Recently learned that 50% of men surveyed believe they could land a commercial aircraft in an emergency, and knowing this has helped me understand a lot of the emails I get at work.

@MostlyHarmless

i could get a commercial aircraft to the ground. can't say how many pieces or which would be on fire, but pretty sure gravity would help.

this is like all those men who believe they could beat serena williams in tennis.

there is a pretty good gap between belief and reality...

@MostlyHarmless

I mean, you get on the radio and follow instructions

@TeflonTrout @MostlyHarmless set the squawk code to 420 and everybody will give you a wide berth

@MostlyHarmless I smell a reality TV show premise...

And you hope the first instruction is: turn on autopilot.
But to backtrack, does anyone here knows how to turn on this radio?
@TeflonTrout @MostlyHarmless

@BenAveling @MostlyHarmless you joke, but that is actually 100% correct. ATC will talk you through how to set the autopilot up for landing, and as for the radio, it'll already be tuned to a useful frequency. Theres a transmit key labeled in a couple of common places, usually on the flight yoke, and often a backup on the headset

@MostlyHarmless I believe I could because I've flown flight sims. The hard part would be wind and figuring out the controls for landing gear. Depends upon how dire the emergency is I guess... Maybe a 40% success rate... Not great, but better than 0...

@MostlyHarmless my years of GTA online training and the one hour real world flying lessen tells me that in an emergency... Imma gonna crash that plane.

@TeflonTrout @MostlyHarmless ... but check to see it you're in a movie first. 🤣

The same logic applies to going down into a dark basement 😉

@mcrocker @MostlyHarmless

Hey now, there's a whole procedure for talking down an untrained person like this in an emergency. Honestly, it's easier to land a jet airliner than a small private plane. It's mostly automated, and what isn't is what the ATC folks will talk you through

@mcrocker @MostlyHarmless not just blowing smoke, I lived with air traffic controllers during my own training in Ft. Rucker

@MostlyHarmless lol obviously. I saw Airplane!

@MostlyHarmless maybe, maybe not. Either way they'd have to replace my seat

@MostlyHarmless I probably could have given it a fair shake 15 years ago. I played a lot of realistic flight sims. Now, probably not.

@MostlyHarmless having seen men in emergency situations flail, fail and freeze I know there are two types of responses: those who are trained… and the rest.

@MostlyHarmless

Most big passenger aircraft have CAT III autoland capability. But the airport must be equipped with autoland ILS.

Did the survey question wording mention anything about "successfully" and "without everyone dying"?

Because I could 100% land a commercial aircraft in an emergency.

@MostlyHarmless

@MostlyHarmless
This dates back to successful balsa plane landings during early childhood 👍

@Bobblegagger @MostlyHarmless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

@MostlyHarmless There are a handful of commercial aircraft types that I might be able to land in an emergency provided that the person on the ground talking me through the landing was very articulate. But this is only because their controls are very similar to general aviation planes that I have landed and they are suitable for single pilot landing.

If there was no alternative I would attempt to land others but would expect to fail spectacularly, especially jets.

@MostlyHarmless a good amount also think they could fight a chimp and win

@MostlyHarmless

"How hard can it be? It's not like pilots have to go through years of intensive training..."

@MostlyHarmless When I took a flying class, I crashed the simulator 11 times before I finally landed it on a nearby pasture. Surprised those cows! My instructor called it good and said that everyone walked away. The first time I flew an actual plane, I panicked as it started to slowly descend into Lake Michigan while the actual pilot sat there amused. So, I'm not likely going to be the one landing a commercial airplane.

@TeflonTrout @mcrocker @MostlyHarmless There you go, clouding a perfectly good joke with facts. Landing something like a Cessna? No thanks. Give me an Airbus every time.

@MostlyHarmless Wait. Is that just land, or is it land successfully, like in one piece and stuff? Cause yeah, if it's just the first bit, then 100% no problem.

@TeflonTrout @mcrocker @MostlyHarmless The Mythbusters did it. Crashed and burned in the simulator without help, and were successfully talked down the second time through.

@MostlyHarmless

lol this snark absolutely cuts to the quick

@MostlyHarmless I'm guessing people haven't even watched movies where the inside of a cockpit is shown?

I feel fairly confident I'd managed to shut off the flow of fuel to the engines entirely or something if I even tried. They have like 5000 switches, how do they even remember them all?

@futuresprog @MostlyHarmless @catsalad

This is absolutely my interpretation as well.

They're called DAD jokes for a reason, what portion of men are dads? 🤔

@shironeko @MostlyHarmless There have been cases of exactly this.

Doing so without instructions is a very different problem.

Note that none of the listed entries are large commercial aircraft. Which doesn't necessarily mean it wouldn't work, but that present precautions have presumably sufficed.

@TeflonTrout @MostlyHarmless This.

@yantor3d @MostlyHarmless yes, oh yes...

@MostlyHarmless i love all the reply guys here.

@alan @TeflonTrout @mcrocker @MostlyHarmless Here's the thing: Heroes when things go catastrophic are the ones who step up and do what they can.

