probably explain to you how to do it if you were playing a video game.
The real impressive thing is they were able to keep calm and go through the steps, or figure out how to use the radio, without freaking out. Not everyone is capable of that.
Sam here, ran out of money midway, but did attempt landings, and it's stupidly hard. So hard, in fact, that if you're in a Cirrus just pull back on the throttle and deploy the ballistic chute, I bet your odds are better.
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