I decided to answer a question that bothered me. Can a untrained person start, fly and land an aircraft?

[Tonci87]

I´m sure you have seen it in some movie, or read it in a story. 

Someone who has no clue about airplanes has to get in one and fly off to somewhere.

They usually just get in and fly away, but it is really that simple?

Since I´m new to the flightsim genre I decide to dedicate my first flight to answering that question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMxr0QLArPc

Edited January 16, 2024 by Tonci87

[+Gepard]

Depends on plane. Some planes are made so, that they are very easy to fly. One example is the An-14 Pcholka (Little Bee). Oleg Antonow gave out the target, that an average "traktorist" (tractor driver) must be able to fly this plane. And in that way the plane was developed and finally the target was achieved.

[Tonci87]

That is damn cool looking plane.

[+streakeagle]

My father told me I couldn't learn to fly just by reading books, that I needed experience. When I was in the 5th grade, one of his friends had gotten his pilot license and started flying for the police department. First, I got a few minutes at the controls of a Piper Cherokee after we were already in the air, when everyone went up together. After that flight, the pilot and I went up in a Cessna 152, so I got 100% of the time at the controls. He taxied the Cessna 152 to the runway, then let me takeoff and fly for a bit. My takeoff was too steep, so he had me lower the nose a tad to avoid a stall. After I did some ovals and figure 8's, he took over to do some maneuvers like zero g stalls, falling leaf, etc. I didn't get to try landing.

The same police pilot was going to take me up in the police helicopter. But the day that was supposed to happen, an upper level supervisor came to the field, so all I got was a nice lunch. I have had only one ride in a helo. I was hanging out the side door of a UH-1H flying nap-of-earth over the Hudson River. I would rather have gotten to try taking the controls, but it was still a great helo ride.

When I joined the Civil Air Patrol in the 6th grade, they gave us some flight time in a Cessna 172. Each person got about 10-15 minutes on each flight. The ranking officer was an ex-Navy fighter pilot and he was the one taking us up. Both he and his son commented on the exceptional coordination of my turns with zero instruction. By the time I left the Civil Air Patrol in the 7th grade, I had maybe two to three hours total time at the controls. I don't recall doing any takeoffs or landings in the Civil Air Patrol.

Fast forward to college: my father had met a young pilot flying cargo hops around Tampa Bay every day from 5 AM to 5 PM in a Piper Arrow that only had front seats. He had an empty seat and was more than happy to let me fly with him. So, I skipped classes and went to fly. He let me fly most of the route, including takeoffs and landings (there were multiple stops). He handled the radio calls. I had trouble steering/braking on the ground with the brake pedals: unlike before, I was now a licensed driver and instinctively tried to steer with the wheel and also had trouble using the pedals to steer while applying even or no pressure to the brakes. So, my biggest problem the entire day was slowing down after touchdown, when I would start inducing left/right oscillation. What impressed him was that we flew through several clouds and I had no problem flying by instruments. Other than a little oscillation trying to hold a particular altitude, I could stay on course and speed with a level bank.

After that long day, plus a chance to fly out to the desert, land, and fly back to the airfield in San Diego while in the Navy, I have over 15 hours of stick time with several landings and even more takeoffs... none of it logged and no work toward getting a license.

So, at about 10 years old with no formal training, I could fly visually from takeoff to a safe cruising altitude. By the time I was in college, I couldn't follow radio protocols and was very shaky at steering after touchdown, but could otherwise fly, including on instruments through clouds. I had zero flight time from 7th grade (1981) to college (1988). But I did have a Timex Sinclair 1000 (Sinclair ZX81 in Europe) that had a very basic flight simulator that was keyboard controlled and really slow update rate. Later, I had a Timex Sinclair 2068 (Sinclair Spectrum in Europe) that could use two Atari joysticks to fly an F-15 (Digital Integration's "Fighter Pilot" game) and an AH-64 Apache (Digital Integration's Tomahawk). While the graphics were crude, that forced you to fly by instruments rather than looking outside, which more than prepared me for flying a Piper on a cargo run.

I could easily get off the ground, bore holes in the sky, and probably get back down on the ground without crashing in Cessnas and Pipers. But, I did not know how to communicate and had zero ability to use the charts and slide-rule tool to navigate. I did prove I could fly by beacons when provided the necessary information on the all-day cargo run.

I wouldn't want to try to fly larger or faster aircraft without the opportunity to get a feel for the controls. But between my real-world experience in light civil aircraft and years of PC flight simming complete with rudder pedals and toe-brakes, I am confident I wouldn't do too bad in many fixed wing aircraft if I had to.There is a true story about a mechanic stealing an A-4 Skyhawk. He got it off the ground, did some aerobatics, and landed safely. His flight training/experience was being a decent glider pilot as a hobby. The military wouldn't let him become a pilot, so he decided to take the one chance he had to fly the Skyhawk. Most people would have been court-martialed and sent to prison. However, in this case, they decided that since his service record had been very good prior to this incident and he didn't damage the aircraft at all, that they would just discharge him immediately. He did have a lot of hours in gliders, but a 500 mph A-4 is a lot different than a glider. I would like to think that if he could pull that off, that I could have gotten an F-4 in the air, too. I don't think the landing would go as well, but who knows. Every chance I got to fly for real, I showed both a natural aptitude and a full understanding of what I was seeing both on the gauges and outside the aircraft.

But there is one more part to my already long-winded story: my wife gave me an orientation flight as a gift one year. I had 30 minutes to try out flying a "sport" aircraft. The aircraft looked a lot like a Cessna, but was much smaller to meet the size/weight requirements for a fair-weather VFR day-only sport license. This was about 10 years ago, after years of flying flight sims. Because of its size and weight, it handled more like a large RC model than a Cessna. The controls were very light and easy to move. The cockpit was a modern "glass" cockpit with GPS navigation, real-time 3d maps, etc. The side-by-side seating was a little cramped with almost no headroom. The big difference was that as an older adult, I was now more concerned about overstressing the aircraft and flying smoothly/safely than having fun pushing the aircraft limits. So, unlike previous years, I flew more like a little old lady trying to slowly merge into high-speed 5-lane interstate traffic than someone who would have been willing to try to get an F-4 off the ground by myself. I am not the same confident/arrogant person I was during my college/Navy years, during which time I drove my 1974 Firebird and 1980 Corvette like I had a death wish. I am now fully aware of my mortality and how much pain a crash could cause as well as any financial penalties for totaling an aircraft and possibly damaging other people's property or even injuring/killing other people. But if I was in an F-4 that had rear seat controls, I would still try to fly the F-4 if given the chance with someone in the backseat to keep me from doing something too stupid. Of course, no one in their right mind would let me do that even if I were sitting in the backseat, so they could have full vision and full control.

Edited January 17, 2024 by streakeagle

[Skyviper]

I remember seeing this video a while ago. It's a really interesting video I think you may find interesting. This is a simulated scenario where "ATC" must help a passenger land a commercial airliner.