[whimsicalism]

Listening to the audio of the conversation, it doesn't seem like the passenger has no flying experience...

At minimum they must have spent significant time around aviation or be ex-military.

e: From another comment on Reddit

> Examples: > The passenger knew what button to press on the yoke to transmit to ATC. > The passenger knew aviation phraseology and phonetics “333 Lima Delta”. > The passenger knew where the altimeter was and his altitude “I’m maintaining 9100 feet” > Passenger was able to identify the transponder and enter a squawk code. > Passenger knew what the vertical speed indicator was “I’m descending right now at 550 feet a minute passing 8640 feet”. > My wife, who flies with me regularly, might get one or two of those items, but probably couldn't point out the transponder, much less enter a squawk code without instructions.

[efitz]

I have 30 minutes and 2 touch-and-go’s in my log book. I suck at Microsoft Flight Simulator.

In 30 minutes of the instructor sitting next to me, I successfully landed and took off in a Cessna 172, learned to trim power, elevators and flaps, learned how to transmit and how to “squawk ident”, and what channel to use in emergencies (1202 IIRC).

Operating the airplane was very straightforward. Without the instructor or someone talking to me, I would not have known what to do when, but I can completely see how someone reasonably smart, calm, and able to follow directions could land such an airplane in good conditions.

[e-clinton]

Flying is easy as long as weather is on your side. But still impressive for a total noob to land safely

[porknubbins]

Flying a single engine prop plane seems easy. Anyone who has played Flight Simulator has thought about this, I could probably land a cessna but not a commercial jet. What I’m sure I would get wrong is stuff on jets like multiple engine speeds, cowling settings etc.

[ngcc_hk]

Not sure I agree or not.

The question is she did not where she was, guess there is no gps map. And more importantly she has to fly the thing.

And in a commerical one you have gps and auto pilot. You can concentrate on those, as long as you have radio. Metuor has a video which is basically just use radio. You basically do not fly the plane. In fact the basic advice is not touched the yoke.

The responsibility is much higher of course.

[Sylveste]

>The question is she did not where she was, guess there is no gps map. And more importantly she has to fly the thing.

I would imagine she had a smartphone. Gmaps/Amaps is no match for Skydemon but it's a million times better than nothing.

[zitterbewegung]

Also don't forget gas.

[buildsjets]

A good memory jogger for the emergency transponder codes is: Hi Jack, I can’t talk right now, I’ve got an emergency.

7500 -> Being Hijacked 7600 -> Radio/Comms Failure 7700 -> Emergency

[mlyle]

I think 1202 is not intended to be a transponder code, but an approximation of 121.5.

[buildsjets]

Could be. I just assumed squawk. (121.5 is the universal emergency VHF audio comm frequency.)

[efitz]

Yes, I meant 121.5 but my memory is fuzzy after many years.

[santix]

There's also "7-7: we're going to heaven; 7-5: somebody else wants to fly; 7-6: radio needs a fix".

[antmldr]

If you mean voice communication channel for emergencies, it's 121.5 MHz, 243.00 MHz for Military (double)

[a-dub]

1200 is null as i understand i think 7200 is emergency?

as a curious stem type who used to fly with other curious stem types back in the day, i remember asking for all the details and being given them.

edit: 12xx is vfr no code assigned with various modifiers. 7700 declare emergency. 7600 radio out. 7500 mutiny.

[hodlfnejsnsz]

1200 is VFR, which generally means “I’m flying visually and don’t need ATC help”. If you’re squawked 1200 you show up as VFR on their screen, but you still show up. That doesn’t mean null. 7500, 7600, and 7700 are used for various emergency purposes, with 7700 being the most common, and almost always accompanying a mayday or panpan. Those are transponder codes, not radio channels. It’s a code returned by your equipment when the transponder is painted with interrogative radar.

0000 is closer to “null”, but still isn’t quite. 1000 also has some “null” like properties when it comes to ADS-B. Note that what I’m saying is North American centric and not necessarily ICAO nor other areas, which can differ somewhat.