I get the purpose of a joke but planting a seed of doubt in the heads of readers about this sort of thing causes the pool of people who might otherwise step up in a crisis to shrink.

@peterrenshaw @MostlyHarmless most people indeed have a fight or flight response in an emergency

@shironeko @MostlyHarmless Multiple in aviation history.

@MostlyHarmless 😁

@drwho @TeflonTrout @mcrocker @MostlyHarmless I believe there are many studies that demonstrate stepping up, freezing, or running away from a crisis is more of a character attribute than something based on an analytical computation of the probability of success for that specific crisis. Even then, in this scenario, anyone inclined to take action and performing such an analysis would step up, because doing nothing has a very high probability of being the worst possible option.

All of this is tangential to the actual joke, which is more along the lines of the "hold my beer" theme.

@elebertus there’s another I found out recently; Fawn response. cc @MostlyHarmless

@MostlyHarmless watching a trained pilot given scenarios to solve cf <https://youtube.com/watch?v=HMevdIF8j9g>

@MostlyHarmless I believe that I could land something like a Cessna in a pinch after decades of flight sim, but a passenger jet, yeah, we're all dead.

@MostlyHarmless I am 100% confident I can get a commercial airliner to the ground.

I'm about 0.001% that anyone will be walking away from the resulting wreckage.

@rothko @MostlyHarmless Yup, we're just brimming with confidence... 😉
(having flown a 737 simulator, I'm fairly confident I could line up with the runway, but without someone on the radio explaining everything else to do... well, it'd be better to try than not, but I'd be really wishing there was an actual pilot on board!)

@MostlyHarmless Just because it’s called a cockpit…

@MostlyHarmless Wow! Check out the breakdown by party affiliation (not what I expected, not that I understand humans, and if I missed it already in unfederated replies, apologies) :

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2023/01/02/fd798/3

@InarticulateOtter @MostlyHarmless ooh that is interesting indeed

@Bern @rothko @MostlyHarmless That's the same reason I'd say I'm better than nobody. Getting stopped after the start of the runway and before the end .... less confident.

@MostlyHarmless back in the 1970s (yes I’m that old) I had about 7 hour’s instruction in a Piper Cub. This year I was treated to an hour’s instruction in a full-blown 737 flight simulator.
I can tell you, the 737 was easier to fly than the Cub! Except that I apparently retained my Cub flying experience because I kept trying to do with the controls what the 737 was trying to do automatically.
But all this is a diversion from your point. We DO tend to think we are experts because we saw a video!

@MostlyHarmless

"someone has to land these planes"

Seriously, that is how I sum up my job duties ♂️♂️♂️

@MostlyHarmless I actually did a flight simulator at a pilot academy once and I *did* land it

@Dervishpi @rothko @MostlyHarmless yeah... I successfully landed the simulator several times - with an instructor sitting in the right seat, talking me through it. I have no illusions as to how 'qualified' that makes me to land a real jet.

Better than average, perhaps, but a long way short of even a general aviation pilot, let alone an actual type-rated pilot.

@TeflonTrout @BenAveling @MostlyHarmless That assumes the radio is tuned to a frequency in-range and what flight phase the emergency occurs. Modern airliners use pilot to controller datalink via the CDU for routine cruise messaging. ATC controller would need to find a pilot familiar with that aircraft to provide instructions. Enroute ATC facilities are not near airport control towers also. Best case might be a larger plane with autoland capability

@MostlyHarmless
https://youtu.be/2KcOs70dZAw

@noisytoot @peterrenshaw @MostlyHarmless

See, it’s statically obvious that the poll respondents could fly a plane. At least half of the time.

@MostlyHarmless strive to be the 50%

@alwirtes @Bobblegagger @MostlyHarmless just for completion. this is an interesting read
https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2022/04/08/the-dunning-kruger-effect-is-autocorrelation/

@ewen @MostlyHarmless
“…but this guy has no flying experience at all. He’s a menace to himself and everything else in the air… yes, birds too.”
– Airplane (1980)

@rjblaskiewicz @TeflonTrout @mcrocker @MostlyHarmless It does occasionally happen.

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/florida-passenger-lands-plane/index.html

@TeflonTrout @MostlyHarmless
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGRcJQ9tMbY

@mansr @rjblaskiewicz @TeflonTrout @mcrocker @MostlyHarmless unexpected Florida Man

@MostlyHarmless
Just had to reply……
I “play” with a flight simulator, and know the principles of how to land a commercial jet. But, like as f*** could I land one of those. It would likely stall before I found all the right switches. Certainly I could crash one, so could 99% of the 50%. They would never even be able to find an airport.

Bunch of hyper-testosteronic tossers.

@RichRARobi @MostlyHarmless

When I was learning to fly, I was taught that it's a landing if the plane is on the ground at the end. It's a good landing if you walk away from it. It's a great landing if they can use the plane again afterwards. With that in mind, I am fairly confident that I could manage a landing. I'm much less confident about a good landing, and no chance of a great landing.

