They each tried twice, on the first try they had no outside help and each of them crashed the simulator. On the second try, with someone talking them through the process over the radio they each were able to land the plane safely, and they were manually flying the plane.
The problem with the Mythbusters scenario is that from some of the footage it appeared to me that the expert help was sat at the external sim console, in which case he could see the same flight instruments (and possibly the also visual CGI picture) as Jamie and Adam. That would make his job of coaching them significantly easier than if he was having to extract possibly fast changing vital information from them, such as airspeed, altitude and attitude, verbally via the R/T.
Bolkow
Was there not an incidetn some years back I believe in China where a flight sim enthusiast entered a 747 cockpit in flight took the plane and executed a barrel roll just to prove to himself that he could do it?
Nope, really not heard of that one
- there
was a notorious incident involving a China Airlines 747 ending up an interesting attitude and subsequently attaining an interesting airspeed , but that was achieved by a qualified crew
- there's also the incident involving a passenger gaining access to the flight deck of a 747 over Africa a few years back and "wrestling" with the crew for control of the aircraft....maybe you're confusing/combining the two incidents?