[a-dub]

never ceases to amaze: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transponder_codes

[hodlfnejsns]

1200 is VFR. That doesn’t mean null. 7500, 7600, and 7700 are used for various emergency purposes. These are transponder codes, not radio channels. It’s a code returned when the transponder is painted with interrogative radar.

[tialaramex]

This being Hacker News: The reason the digit 7 seems important here is that these are actually Octal. Under the hood this is a digital system, but the user interface is four octal digits ie 0000 to 7777 is a 12-bit value.

Most modern aircraft are capable of providing a lot more data over their radio transponder, including a system unique identifier, but it turns out that "squawking" a four digit code is a useful amount of discretion to give humans. If you could do it over maybe a decimal code would have been better, but too late now.

[a-dub]

when you look at all the reserved blocks, that's not a lot of usable address space. the internet says there are roughly 5k commercial aircraft in the air above the us during peak times. i get that these are regionally allocated, but still pretty tight i must imagine.

do modern mode 3 transponders also include tail number or some other unique identifier in a sideband?

[schoen]

Yes, the squawk code is not itself necessarily used to identify individual airplanes and distinguish them from one another and transponders now transmit significant amounts of data on top of the squawk code.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Dependent_Surveillan...

(I don't know how much squawk codes are, or were, used to specifically identify aircraft in the past, but I believe that currently it's not unusual that many aircraft in the same region would be squawking the same number, which would not confuse ATC because of all the other transponder data that's available.)

[mcculley]

I have flown enough as a passenger with a single pilot to know some of those things. While I have held the wheel a bit, I have no formal training and no experience taking off or landing. If I were in the same situation, I would tell ATC, "I have no idea what I am doing" to err on the more useful end of expectations for assistance.

[ddingus]

Bingo. As would I. And with no real flight experience, I believe it is accurate to say.

Having seen some stuff is a far cry from knowing things.

[hgomersall]

Genuine question, is my experience playing Microsoft flight simulator any use in being able to answer those questions, because it certainly feels like I can say something sensible about them.

[kenrik]

Pilot here: It could help with some familiarity but generally in MSFS you can get away with ignoring the gauges and just mess around. The tutorial might gloss over some of it.

Having an unbelievable number of hours in MSFS when I was a kid ... landing a real plane is considerably harder and a ton of instruction time is just focused on getting you to land reliably. I finished my PPL in just over 40hrs which is close to the minimum. Most people will fall into the 60-100hr pool.

I'm dubious that this passenger really had zero experience it takes a good 6-10hrs to get decent at landing (as in not bending metal).

MSFS does however offer a reasonable feeling for the cruise portion of a flight.

[verst]

Also pilot here (C172 G1000): I personally find landing a plane IRL easier than in MSFS. Much easier when I am able to feel resistance on the yoke, feel shifts in wind and gravity etc. All the MSFS controls are so extremely touchy. Though I agree you need 6-10 hours to get decent at landings :)

[wrycoder]

I agree. I’ve been flying MSFT since the Sublogic days, using only the keyboard. It was very rare to get a good landing. I have about eight hours in a Cessna, and that was a piece of cake, by comparison.

[verst]

I play MSFS in VR and have rudders, throttle and yoke... but without any forces on the rudder it's just incredibly hard. I certainly can't fly it very well with the Saitek / Logitech Yoke.

[AndrewThrowaway]

I tried MSFS in VR and it was also much easier because you are somehow much more aware of the surroundings (maybe because you move "camera" around the cockpit so much more). In VR I don't get lost so easily and always have an idea where the landing strip is.

[robaato]

As a teenage air cadet in the 1970's in northern Scotland, I learned to fly in open cockpit gliders and effectively went from scratch to first solo flights in a long weekend (January!) - within a few hours...

This seems familiar - I remember flying with mitten gloves (due to cold!), controls were joystick, rudder, flaps, and an altimeter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingsby_T.21

[eru]

Keep in mind that this guy only did one landing.

He did that one landing well, but he did not show that he can land reliably.

[chronogram]

Both your comments were "dead", you could maybe mail HN to have your account set to not be shadow banned.

[mbostleman]

How did you know that?

[james-skemp]

You can toggle 'showdead' if you're logged in on your user page.