I was also taught that people who can fly light aircraft are less likely than average to be able to land a jetliner than people with no flying experience, because the handling is so different that you have reflexes trained to do things that will be actively dangerous.

I've spent a bit of time in the RAF's DC-10 simulator, and can confirm this. These things are basically bricks with a ludicrous amount of thrust to try to pretend that they are aircraft. They do not behave at all like the things I've flown, which are basically gliders with an engine attached so that they can be self-propelled. After a bit of practice, I could do straight-and-level flight and corners ending up on the desired heading. I could probably do a descent and approach and end up quite near the runway. On the runway, or at the correct speed when I intersected the ground? Probably not. Not ripping off the wings and dying in a massive fireball would be my goal, and I would not be confident of doing it.

@MostlyHarmless I’m one of them! Of course I’m a private pilot, so I have some basis for saying it, but as such i also know it’s far more complicated than the small planes I’ve flown.

@jfslicer @MostlyHarmless

It's worse than that. If you've flown light aircraft you are less likely than average to be able to land a commercial jet than someone with no experience. A lot of what you learn when flying big aircraft is unlearning things you learned on small planes. You have spent years building up reflex responses to conditions that will get you killed if you respond that way when flying a jetliner.

I thought the objective of landing was that you are no longer flying.
@elebertus @noisytoot @MostlyHarmless @peterrenshaw

@TeflonTrout @mcrocker @MostlyHarmless I don't know how they do it, but having been instructed to try and fail to navigate a fairly complex UI via Zoom or equivalent, I'm pretty sure they either have very detailed instructions (and possibly less UI elements, see image), or the failure rate is higher than we think and they never talk about it publicly.

@MostlyHarmless Reminds of a similar study that said a ton of men thought they could return a serve from one of the Williams sisters.

...which in reality would literally shatter most men's bones.

@TeflonTrout @MostlyHarmless
Tom Scott did. He wasn't successful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbTDzPUDxqY&t=1575

To be fair, in the other video, where he was just telling the autopilot what to do, he did succeed.

@paul_ipv6 @MostlyHarmless Landing a commercial airplane, even in one piece, would hands down be easier than beating Serena at tennis. In good conditions and with help most people could land most of the time*, on the best of days almost nobody by definition can beat a pro athlete at their main sport.

* This is not the bar for being a professional, that is being able to do 100,000 / 100,000 landings in all conditions, which is incredibly more difficult than being able to do 8/10 on a sunny day.

@MostlyHarmless Landing a plane is the easy part. Surviving it, is another.

@xyhhx @MostlyHarmless Mythbusters and Peter Hörnfeldt with Tom Scott also did that successfully. One would need to contact the ground though, which isn't trivial at all.

@placebo @MostlyHarmless yeah don't get me wrong, if we're in an emergency and u put me in the cockpit we're fucked lol

@david_chisnall @jfslicer @MostlyHarmless
i understand the argument but surely its better than having no exp

@m @MostlyHarmless @david_chisnall Yeah, David is wrong.

The University of North Dakota ran a test a few years ago. Most failed, but those that succeeded were a private pilot, a commercial pilot, and a flight sim enthusiast. Showing that some skill is far better than no skill.

https://archive.is/20230523055107/https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2023/05/20/passengers-try-landing-plane-flight-simulator#selection-1781.30-1781.34

@m @MostlyHarmless @david_chisnall

Also, if it were true, the path to becoming a commercial pilot wouldn’t include being a private pilot first. But that is in fact the first step. You learn small, you do small for a very long time often becoming an instructor and then you build up to flying big boys.

@jfslicer @m @MostlyHarmless

That doesn’t follow, because there is a huge difference between jumping from one activity to another with no training between them and starting a training program for the a new skill.

I learned to fly in the late ‘90s, so I’m interested in the study that showed the opposite of what I was taught.

I learned to fly light aircraft. Moving from powered gliders to small planes involved some unlearning because the gliders have very large wings and so you have to coordinate the ailerons with the rudder whenever you turn, because the rotation in one axis will trigger rotation in the other that you need to compensate for. If you do this in a plane with smaller wings, you end up pointing the nose in the wrong place.

I have never flown a large plane, but I did spend some time with the RAF’s DC-10 simulator, which is the military version of the simulator used to train commercial pilots. I was told (and saw first hand from instinctively doing the wrong thing) that a big part of the reason for starting in the simulator is that you’ve learned a bunch of things that will make the aircraft do the opposite of what you want. You use the engines in turning, for example, which you can’t on a single-engine aircraft. And if you try to manoeuvre without doing that you can place too much stress on the airframe. The controls respond more slowly, so you need to anticipate more (weirdly, flying a big plane was more like taxiing a small one than flying it). But there were also a lot of transferable skills from small planes (including things like radio discipline, but also things like 3D spatial awareness, the shape of a landing approach, and so on) that are far cheaper to teach in small planes (and better to teach in real planes than simulators).

I wonder how much of the shift is in greater levels of automation than when I learned.

@MostlyHarmless i am pretty sure i am also able to do.

also your definitions of landing...well, perhaps the speed that thing comes down from the sky is somehow different from my definition