Poll : would you be able to land a plane in RL ?

[Rickenbacker]

Hehe, of course I have those dreams  .

I fly gliders in real life, so I know I can land a plane. I could probably put down one of these warbirds or a jet if the weather was good, too, but I don't think it would be very pretty  .


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        Rickenbacker (Ricken)

                -ISAF-
the Independent Swedish Air Force

[tshred]

Yep, have hundreds of landing on wheels, floats and amphib floats.

Worst landing ever? The day I ditched my float plane on a gravel road, the kind of floats without wheels! Only good thing about it was that I got a new set of skins and keel strips from the bow to the main step on both floats($6500 later). Oh, and we walked away of course  . Have a picture of it sitting on the road somehwere........

ts

[Duckwing6]

After years of glider towing i have quite some "landings from unusual position" under my belt .. i think most sim pilots could learn it VERY quickly .. but IMHO without an instructor for the first vew tries we'd look at a lot of bent planes..

It's just hard to get the flare right .. most people tend to round out early and not even a C152 Landing gear can stand a 30 feet drop

DW6

[Ripsnort]

Done it in RL, but not with a license!  

[blitz]

Hossa,

did a trainingsflight(was a present from a girlfriend ,who was tired of seeing me flyin always on the puter) in Cessna 152 the last year. Did eyerything by myself exept a complete landing. Heh, that was fun...

Well, think i can bring down such a plane in 1 piece  

blitz

[Ice]

Your only experience being a computer sim, the odds of you either killing yourself or destroying a perfectly good aircraft would be great.

There obviously is a difference between RL and this or any other sim....in addition, having a instructor with you while you fly does not count, for those of you who say they have flown. I took the question to mean, all alone or intructor dies of a massive coronary, etc.

Having flown for many years in RL myself, I would be curious to hear the opinions of other licensed RL pilots, like Toad

Ice

[RAS]

Dingy......your sick.....  (*_~)

RAS

[Dux]

Wow, that's a good question SaintAW. I'm inclined to agree with Ice, tho. Landing (and much of flying) is done by feel as much as anything else... nothing that a sim can give you a feel for (someday tho  .
Maybe Frenchy is right tho (and I'm inclined to listen to him) about doing it under perfect conditions... and a really long runway. Biggest mistake pilots make is floating too long in ground effect, and then **SLAM**. My first landing had a big psych-factor to it, cuz I already had about 200 rotorcraft hours... I figured it would be easy. But it demands complete attention, every single time. After you've done it once, you know better what to expect.
But landing on the first try... doubtful. If you can do it, the cockpit is where you belong!

ps. All you people who want to fly (all of you) get out there and take an orientation flight. it costs about as much as this game  

[Mighty1]

I don't think it would be hard at all to land.

Landing and being able to walk away is another story.

[Toad]

It's the flare that requires the experience, for lots of reasons (like wind). Computers really don't supply that kind of experience.

It's not hard to get over a runway and chop the power. Now whether or not you call that a landing....    

I will say this:

I routinely participate in "Eagle Day" with the EAA, giving young kids rides in light aircraft. The PT-19 is perfect, since it was designed as a basic trainer. Once we get about 500 feet in the air, I do a brief flight control demo that shows and explains the way the controls work. Then I turn them loose, telling them to make some gentle turns or climbs and dives.

I can tell within about 30 seconds which ones have a computer with a flying game on it. So far, after asking them, I have 100% accuracy rate on guessing if they "fly" on a computer.

In short, the computer games do a great job of giving an understanding of controls and their use and basic spatial relationships.

Haven't let any of the kids try to land it yet though!

 



[This message has been edited by Toad (edited 11-21-2000).]

[Ozark]

Great story Toad.  

We have Eagle Day here at COU too. I'll have to start asking the kids if they fly sims.  

[Citabria]

with just Aces High sim flying experience anyone could land a single engine even tail dragger but only as frenchy said...

with no wind or mechanical, wake, etc turbulence, gusts, wind shear etc.

ie if the atmosphere isn't being its normal tempermental self you could do some real grease landings no problem  

[Gunslayer]

Here is an interesting anomaly. My buddy deezcamp is taking pilot lessons and can land and take off in a real plane. The problem is, he always crashes in aces. I think the last tour he landed his plane only once. Kinda funny huh?