That shows dead comments with a color and text indicator when enabled.

[bryanrasmussen]

I figure it might be an outlier, it takes 6-10hrs to get decent at landing (that is to say reliably) but doing it one time without killing everyone on board can also be attributed to dumb luck - this is with the other assumptions of having maybe been a passenger close to pilot, MSFS etc.

[runjake]

FWIW, I grew up playing 80s/90s flight sims and later went into the military and worked on planes and got the opportunity to use military flight simulators and was able to make my way around the cockpit and takeoff/land pretty much immediately.

I think my key for landing was learning flaps and throttle and getting a feel for stall speeds in sims.

Now, would I want to test that in an actual plane in a life and death emergency? Not really. But I'd wager my odds are good.

[dctoedt]

Years ago I read that a student pilot at Pensacola (basic flight training for the Navy and Marine Corps) qualified much faster because he played a lot of Microsoft Flight Simulator, to the point that the Navy was going to get multiple copies.

FOUND IT: https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1999-05-03-99050300...

[TomVDB]

Yes, it would be very helpful.

My instructor encouraged me to buy MS FS, pedals and a yoke.

[jhugo]

With a better sim (prepar3d, x-plane, etc) and good aircraft models, you can build up a lot of systems knowledge that translates accurately to the real world (instruments, avionics, navigation, fuel system, hydraulics, air, handling failures, etc). But not so much the aircraft handling.

[shostack]

I've got plenty of hours in MSFS in VR, most of it in GA aircraft in the Bay Area where I live. When I went on my discovery flight I felt immediately comfortable in the DA40 and with it's g1000. I knew where everything was in the cockpit. I mostly knew how to start it and the checklist was familiar. I could easily find my house and in general was familiar with landmarks.

My aviation skills were also interesting. I had no problem with coordinated turns and holding a heading. However I almost busted the bravo because my altitude kept creeping and I was so used to using the electric trim tab on my joystick. However in the real plane there are two and you need to hold both. Plus, I should have just used the wheel which I don't have on my HOTAS. My second flight in a 172 was much better in that regard.

The sim doesn't prepare you for the physical sensations. Not just the movement, but the massively improved FOV, contrast, resolution, and frame rate. It was pure sensory overload. I did all the approaches and it just felt comfortable.

My HOTAS is both a blessing and a curse. It's great for VR, but my muscle memory was all messed up. And the input sensitivity and weight is very different IRL. And despite knowing I'd likely be fixated by the instruments, and should be looking outside, I did it anyway.

Hope this was helpful. Can't recommend simming enough. It's what made me want to do a discovery flight in the first place. It was magical.

[travisgriggs]

Got my PPL 2 years ago (almost), and love taking people for rides to various nearby destinations. It's my "Sunday Drive" and a chance to share with others.

These questions often get answered pretty quickly. We get talking on our headsets, now I'm about to taxi, and so I make a call. Shortly there after, when I'm talking to my passenger, there's a nervous 'Can other people hear me??' 'Nope, I push this button right here to broadcast to everyone, otherwise it's just you and me.' 'Where is that button? Is this it? I don't want to push it.'

In a small airplane, any interested passenger will ask a number of questions that help that acclimate. If this guy was a friend of the pilot and flew a bit with him, he had some familiarity.

Is there a full recording up anywhere yet?

I would love to know how fast they landed him. My inclination would be to talk someone through a landing that was a little faster than usual, because you have more control, and don't have to worry about the flair so much. Just drive it gently onto the runway and then slow it down after that. Which works fine for a little plane on a big runway.

[trollied]

VASAviation have posted the full ATC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MDwzNtDMlA

Unfortunately, the instructor-led talkdown was done via a phone call.

[bayesian_horse]

FAA will eventually put out a full incident report ...

[eru]

Do you mean flair in a technical sense, or just in the sense of 'looking good'?

[jccooper]

Probably "flare" in the sense of "pulling up for landing".

[travisgriggs]

Yes I did mean flare. Though I always try to flare with flair. :)

[water-your-self]

It was a cessna with two passengers. I would assume that the passenger at minimum has a pilot/ flight enthusiast in their life.

