Blind Pilot?
 

Is this old? (well it wasn't obviously!)
Pilot goes blind in mid-air but RAF talk him down safely - The Daily Record

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-sto...5875-20874959/

The article in the paper describes both the Cessna & the Tucano as jets!!

Thats the media for you.... My wife was watching a TV show about Jordan and Peter Andre (celebs apparantly) and they were off to S. Africa and flying around in their private jet. She called me through to see this "jet" and it was a Turboprop so technically a jet I guess, but the other aircraft looked suspiciously like a wheezy old cessna 172.
Needless to say I went back to what I was doing:bored::bored:

Once again I'm very glad that we have the RAF, and that they have the freedom and imagination to handle situations like this. Well done to them! :ok:

What a great story:eek:

What a poor piece of journalism:mad:

Best wishes to a VERY lucky pilot - I hope he defies the odds to get back in the pilot seat, although I guess it will be with some sort of NPPL or proximilty limitation now.

I have always been impressed with how the RAF deal with unusual situations and emergencies - D&D in particular, although I doubt that the pilot woud have been able to talk directly to them. Its reassuring that they are there when you need them (especialy when your emergency happens in Yorkshire).

Medals and cake all round:D:D:D:D:D

Does anybody know for sure what plane type this was? The reports are everything from a 2-seater Cessna to a Citation :ugh:

If it was something reasonably equipped then a coupled approach on the autopilot would perhaps be the best way?

Yeah, it was Cessna 4 seat jet !

How do you select an ILS frequency when you can't see?

That's a good point, BP :ok:

Is our new Tucano fighter force a result of more of Browns' stealthy cut-backs ?

To be honest, I'd really like to know more about what he could and could not see, exactly. One report suggests "blind" while another suggests "a blur".

Now a blur would allow you to see the horizon, more or less. Or maybe just the direction where the sunlight is coming from. So you have a reasonable chance of keeping the aircraft right side up without outside assistance. But if the pilot was indeed 100% blind he would not even see the real or artificial horizon and had to be kept right side up by sense and outside coaching alone.

The fact that he attempted three landings before the RAF scrambled a plane (or at least before the RAF plane formed up with him) suggests that he had some vision left, at least good enough to keep the plane upright, accept steering directions (I hesitate to call them vectors because I don't think he could see a compass) and get reasonably close to a runway, on final approach.

Well done all around. And I think 18 years of experience must have helped!

From Dan Dare; 'I have always been impressed with how the RAF deal with unusual situations and emergencies - D&D in particular, although I doubt that the pilot woud have been able to talk directly to them. Its reassuring that they are there when you need them (especialy when your emergency happens in Yorkshire).'

Not a problem and we would normally talk directly to them via 121.5, 243 or on a frequency allocated by ATC.

Depends on your familiarity of the actual aircraft that you are in.

If you know the frequency that the (presumably Nav 1 [for A/P coupling]) box is currently selected to - possibly aided by selecting ident on the audio panel (by touch - count the buttons from the left) and by having *LEARNED* morse code and being able to read it - you could then count the clicks of the frequency selector knobs and change from current to desired frequency and re-ident.

Fortunately the ILS does not require the CDI (or similar) to be aligned with desired - so I guess that the A/P should be able to cope.

I *have* personally tried the first part - ident and retune, whilst simulated "blind" - but I've never tried to couple an A/P aftwerwards.

The first thought that springs to mind is that many A/P's follow the heading bug - and you wouldn't be able to set that.....ahh, yes you would (with ATC and radar help).

It depends on how much exactly you can see. If the NAV1 radio is already tuned to the ILS (which in my case it would be say 50nm before destination, because I use NAV2 for VORs) then engaging the AP to fly the ILS is easy enough, and a good AP will take you all the way to the runway. But totally blind? Not really possible.

Unless the plane had autoland I don't think a lot would be gained by a coupled approach. I would have thought it more likely to be a C172 and a talk down by the RAF plane - as in, descend, add a bit of power, left a bit, right a bit. A bit like an SRA. The RAF would have been his "aircraft attitude" eyes. I don't know where he landed but a big grass airfield would have been useful.

Poor guy though, reports say he is seriously ill. Presumably from an unknown medical condition (as in, unknown when he started the flight).

Keygrip, I agree that if you know the frequency nav1 is on, you can flip that frequency to standby, count the keyclicks and flip the new frequency to active. You don't need to learn morse: you can just ask ATC for what the ident should be and ask them to spell it out in morse.

Flip-flopping your nav1 frequency in the air is fine but if you make just one single mistake in flipping or adjusting your com1 frequency, you're not just blind, but deaf as well. I would not, under any circumstances, give up my ability to talk to someone when I just lost my vision. If D&D wants to talk to me, fine, they can join me on my present frequency, thank you very much.

Having said that, the GNS 430 (and possibly other units) have a feature where you press a certain button for a number of seconds and then it puts 121.5 in the standby frequency straight away. That's the only thing I would possibly give a try, as far as my com1 is concerned.

I would definitely go for that if I were able to set it up. Let the aircraft fly itself all the way to the tarmac, at a speed just above stall speed so that the main wheels touch first. Maybe chop the power 10-20 feet above the runway and let the autopilot and gravity battle it out - my estimate is that the autopilot, in order to maintain the glideslope, would pull up the aircraft a bit, trading speed for a reduction in vertical speed and effectively executing a sort of flare.

Or simply let the A/P fly the ILS but ask ATC to give you a cue when you're 10 feet above the ground. Then disconnect, chop the power, pull back the column until you hear the stall warner, and keep it there until you touch.

