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This would be a mess ya pants moment

cullennz

Banned
cullennz
Joined
Sep 21, 2006
Messages
21,318
Location
NZ
First flying lesson, trainer passes out.

Well done that man

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/trav...er-kiwi-instructor-passes-out-mid-flight.html

An Australian student pilot was forced to make a dramatic emergency landing after his Kiwi flight instructor passed out mid-flight.

On Saturday afternoon, Max Sylvester was just over an hour into his first flying lesson when he was forced to call air traffic control at Perth's Jandakot Airport.

In an audio recording of the call provided to ABC, Sylvester says his flight instructor - named by the media outlet as Kiwi Robert Mollard - had passed out and he was requiring assistance to land the Cessna aircraft.

"Do you know how to operate the airplane?" the air traffic control operator asks the student pilot.

"This is my first lesson," he says......................
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Those Cessna 152's and 172's are easy to land. Wouldn't want to solo in one after only 3 hours though.

Ranb
 
Well done that man. It reminded me of the 17-year old student pilot on a solo flight, who lost a wheel on takeoff.
 
Puppycow said:
I wonder if he had any practice on a flight simulator.
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As in Microsoft Flight Simulator on a home computer? I tried it several times before and after lessons in the air. It was of no help at all to me at all when I was initially learning to fly.
 
Ranb said:
As in Microsoft Flight Simulator on a home computer? I tried it several times before and after lessons in the air. It was of no help at all to me at all when I was initially learning to fly.
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Not even a little bit?

Well I suppose that a professional grade flight simulator with a cockpit like a real plane would be better than Microsoft Flight Simulator on a home computer.
 
There was an incident, many years ago, when the pilot of a two-seater plane died suddenly of a heart attack leaving his entirely inexperienced passenger alone in the cockpit. I can't remember if the passenger was having a flying lesson or was just a passenger. As far as I recall they sent up another plane with a pilot who was able to talk to the guy by radio and they managed to instruct him well enough to get the plane down. I think everybody had expected a crash though. I actually think I read about it in the Readers' Digest!
 
Good gracious, that isn't the incident I was thinking about, that was only six years ago and the one I had in mind goes back a lot longer than that. I think it was in the West Country somewhere. But very similar, except in the one I'm thinking about the pilot died suddenly and instantly.
 
TVTropes calls it Crash Course Landing. (Warning: TVTropes link. Be prepared to spend way too much time there.)

There is a section of the page about this occurring in Real Life. Here's the part that might be of interest to Rolfe:

This has never happened in a big jumbo jet, but there was an early 1980s episode of Thats Incredible where they tell the story of a husband-and-wife who went up in his small plane. During the flight, he has a heart attack and falls unconscious. The wife, getting instructions from the aircraft control tower, successfully landed the plane.

A similiar (or possibly the same) incident was recounted in an issue of Reader's Digest.​
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The person who landed the plane in the case I'm thinking of was a man, so not the same case. Interesting how often it has happened though. Maybe a case for the mandatory carrying of a parachute in two-seater aircraft? Of course, in a big Jumbo Jet, there are two pilots.

(That page won't let me read it unless I agree to have it tailor ads to my personality or something. So no, basically.)
 
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Rolfe said:
(That page won't let me read it unless I agree to have it tailor ads to my personality or something. So no, basically.)
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Suggestion. I recently started using a browser extension called NoScript which seems to block that sort of nonsense nicely and just lets you read the text without ads, pop-up videos or pop-up demands to agree to this or that:

https://noscript.net/

You can also disable it temporarily and set the sites you use regularly to trusted
for sites that use a lot of script.
 
I'm using a browser in a controlled environment where we aren't allowed to install extensions, and I don't get that popup. There are google ads at the bottom of the screen, but nothing so intrusive.

But yeah, install a script blocker if you're concerned. There's literally no downside to that.
 
Puppycow said:
Not even a little bit?

Well I suppose that a professional grade flight simulator with a cockpit like a real plane would be better than Microsoft Flight Simulator on a home computer.
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Not even a little bit. It is like the difference between a small radio controlled car and driving a real car. I certainly did not feel connected to the plane while playing with the simulator

Now if I had an instructor next to me coaching me while flying the simulator, it might have been helpful.
 
Rolfe said:
The person who landed the plane in the case I'm thinking of was a man, so not the same case. Interesting how often it has happened though. Maybe a case for the mandatory carrying of a parachute in two-seater aircraft? Of course, in a big Jumbo Jet, there are two pilots.

(That page won't let me read it unless I agree to have it tailor ads to my personality or something. So no, basically.)
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Most big aircraft have 3 now days.

Captain
First Officer
Flight Engineer

All pilots with the same level of training, just different responsibilities
 
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Flight engineers haven't been required on modern aircraft since at least the 1980's*. Are you perhaps thinking of the second officer?

Depending on the length of the flight, usually those approaching 16+ hours there might even be a another captain or first or second officer onboard as relief crew, for a total of 4 type-rated pilots.

* Fun fact, despite the aircraft being designed for a two-person crew, Ansett ordered their 767's with a few instruments swapped around, in order to justify a Flight engineer's position. After a few years, they were converted to the standard 2-man cockpit.
 
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