[throwaway0a5e]

> I would assume that the passenger at minimum has a pilot/ flight enthusiast in their life.

Or mostly uninterested spouse.

[Macha]

They're in a cessna, with one other person piloting. I think spending a significant time around aviation is a given, but I also wouldn't call that flying experience.

It's not like being in the cabin in a commercial airliner, you'd see the pilot doing these things, and honestly as far as plane interfaces go, the Cessna is not bad.

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...

Here's the instrument panel. While I wouldn't say every untrained person can just "figure it out", I think there are a decent number who would at least be able to get an altitude, heading, and vertical speed reading out of that. Especially if you'd spent some time in the last 30 minutes looking at them while your pilot friend is focused on flying.

I've spent a signficant amount of time flying cessnas in MS flight sim and XPlane, but I wouldn't assume that would automatically carry over if I ended up in a situation like that, and I certainly would err on the side of caution and risk ATC thinking I had less knowledge than risk overstating it and risk something going wrong because they end up thinking I'd be confident performing an ILS approach or something.

[vonseel]

The dials are in the middle and literally labeled altitude, airspeed in knots, etc. Not a great point from the Reddit armchair scientists but the guy who landed the plane obviously holds up well in stressful situations.

[Terry_Roll]

> but the guy who landed the plane obviously holds up well in stressful situations

Thats what you need a cool head when everyone else is losing theirs. Not only that if the pilot had any sense he would give any passenger in the front a TLDR for emergencies just as a common courtesy. TBH I'm surprised the various Aviation Authorities have not mandated some sort of TLDR emergency/safety guide for small planes and their passengers, unless of course they dont really care if one drops out of the sky killing everyone!?!

Not a pilot, but taken control of a biplane, & helicopter, biplane is so easy, doing the nose dives like you see in the old war movies, bringing them up to stalling point etc, the plane even makes the same noise as you here in the movies, but its bloody cold even with your sheepskin coat on.

Helicopters, now they are sensitive and the pilot wouldnt let me do the pedals, but it was a hover test, ie seeing how long I could keep it hovering.

Have flown with ex red arrows doing the same stunts as a passenger, I think they tried their best to get me to use their sick back but they didnt succeed, haven't done any fighter jets yet, or any Air Racing but never say never!

I would imagine the acceleration from a flight deck catapult must be on a par with a Porsche 911 Turbo S on launch control, maybe a bit better who knows?

[GekkePrutser]

At our club we had a mandatory passenger briefing but it's simply not possible to convey enough information to get them down safely. So it was basically a "don't touch anything" type of thing.

This is with the exception of auto return to base autopilots and parachute systems like Cirrus's. Those are safe to be operated by passengers. But we didn't have either of those, most of the planes didn't even have an autopilot.

The plane in the article was a Cessna 208 though and probably had one.

[eru]

> TBH I'm surprised the various Aviation Authorities have not mandated some sort of TLDR emergency/safety guide for small planes and their passengers, unless of course they dont really care if one drops out of the sky killing everyone!?!

Having an untrained passenger is no worse than flying solo. The latter is clearly allowed, and should probably stay allowed?

[eternityforest]

Banning solo flight would make a lot of people unhappy. Having a passenger emergency checklist and explaining where the radio is doesn't sound like an undue burden if it actually makes a difference.

It would be an opportunistic thing that only applies when it's near zero cost.

[GekkePrutser]

This was a Cessna 208, not a 172. Possibly glass cockpit and definitely turboprop.

It would look more like this unless it has the glass cockpit of course:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Cessna_2...

[Macha]

I believe elsewhere in this thread it was confirmed to have the older gauges, and I don't believe in this example it makes a meaningful difference in the readability of the primary instruments.

[platz]

can you even see out the front window with how low the seat is?

[mlyle]

Yah. This is something that is always messed up in pictures of cockpits or flight simulators. The eye is pretty wide angle compared to any reasonable looking photograph inside a cockpit.

In the real world, when you sit up straight, you see just fine out of a tricycle gear airplane and see the runway ahead on the ground and the ground below you in the air. And then you slouch a couple inches and look down and have a great view of the bottom instruments.

