Would you be able to land an Airliner in an emergency ?

[Guest prichards]

My first 10 landing where awful! It took me about 20 to get the flare feel!Some days I go flying and my landings are nice, some days you go and there bad! I also have a hard time understanding how your first ten landings were "...really smooth and controlled."I personally think fs feels nothing like the real thing on approach and flare! You don't get ground affect and surface winds and they play major factors in the round out and flare. So how can you have a feel for correcting these affects when fs does not simulated them. Also on your final and flare, the ailerons don't do jack because of the slow airspeed. your control comes from the throttle, pitch elevators and rudder!All my landings are short field. I find landing on days with no wind harder then day with a good headwind. No wind means the you need a longer approach. I fly a C172 and if I'm not over the threshold at 60KTS the plane will just float and not land. With a good head wind the airspeed bleeds strait away when you cut power!Here are some of my flying pics.http://www.freewebs.com/cessnapilot/

[teropa 4]

Ray,I'll tell this again.The landings were fine. He was not helping at all. I know what a good landing looks like, and also what is a bad landing. I've flown in small props for a good 16 years. Believe me, not everyone needs the "official training" to learn how to do something. Landing a C172 is easy, and once you get the hang of how the aircraft behaves and what are the needed control inputs to make her do what you want, it's simple really.edit: If it makes you or anyone else feel better, I can say that the landings were awful (even though they weren't).edit2: I just remembered vividly the first time I tried it (must have been ~ 10 years ago). My non-experience in the landing part was mostly seen in that I was pulling too little in the very final part of the landing. Whereas most of the new pilots tend to balloon the aircraft, I noticed that I pulled too little just before the touchdown. The real C172 sinks in (given a correct speed) pretty fast if you aren't sharp. So there I was having difficulty with. I didn't say the landings were perfect :).Tero

[LawnDart 19]

Ok.. THAT I can believe. A C172 feels like a mack truck on your very first flare. The elevator inputs required to put the AC on the runway are surprisingly quite large and will surprise the heck out of any inexperienced pilot, which only solidifies my thinking that someone with only sim experience will most likely turn a beautiful aircraft into thousands of recycled aluminum cans.My most intense landing was in a C172. A sudden storm had kicked up and I found myself with a 25-Knot sustained crosswind on final, along with a wall of black rain on the departure end. I (obviously ;-) ) was able to get it down, and here's the question of the day: How did I do it? (Hint: full right rudder had no effect.. the nose was still tracking a good 45 degrees off centerline)

[Splash_One 0]

You guys notice this thread was started in August 2002? 21 Months ago... 1 year, 9 months...:-eek Wow. :-lol

[Guest Julian McCoy]

i posted in this earlier but that was when it was first started well over a year ago, now things have changed in my life and i can now say with confidence and my recent training that im well qualified to land an airliner in an emergency.

[Guest prichards]

>>>was able to get it down, and here's the question of the day: How did I do it? (Hint: full right rudder had no effect.. the nose was still tracking a good 45 degrees off centerline):)If it was me I would give the throttle a burst of power so the prop wash will give the rudder more yaw.

[LawnDart 19]

Your instructor would be proud!That was it... a generous burst of power allowed the nose to come back over the centerline just as the mains hit.Although the landing was a success, it's not one of my prouder moments, as I shouldn't have taken off knowing that there were squalls in the area. I put myself in a bad situation for which I am lucky to be talking about here.That was Moment #2 in my recreational flying that I care not to re-live.Moment #1 came when the ink wasn't even dry on my PPL certificate. I wanted to take a bunch of friends up to show off my newly-acquired skills (or lack thereof). So.. a quick weight and balance showed me to be 100lbs overweight. The FBO was NOT happy at my request to drain fuel from the tanks.(Always listen to that inner voice!!)The takeoff roll was agonizingly slow on this 1900' runway. The moment the mains left the runway I knew I had a very serious problem on my hands. At any VSI indication above a 50FPM climb, the stall horn chirped.Now.. being way too heavy and on the edge of the W/B envelope, I flew around locally for about an hour to burn off more fuel because the landing would be 'interesting'.Here's another trivia question: How would you execute your approach knowing you were overweight with the CG a few inches aft of the rear limit?After my "Moment #1" I discovered that inner voice... "Moment #2" is when I started listening to it...

[teropa 4]

Pete,Why is that ? Am I full of myself if I dare to admit that I'm able to do something without official training ? Now to the question. From my absolutely non-existant flights, that I've never been on, and I have never seen this happen, of course. If the crosswind is that tough, you can't approach in a slip. My guess is that you had a good 15 kts of extra speed carried over, and approached in a crab (not cross-controlled), right before the touchdown you kicked the crab away and also lowered the wing into the wind, with the extra speed carried all the way to touchdown, and did a power-on landing.But, what do I know, I have never flown on any aircraft obviously.Btw, here's a picture that my friend didn't take yesterday when we were having fun with PA-28 stall characteristics...http://www.ee.oulu.fi/~partanen/020504/IMG_0446.jpgTero, full of myself again.

[Guest Ken_Salter]

Actually, if you look in the FAR under commercial operations, the pilot and the copilot cannot have the same meal on a flight, so there is almost no chance of them both being unable to fly the plane. So I wouldn't worry about it.

[Guest jbpropilot]

This prevents both of them from having the fish for dinner.Jay BirchCFI, CFII, MEIAzalea Air, Inc. (KBFM)http://www.clearedasfiled.com/images/simpics/jaycfi.gif

[Guest Ken_Salter]

Yeah, as long as one of them has steak or lasagna, everything is tip top.

[Guest cw1011]

I'll let you know after my two hours of sim time in Denver!

[Guest Martin]

>Yeah, as long as one of them has steak or lasagna, everything>is tip top."Yes... I clearly remember having lasagna." :-)Martin767 fetishistIt's a lot like life and that's what's appealing

[Guest ba747heavy]

I read this thread 1 year and 9 months ago when it was first posted, and I held off on my response until now...Answer 1: Yes I could land that aircraft.Answer 2: No I couldn't.If you walk me to the front office, sit me in a chair, and hand me the yoke, we are all going to die. I have no illusions on this. I do not have the skills to be able to *hand* fly that aircraft.However, I am very familiar with 737NG aircraft. I would feel comfortable landing a 737Ng based plane with the autopilot. I know my skills are good enough to be able to follow a CATIII ILS down for an autolanding.

[brucek 38]

My thoughts are that people without flying experience would have trouble landing a Cessna in calm conditions, as the real thing is so different from this virtual world we play in.But on a broader perspective- for those of us taking the UAL sim time in Denver this fall, and if that sim time includes a landing, how many will walk away from them? That could prove to be very interesting, and would be cool to have a followup thread on how the UAL instructor said we did in a plane that we think we can "fly". And even more so if the autopilot is failed also, or even one engine out.Bruce.