I submit that yourself and your ATP should turn on the news. They have determined that the pilots were trained on these aircraft at at least two schools in Florida. --- John Fraizer EnterZone, Inc On Tue, 11 Sep 2001, Owen DeLong wrote:
Apologies to the list, this is way off topic, and if you're looking for operational content, just hit delete now. However, the number of people posting bad specualtion about aviation is bothering me and I feel compelled to reply.
I hold a Private Pilot rating for Airplane Single Engine Land. I also hold an Instrument Airplane rating. I have about 800 hours of total flight time, including various single engine a small amount of multi-engine, some glider, some free balloon time. I have spent some time in the cockpit of an Airbus A-319 in flight, including an approach into San Jose International. I was in the jumpseat, but I received substantial education from the pilots while I was there. If anyone feels that my answers are not adequate, please let me know off-list and I'll get you an answer from an ATP I know who is rated in the 757 and 767 types.
John Fraizer wrote:
On Wed, 12 Sep 2001, David Howe wrote:
Also, it's worth remembering that airplanes aren't all that easy to fly. This means that the perpetrators needed to find five adequate pilots, Hmm. not actually sure about this - not having ever flown anything at all, but how much skill exactly does it take to keep something already pointed in more or less the right direction on target for two-three minutes until impact? ok, you couldn't expect a clean landing or even a
It takes quite a bit more than you would expect. Something that you neglect to remember is that the plane that struck the Pentagon was initially headed directly towards the Whitehouse, then executed a high-speed, high-bank turn around DC, lined up on the Pentagon and managed to nose into it at mid-level.
It is VERY difficult to control an aircraft in a high-speed nose-down attitude. ESPECIALLY those that are less than "sporty" in flight characteristics.
It is not difficult to control these types of aircraft in a 200-300 knott (knautical mile per hour, about 1.1 statute miles per hour) nose-down attitude. It can be done on autopilot in most cases.
As I understand the reports, the plane that struck the Pentagon was on the standard noise-abatement approach path into National along the Potomac, and made a ~30 degree bank turn nose down into the side of the pentagon. This may have required overriding the autopilot for the final portion of the descent, but otherwise, the entire process could have been conducted using a small subset of the autopilot capabilities that could easily be figured out by a student pilot. If you're not worried about keeping your airspeed under control (not going too fast), it's relatively easy to point a plane at the ground and keep it going that way.
halfway-smooth flight path from someone who has played a MS-Windows flight sim for a few months, but - if he was going from switching off autopilot to keeping the plane pointed at something the size of the WTC....... I would imagine it would all be on the yoke too, no throttles or concerns about airspeed given you are not really going to care that much what speed or acceleration you have on impact...
Again. Think about it. The WTC is not actually that large of a target. Granted, it's was easy to pick out from the air but, lining up on it and maintaining a flight attitude that will keep you in the air until impact is a different story. If you've seen footage of the second plane impacting, look at the last second attitude correction. Had the individual who was flying the aircraft not made that correction, it would not have struck the building. (At least THAT building.) Also, airspeed is very important if you want to keep an aircraft aloft. ESPECIALLY when you are pulling turns. If you're just above stall and try to turn the aircraft, you don't turn -- you fall.
The WTC is a huge traget that is visible from a very long distance away under the weather conditions that existed. The second plane made a very small correction a few seconds before impact. Nothing I saw in the footage leads me to believe that the airplane was not operating on autopilot in altitude hold mode. The correction could have been accomplished by a small twist of the heading select knob. The world trade center impacts occured at a high enough altitude that it is not unlikely that the autopilot would not have overriden the altitude selection for terrain.
... or train for the two/three more common types, then pick a flight *on the day* that actually is flying that type of plane. book seats at the last minute (not a problem for domestic flights) or pre-book three or four different seats per attacker, and each picks a flight with the right sort of plane from the "pool" of available flights.
There are mechanisms in place that would detect this type of behavior. (Prebooking multiple flights for the same individual.)
I agree that this would be more difficult. All that was really required, though, was some time in one of the popular simulator programs and a little bit of knowledge about any flight management system and some understanding of Altitude, Heading, Waypoints, and general autopilot operations. All of this could probably be obtained in a relatively small amount of training time with any flight instructor at your local FBO. Most of it could probably be learned on a PC with readily available software. The autopilot operation of the large jets in Fly!2 and Micro$oft FS2000 is realistic enough to probably provide adequate autopilot training.
This having been said, I don't put it past the various organizations to have trained type rated pilots for this purpose.
Owen
--- John Fraizer EnterZone, Inc
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