[egwor]

I reckon I could do most of those things except transmit to ATC and squawk. I suspect I could google the rest or call someone to tell me how to. If there's a manual up there, then maybe that will have info?

[mikeryan]

Total spit ball here but just “riding” in a small Cessna seems like a pretty intimate experience. I wonder if he had spent a bunch of time in the passenger seat (as a job as a surveyor or ranger or something) and just got to know his way around a bit.

[littlestymaar]

> If there's a manual up there, then maybe that will have info?

I can't imaging myself getting anything from an unknown manual full of jargon in such a stressful environment!

[verelo]

Not sure if you've ever seen the POH for a C172, but it is thick. Example: https://www.montereynavyflyingclub.org/Other%20Docs/Cessna-1...

Personally, ATC is your best bet here. I'd say a lot of people who have ever flown a flight simulator can get the plan low and slow enough to not cause death upon impact. I would anticipate a bumpy landing, some injury and a lost plane...so this outcome is pretty impressive imo.

[littlestymaar]

> Not sure if you've ever seen the POH for a C172, but it is thick. Example: https://www.montereynavyflyingclub.org/Other%20Docs/Cessna-1...

Thanks for the link, it's definitely not the kind of things you're supposed to discover while attempting to pilot a plane for the first time.

[to1y]

73 pages isnt that bad, I was thinking 500pg+ for some reason. Guess simplicity is paramount.

[verelo]

Yeah, it’s just dense. Lots of great info in these things but you should know most of it from memory or only need it on the ground. It’s a legal requirement to carry in the plane but i don’t think I’ve ever needed one while in the air…yet

[jrockway]

Yeah, also not a pilot and I could do those things. But I am an enthusiast, kind of on my list of things to do but haven't done yet.

[DocTomoe]

> If there's a manual up there, then maybe that will have info?

Many (most?) airlines have abandoned printed manuals and paperwork in cockpits and have switched to tablets - often iPads - for weight considerations and because they are easier to just keep updated, and those are usually non-accessible to random passengers. Notable exception are emergency checklists.

[kenrik]

All planes are required to have the original POH onboard. However those don't really tell you how to fly the plane it's more focused on things like Vspeeds minimum flap extension speeds etc..

[sokoloff]

That varies based on the certification rules. My older 182 only had to have the operating limitations and weight and balance info (“O+W” in ARROW), but they did not have to be original.

My later year A36, I believe needs the original AFM/POH. (In any case, I do carry it.)

If you didn’t know how to fly, you couldn’t read enough of the book to figure it out before the aircraft departed controlled flight (if not on at least a wing-leveler autopilot).

[buildsjets]

As noted, on an airplane without an AFM (Approved Flight Manual) the POH does not need no be on-board, only a placard with the operating limitations. The cutoff for the AFM requirement are individual aircraft that had their first flight after 1 March 1979.

As the owner/operator of an early 1979 build aircraft that does not have an AFM, I’ve had this discussion with maintenance/airworthiness inspectors so frequently that I keep a printout of 14 cfr 21.5 in my POH.

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-C...

[kenrik]

I'm also an owner of an older 182 (1966 - 182K) I agree with you the POH won't really teach someone enough about the aircraft to fly it let alone operate the radios.

[bayesian_horse]

Figuring out how to talk on the radio would be easy, even if nobody told you how to do it. And in an emergency situations ATCs tend to be really understanding and helpful. They even read the manual for you.

In any case, landing a real plane in this scenario is even a little easier than in a simulator (though more dangerous, of course). You get all the vectors for the approach from the ATC, they tell all the other traffic to scuttle off and so on.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

I feel like the only thing a manual would be good for would be distracting you from flying the plane just long enough to enter some position that you (as someone with no training) won't be able to recover it from.

[adventured]

From another article:

"Morgan [controller] learned the passenger on the line had never flown a plane -- but had been around aviation and seen other pilots fly."

[CydeWeys]

I have zero experience flying planes (or being near people flying them), but I do have ham radio experience. Sounds like that might actually help a lot. I've even spent some time listening to the ~120 MHz AM aviation bands.

