'Is there a pilot on board?'
 

Do you ever sit there on an airliner fantasising about what you would do if the call came on the intercom, 'Is there a pilot on board?' Could you land a 777?

I had the fantastic opportunity to find that out last week. A friend who is a 777 first officer with a major airline got us a slot on their simulator - the real deal, full motion job - and we spent a happy three hours. So... from my experience, as a bog-standard PPL/IMC with 250 hours (and lots of time spent on MS Flight Sim at home):

(a) I couldn't have done it without my friend telling me what to do - configurations, speeds, &c. But in the real-life scenario, of course, they get someone on the radio to do that (don't they?...)

(b) I didn't use the autopilot, but the thing which really made it easy was the flight director. Whoever invented that should be better known than they are. With speeds/headings/altitudes dialled into the autopilot, hand-flying it to the FD's instructions was a piece of cake.

(c) The systems involved are absolutely mind-boggling, and I have a greatly renewed respect for airline pilots. The time required to learn what all those overhead switches do must be considerable.

(d) The actual experience of hand-flying - circuits, for example - was much easier than I expected. It felt big, but not unreasonably so, and was quite responsive.

(e) Flying under bridges in a 777 is great fun... especially when you bump the plane on a wave and feel the shudder through the entire aircraft.*

(f) The simulator is unbelievably lifelike, even though the visuals are like Flight Sim 1990-vintage. The full motion and sounds are totally convincing.

(g) You can fly an aileron roll in a 777 without losing altitude, though you do have to fight the plane to do it (over 30 deg bank it actively tries to right the plane working against your control inputs). We didn't try a loop...

(h) If the call came for real, yes, I could fly it. With some help from a nice guy on the radio.

Tim

*edited to add: more fun once we'd found the circuit breaker for the EGPWS - which was otherwise rather maddening...

i could fly it. maybe even land it. but it most likely wouldnt be serviceable again.

just make sure that the B777 pilot in the tower (talking me down) hasnt got a vietnam recurring nightmare problem!

Interesting. For some time now I have been trying to sort out some sim-time for ordinary ppl's to try their hand at flying and landing a 737.

Idea is to be strait and level at 10.000ft. You then have to get down to land on rwy27L at Gatwick in one go with only someone telling you what to do as in the first post.

The only criteria is you must hold a ppl, regardless of hours.

I will chase a few things up and hopefully post the invitation here soon.

As they say, "Watch this Space" :)

Sim
 

I will be up for some of that! I have flown an MD80 sim at Gatwick years ago and it was great fun

well can I be number 2 on the list for that then please :ok: - i might see If I can organise somthing similar with a hercules c-130 simulator if anyone would be intersted? :ok:

Isn't a C-130 like a Cessna with four engines? :E

yes it is :ok:

Count me in then! :cool:

Idea is to be strait and level at 10.000ft. You then have to get down to land on rwy27L at Gatwick

Even the ace of the base would find this task completely impossible.

:eek: ???????????????????????:ugh:

Gatwick's runways are 08-26 R & L ... :-)

Wow, I'm up for this one, had a go in the F111 simulator at Upper Heyford many moons ago, luckily they gave me unlimited fuel (it took me a long while to remember to turn off the reheat. Oh and I didn't quite make the runway when I got back to base landed on a nearby freeway (Americans don't have motorways) great experience.

I was in the 747Sim at Cranfield a couple of weeks ago doing the exact same thing for a Human Factors experiment. It is actually surpisingly easy to land as long as you read the RadAlt and not just the pic out the window. I managed to land 6/6 on the runway with no damage. My co-pilot was not quite so lucky however...........:p

I'd certainly like a shot at the sim as well if at all possible !


random

Likewise, would be a good experience having flown a BA 777 at Cranebank some years ago, £600 per hr, £10 per minute :eek:

Never had a go on any sim, and would certainly love the opportunity!

dp

Hey, have you never seen the little grass strip next to 26L????? :O :O :O :O :O :O :O :O :O :O :O

to land 777...you don't need a pilot for that;)
You need a pilot to land Tu-154 and Cessna, Piper, Moony etc. :)

oooops := :D :)

They did something like this on Krypton Factor many years ago. Only watched it once (honest) and one of the contestents did a very good job of landing a jet, others not so good at all. This was before people had flight sims at home which would teach you how to do it before you turned up for the show.