Landing on a large airport with a large, unobstructed runway and specialist emergency services nearby would be preferable than landing in a large field of unknown quality, I'd say.

As I said earlier, it matters greatly whether the pilot could see the horizon, or at least the direction the sunlight is coming from, and thus whether he could keep the plane upright. If he can't, the only instructions you can reasonably give are along the lines of "bank right a bit" "a bit more" "bank left a bit" "pitch down a bit" "reduce power a bit" and so forth. Trouble is, we all do this unconsciously when flying, because we can see a horizon (artificial or real) and now the pilot of the chase plane has to do this consciously all of a sudden (while keeping his own plane in the air simultaneously). No trivial task.

It would be like sitting next to someone in a car and giving driving directions along the lines of "steering wheel to the right a bit more", "break" and so forth. I think James May did that once in Top Gear, having a blind guy drive (race, actually) around the circuit.

press stupidity!
 

had to check my calendar: NO ITS NOT the 1st of April! It's the 7th of November. am i dreaming or am i blind, too?

As usual, bad journos have ensured that the storey dosn't stack up. Why/how would you modify a Tucano to fly slowly enough to pace a "Cessna jet"? Can a Tucano even keep up with a Citation? If it was a C152/172, 15,000ft is a tad high, although it would explain a possible stroke at that altitude. I too would be incapacitated or die of old age before my C152 achieved that altitude.

Well done RAF, Excellent! - best wishes and a speedy recovery to Mr O'Neill.

I would imagine had he been totally blind and without autopilot already engaged (or extremely trusting of his sense of touch in order to engage it) then he would've ended up in a spiral dive within minutes, if not seconds.

VFE.

James did really well. I haven't spoken to him about it yet, but I'm very glad to see he got down in one piece!

Nice one fella!

I believe it was a turbocharged 182, so more than capable of those altitudes.

From a post in the Mil thread running on the same event

excellent! well done to all

I was at Full Sutton at the time and took the call on the landline from Linton. They said he had trouble with glare and wanted to get him to us. He had called a pan then downgraded it himself. He flew twice through our overhead at 1000-1500 ft from the W and again from the SE and could not see us . He was straight level, in cruise, no flaps, good viz. He never switched to our A/G, very wise 'cos it was only me there.

Chap from Linton on the phone sounded like they did this sort of thing every day.

Excellent job all round, hope he recovers fully.

Ive just seen it on our local news up here in Edinburgh. Good job by all those involved:ok:

What a fantastic story with a great outcome after months of lousy news!

Well done to both the RAF and the pilot. I hope he will make a total recovery.

Truly sensational this, blind or blurred, no matter, to think the RAF is able to do this in such a calm and solid way means we DO have an angel in the sky!

I was truly moved when i heard the radio recording.

First Lewis Hamilton wins championship, then Obama gets himself elected president then this. If I believed in a god I would thank him/her.

BBC NEWS | England | North Yorkshire | Blind pilot guided to land by RAF

This previously posted link now has an interview with his son.

TV reporting that the sight in one eye was gone and very limited / blurred vision the other eye but able to just about make out the runway at approx 400 meters.

( his eye sight is improving)

From the RAF:

RAF Linton-on-Ouse - News and Weather

Stunning job.

I had wondered
 

What would I do if I became blind for who knows why.
It's incredible to see that this worked out harmlessly.

As to the media, the person could see but VERY VERY limited. The point at which he saw the runway was apparently just before touch down?

1/60

Very well done to all concerned
 

...... and best wishes for a speedy recovery to Mr. O'Neill.

Just an observation though (possibly only relevant for informational purposes, to any lurking journo's), but it would have been either a VERY BRAVE or VERY FOOLHARDY pilot to take a Cessna through the Vale of York AIAA at 15,000ft! :eek:
I'm sure we'll find out eventually what the actual facts are once the official incident report is published, though.

Thumbs up to the RAF guys, great job :ok:

The BBC have posted an audio clip of the RTF...

BBC NEWS | UK | Talking down the blind pilot

Yes, a good job done by the RAF...
But some of the repondents here are as bad as the Journos, if not worse!!!!
Lets wait and see what really happened...
UV

The recording
 

shows just how bad the situation was, the pilot couldn't see the runway at all (in otherwise good visibility conditions one assumes) until basically when he was touching down. Definately worth listening!

I would have thought that losing your eyesight is a very distressing situation at best.

Even safely on the ground I think it would cause panic in most of us.

Well done to all concerned.

Again reported facts are confused,15000ft or 5000ft, Cessna basic or Turbo, vision blind or restricted, Mayday or PAN, RAF Tucano specially modified for incident, missed radar solo approach at York.
It has been demonstrated that experienced pilots (road or air) can achieve world records if accompanied by sighted 'navigators' alongside.
A result in this case, I guess the RAF pilot will get an extra Xmas card, at least and James will be thankful it was only a CVA, not a heart attack!

Well done both!

Hats off to both the chaps involved, a job extremely well done.

I had to chuckle at the Cessna pilots remark on sighting the runway " am I cleared to land" :ok: that would have probably been the last thing on my mind in the circumstances, your professionalism shone through Sir.

A remarkable day after the incidents over the last few weeks.

What a wonderful outcome for all concerned. The incapacitated pilot was so cool and focused and the shepherd did a super job and in both cases the training shone through (as well as experience of course). Why then do I find it a little bit disingenuous for some to suggest the RAF chap get a medal for his efforts. He did a SUPERB job but surely not to warrant a medal! This is being suggested on the mil thread about the incident.