Learning to Fly a Commerical Aircraft from Simulators

I think that remote control technology was used on this day to help fly those airplanes into the targets!!! How else can you explain how inexperienced pilots with their first time at controls of these massive airplanes were able to make those maneuvers, and navigate the plane to find their targets!!

Originally posted by firepilot
If you were in flight, and steering it into a huge building, IS NOT HARD. Anyone on this board, could get into a sim, or the real plane and fly it into something.

I would like to respectfully disagree with that obsevation. If the pilot were placed very close to the target and on a heading direct to the target, yes, he might be able to hit it.

But place him 90 degrees or 180 degrees from the target at a speed in excess of 400 mph there is no chance, none, that everyone on this board would be able to hit the target.

The problem with firepilot's statement is that after 15 years or more flying airplanes it does seem so easy that anybody should be able to do it. But this is not supported by the facts. The skills needed to maintain your altitude and line up on a target are time consuming abilities to acquire.

The bigger the plane is, the easier it flies.

This statement is misleading. Because larger airplanes have boosted controls yes, it is easier to turn left and right and climb and descend than to say, yank a Twin Beech around the sky.

But under FAR Part 25 (certification requirments for Transport Category aircraft) all airliners have to have the same relative control forces.

However the skill level required here by the hijacker is not measured in terms of turning left or right, it is measurered in terms of HOW far left and HOW far right and of maintaining altitude.

Again, if we take anybody on this board put them 20 miles headed away from the WTC at 450 mph and ask them to line up and hit the WTC very few would be able to do it. But in no case would a hijacker with no experience in the airplane be able to do it. And even more improbable would 2 hijackers be able to hit the WTC dead center on the first try. That is so far beyond believability as to be directly in the Twilight Zone.

Flying a plane into a building is far different than takeoff/landing an aircraft according to the precision from test standards.

I never heard the phrase "precision from test standards". I would respectfully ask that you enlighten me.