About 12-15 years ago I had a trip in the BA 744 sim at Cranebank. Landing at LHR was straight-forward enough, Kai Tak at night was tremendous sport. :D

I am up for it:ok:

Have mangaged to put down a 747-400 on 13 at Kai TAK thanks to the nice guys at BA Cranebank in 1995.

To start we tried the L1011 - 500 whitch was a real eye opener and for me difficult to fly accuratley. I remember struggling to take all of the information in given the that it was an analogue cockpit and needed a full crew including a F/E to get the best out of it. Those windows were amazing with excellent visibility, I remember subsequently travelling in the jumpseat accross the pond to KJFK and the base of the window was level with my thigh...any way the session culminated in me landing on top of hatton cross underground...not good.

For the 747 we started with general handling out of KJFK including almost taking the aerial of the top of one of the twin towers, but lets not go there.....the sound effects were amazing even could feel the nose whell clunk home. My missus who at the time was serving as cabin crew on the same type concurred that the feeling and effects were spot on. After the initial fun we then switched to a checkerboard approach into Kai Tak..from memory the aircraft was very stable but had massive inertia and required positive handling, managed to "hit" the touchdown zone and with full reverse and heavy braking managed to stop before the end....absolutley amazing. The fact is that with the MFD display with predictive trend data and a freindly co-pilot handling the rubber bands, the bird is quite easy to fly.

The only experience I had was MS Flt sim at the time.

Now with a PPl I believe that with the knowledge of a remote co-pilot and a glass cockpit, the passengers would walk away. However if you happen to be onboard an analaogue bird, you will struggle.......

One point to wrap up and the only other consideration I could see getting in the way....what if it is a double crew incapacitation? Could the CC get the door open to let you in????

I have an hour in an A320 sim at Cranebank, as a ppl holder found it ok to fly a circuit and tricky to make the landings smooth, had a fair amount of help from the guy in the left hand seat mind !!!

Such a shame the old Biggin Trident sim isn't still available.

i had some time/minutes in the BA trident sim. many many moons ago. c1971?
think it was at cranebank?

best fun you can have with your trousers on.

Radalt not really necessary, at least in the 777, as the nice voice calls out the numbers for you - as my friend recommended, at 50ft think about flaring, at 30ft gently bring the nose up, all then happens entirely predictably.

Tim

BRL
Count me in!

HH

I'd love a shot at flying a sim. Count me in if possible.
Thanks, GS

I think if there were a double incapacitation, the most likely thing to happen would be for someone to be instructed how to perform an autoland.

So unless both pilots kick the bucket and then there is a lack of ILS equipped runways, this won't be happening anytime soon.....

I'd be up for a spot of big time simming... please count me in.

Me too! :ok:

I'm a 'Ted Striker' wannabe.

Count me in please.

one of the flying mags did an article on just this scenario about 6 years ago:

I think it was Pilot:might have been Flyer but it was before T's P.

Anybody got the ref?

Safe flying

Cusco

If I actually was in that situation, I see two options:

1) Talk to someone on the radios, try to be a hero, and handfly the bogger.

-or-

2) Talk to someone on the radios about how to program the automatic flight system for a full autoland at the airport around with the longest runway/best rescue services/etc, let the automatics do the job, and let the purser/cabin crew chief organize an evacuation.


I like to think no 1 is more fun, but no 2 seems more reasonable.

Good to know that I'm not the only crazy person in the world who thinks of such scenarios where a pilot would be needed for some unforseen reason :)

I'm sure that with help over the radio, i'd be able to land it!

bfisk,

We did a full cat II autoland (not cat III simply because you wouldn't actually see anything!) and I have to say it was awesome. We made the weather absolutely atrocious and it still greased it on!

T