Is it technically possible?

[nvangogh]

Have you seen that Stephen Spielberg movie "The Langoliers"?
The people are stranded at a deserted airport and there is only limited time to escape on a big airliner.. a good movie , but what i want to know is -

Suppose you have a private pilot licence for a Cessna 152 - that's all you have flown and can fly it well. Is it technically possible, if push came to shove, for you to fly a massive son of a gun airliner?

The principles of take off flight and landing must be the same. If anything i would think an airliner would be easy as the computers control most things.

What's the true position?

[welliewanger]

The theory of flight is the same, BUT unlike in light singles (where the performance characteristics are very similar) in an airliner the speeds for take off / landing vary massively, as do pitch angles and cruise speeds. There are all sorts of handling characteristics which a PPL would not know. If there was someone to talk them through it, then it might be possible. It's not that a PPL is not sufficiently trained to fly an airliner (technique wise), but that they don't know how to.

The other problem (and probably an even bigger problem) would be how to operate the systems. My aircraft is fairly modern and "easy", but to do the absolute minimum to get it airborne you need to.
- Battery master ON
- Wait for system to run tests (1-2 min)
- APU switch RUN
- After APU has finished BITE tests, turn it to RUN and hold for 2 seconds
- Once APU has run up, system completes 15 seconds more tests
- Hydraulic pumps ON
- Engine run switches ON (one at a time, each start takes 1 min)
That'll get you enough to just about get into the air, but there's no navigation, no attitude indicator, no radios, no performance info, you'd need a huge runway (slat/flap not selected) Each of these items is a button or switch "somewhere" in the flight deck and has to be operated in the correct sequence. It's very simple when you know how, but without someone telling you how to do it and where the controls were it'd take hours of trial and error.

[Phileas Fogg]

Sounds like a similar scenario as the movie 'Executive Decision'.

[BALLSOUT]

They would be unlikely to even fiure out how to start the engines! The computers don't fly airoplanes, they are simply tools to help the pilots fly them. I wonder if someone that has a rubber dingy could handle a ship?

[Facelookbovvered]

They reckon a non IR rated pilot will loose control within 90 sec of going into IMC conditions.

I think that once airborne with everything up and running and a clear day ie not IMC you could fly it with PPL knowledge as the 9/11 hijackers proved, but they didn't need to learn how to land it!!

You could probably talk a PPL through an auto land set up with guidance on speeds and flap setting provided the A/P & A/T was left in, otherwise i think it would get away from a PPL because of the large pitch couple with under wing engines.

Even an IR rated pilot would do little better, because of the need to understand the programing of Flight Director systems.

If your interested in finding out have a word with one of the fixed base 737 outfits, i reckon an hour in the sim and you would be able to land it ok.

So its not a special skill set, its training

[Hacker15e]

Stephen King, perhaps?