Not really a realistic scenario and I think there’s little to be learned from this video, but I still found it interesting. Well, entertaining rather. I also think that guy was rather smart, given he had no clue about flying. Loved how he used the “handbrake”…
Trying to retrace the guy’s reasoning, I find it pretty similar to my own experiments with the simulator before I started any flight training. I knew about the stick and throttle and, having a master’s degree in physics, could understand the general mechanics of flight, but had no practical experience whatsoever, and I tried to take an F-16 from KSFO San Francisco to KOAK Oakland or to KNGZ Alameda naval air station (chose them because I knew the geography of that area – the coastline and bridges give you very good clues as to where you are). Like the guy in the video, I had no idea whatsoever about the flare, so my “glidepaths” were quite shallow (more like hugging the terrain and closing the throttle at the threshold) and all the touchdowns were on three points or possibly on the nose gear, yet I managed to get the gizmo on the ground in one piece on most attempts. The most difficult issue was not to overshoot the runway.
It seemed to me the guy was unafraid to try something carefully, gain a little understanding, then try something else. That’s a lot better than freezing! I was surprised to see a successful landing without overrun, but if I understood the airport correctly it has a fairly long runway.
The first time I flew an Ercoupe (with no rudder pedals and a foot brake pedal like a car) I decided you could teach anybody to make a safe solo circuit around the airport with a day of instruction… Its an amazing design. Fred Weick was the designer of the Ercoupe and was later heavily involved in the PA-28, so maybe that is a factor.
Would you do this with a friend?
I’ve let friends who came along flying and who don’t seem nervous about the whole thing take the yoke and fly straight-and-level and let them get a bit of a feel for it, some shallow turns, a bit up and down – but never anything close to an approach and always at altitude.
Now, I could in theory see myself doing something like this with some folks – but then realistically, with most airfields around having a good amount of traffic/student traffic/pattern traffic around, I’d be apprehensive about letting someone zig-zag across the area.
Also, to be honest, I would have cancelled this much, much earlier. I wouldn’t have had the nerve, especially when the guy starts messing with the flaps while sort-of-flaring.
I do understand the PIC was supporting on the controls during the end of the approach and the actual landing, no?
Patrick wrote:
Also, to be honest, I would have cancelled this much, much earlier. I wouldn’t have had the nerve, especially when the guy starts messing with the flaps while sort-of-flaring.
Maybe, but I’m sure every flight instructor has voluntarily dealt with much worse students!
Patrick wrote:
I do understand the PIC was supporting on the controls during the end of the approach and the actual landing, no?
You can see it in the video.
I enjoyed the video but to be honest, I would not have wanted to come that low over the trees and the ‘pilot’ decide that pulling back on the yoke makes the trees go away because at that height, you have little enough height to recover from an inadvertent stall. What made me really laugh wasn’t the ‘brake’ but the way he manoeuvred off the runway – turning the yoke and sure enough, it turned…. Reminds me of my first lesson, expecting the plane to turn when I turned the yoke…..