[rejor121]

I lean towards aggreing with you. It’s possible he was prior military. I was an AE and worked on basically all of the flight systems in my eight years in the navy.

The fact he knew phonetics just makes me believe he served or at the very least, was heavily exposed in another function.

[aix1]

> The fact he knew phonetics just makes me believe he served or at the very least, was heavily exposed in another function.

This is just one data point, but I'm a random software engineer with no military or aviation background or interests, and I know NATO phonetics. I think it's not that uncommon.

(My main use case is spelling things over the phone.)

[inopinatus]

I learned the NATO alphabet for no better reason than it seemed useful over noisy communication channels, such as when on the phone in a data center with the HVAC going hard.

And so it has proved. That was maybe fifteen years ago; I'm so accustomed now, that I'll use it reflexively with everyone.

Anecdotally, I have observed that certain professions are inclined to treat those that use it with more respect.

[Hamuko]

Or just wanted to know phonetics for any other reason. They're not that hard and they're pretty useful on the phone.

[stevage]

I find these days they're pretty common with regular old customer service reps spelling out anything over the phone.

[well_actulily]

I was an Army combat medic and I know the NATO alphabet, despite never having been in an airplane cockpit.

[AtNightWeCode]

I think most people would be screwed cause there seems to a lot of different ways to get the radio to work in the first place. At least for larger planes.

[GekkePrutser]

The pilot would have had the radio tuned to the appropriate frequency already and talking is just a button on the yoke.

[AtNightWeCode]

And pushing the button does nothing. I believe you must hold it.

Considering the amount of Zoom, Teams, Huddles and Google meets meetings I been into over the last couple of years I would be surprised if a majority of people fix this.

[eru]

Or the pilot would have turned it to some frequency where somebody else was listening, and chances are the guy on the other side could give you instructions for how to get help.

[Abishek_Muthian]

May be transmitting to ATC with proper terminologies was learnt by watching the pilot do it? I assume there's not much to do as a passenger in a small aircraft like Cessna 208?

Btw, This got me curious and looked into Rowan Atkinson's (Mr. Bean) similar plane incident[1] where he supposedly maintained control of the aircraft mid-air when his pilot was incapacitated and the pilot recovered eventually to land the plane. All information on this incident points to Rowan not having any prior flying experience.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_Atkinson#Plane_incident

[dghughes]

Yeah as a former student pilot (and that is all) I was curious about their specific knowledge and terminology.

Maintaining altitude was what I found most difficult as a student pilot my instructor drew a line on the windscreen with a marker to help me. I could vary 1,000 feet or more up or down before the instructor told what was going on.

Knowing how to get the frequency for the tower or just knowing they had to was telling.

And landing is tricky knowing to aim at the end of the runway as if you're going to crash and then flare as if you're going up again. All counter-intuitive to anyone who is not aware that's what's done. Not to mention speed, flaps, rudder control.

And the barf oh the barf!

[medion]

None of these observations seem impossible for someone who is able to maintain low stress levels, think rationally and understand the overall general mechanics of how planes fly and what is important - altitude, speed, etc.

[stevage]

I would love to hear the full audio somewhere. Maybe there was a lot of extra information about how to use those controls.

He was also very comfortable with the radio, dropping in terms like 10-4.

A similar episode a few years back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzhKczNcB_c

(There's the full audio for that somewhere but I can't find it right now)

[ChicagoBoy11]

As a pilot that was my first instinct as well... it just sounded like he knew his way around an airplane... fully concede he may not have been a pilot, but he was clearly way too familiar with the situation to be described as someone who had "no idea how to fly", imo.

[dominotw]

He was also so calm. Making me think he knew there was a way out if got some help.

[Trufa]

I honestly kind of know what all of that is and I have seriously NO idea how to fly a plane.

[cryptonector]

Where's the audio? TFA has very little of it.

EDIT: Never mind. You can find it downthread.

[stevage]

Where? I can't find it.

[ddingus]

Could have been a gamer

[JKCalhoun]

Raises hand: yeah, every flight-sim gamer's fantasy.

[ddingus]

Right?