The Impossibility of Flying Heavy Aircraft Without Training

reply to post by OrionStars


You never answered my questions. Why exactly should I answer yours? I am not going to play any silly child's games with you. If you do not care to answer my question(s), then so be it. Your perogative any time.

Originally posted by C0bzz
reply to post by OrionStars

 

You never answered my questions. Why exactly should I answer yours? I am not going to play any silly child's games with you. If you do not care to answer my question(s), then so be it. Your perogative any time.

Why should I? You snidely claimed to be the expert. You explain what it means to fly a plane with "half wing span". Your claim not mine. Show us what you know about the physics and quantum mechanics of aerodynamics. You blatantly implied I was too stupid to know.

Originally posted by OrionStars
Since you claim to be expert, where exactly is the author wrong? Are you a peer of his in aerodynamic engineering plus pilot?

No I'm not an aerodynamic engineer, but should I take his article at face value though?

And why do people assume this guy flew at 20 feet for a mile before crashing? I would say a better scenario would most likely be this guy was flying anywhere between 20 feet and 200 feet in a kind of porpoising maneuver since his skills would have sucked too much to be able to maintain a level flight at any alt much less close to the ground. Hitting poles one mile out could just have meant he was having trouble maintaining a good alt for the run in.

I’m just conjecturing here so no need to get all fired up. I just have a problem with this statement from his paper.

Let it suffice to say that it is physically impossible to fly a 200,000 pounds airliner 20 feet above the ground at 400 MPH.

And the only reason you accept it is because it aligns with what you want to believe. If this guy stated that the aircraft was easy to fly at 400 kt 20 feet above the ground you would be screaming to see the empirical data from the wind tunnels and actual video.

I’ll tell you what, I will ask no less than 30 pilots tomorrow at work to what they think about this statement and I’ll post it for you, ok?


[edit on 16-1-2008 by Xtrozero]

reply to post by Xtrozero


If you knew all you said about flying you would have no problem agreeing with him.

reply to post by Xtrozero


That was 20' above ground at 400 mph not 20' in distance at 400 mph. Did you even bother to read the article? If you did, you certainly keep misinterpreting what the author did say.

reply to post by Xtrozero


It certainly does. It agrees with my understanding of the physics and quantum mechanics of aerodynamics very well. The author is an expert in aerodynamic engineeering. Something you admit you are not.

At any rate, why is such ultra-low-level flight aerodynamically impossible? Because the reactive force of the hugely powerful downwash sheet, coupled with the compressibility effects of the tip vortices, simply will not allow the aircraft to get any lower to the ground than approximately one half the distance of its wingspan—until speed is drastically reduced, which, of course, is what happens during normal landings.

And that is complete BS. While it is true that in normal flight attitude at speed you may not be abled to decend while half your wingspan in height, that hardly has anything to do with 9/11 or anything really.

Let's go into the basics. Lift is created by a pressure diferance between under the wing and over the wing. As aircrafts centre of gravity is infront of the centre of lift, therefore, to stop the aircraft nosediving towards the ground, you will need to have a tailplane that pushes the tail down. That means that in level flight the pressure diferance between the top and bottom of the wings should create a force equal to the weight of the aircraft plus the aerodynamic weight of the tailplane pushing it down. Understand?

The amout of lift can be calculated by using a formula. One of the variables in the sum is 'dynamic pressure', basically the pressure under the wing. Obviously if you increase angle of attack, dynamic pressure will dramatically go up and the plane should rise. If you decrease angle of attack dynamic pressure will go down and the plane will sink.

Down low, however, in ground effect, the ground interferes with the downwash increasing the pressure underneath the wing - increasing lift - so to stay at that altitude you will have to have a lower angle of attack than if you were not in ground effect. To decend all you would need to do would be lower the nose slightly - reducing lift and allowing you to fly into the ground.

At high speeds a low angle of incedence will still create a pressure diferance capable of lifting the plane easily. Any change in pitch will create a large diferance in pressure leading to a change in direction almost instantaneously. Increase in lift caused by ground effect will easily be remedied by lowering the nose ever so slightly, you will NOT be pitching the nose down five degrees to go any lower at half a wingspan as that would cause the wing to have a negative angle of incedence which would smoosh the plane into the ground rather quickly.

The 757 was going over 450mph at 3500 feet per minute, that's five times the decent rate an airliner is doing on final while going over twice as fast. That's a heck of a load of momentum. The 757 has a wingspan of 124 feet, ground effect therefore should only be 'dramatic' when 64 feet high, at 3500 feet per minute it takes only a second to do that.

Somehow I don't think ground effect is going to make it magically defy physics and be unable to get bellow half its wingspan in less than a second. It may be hard for a pilot to do what they say it did on 9/11, but the 757, sure was, easily capable of doing it.

[edit on 16/1/2008 by C0bzz]

Sorry I haven't had time to read the whole thread. I also gave the posted article a quick skim. But I have to say, I don't agree with much of what I have read.

First off I want to say I don't believe the official story! BUT I do believe it is possible for a person with some training, knowledge, and planning could pilot these planes as described.

I am a private pilot who has gotten about half-way through instrument training. I also have used MS Flight sim quite a bit as well as flown a 777 simulator.

I flew the 777 simulator as a kid before I got my license. At the time I had zero hours of flight time but had an interest in Aviation. But no training. I landed that big plane at Boeing field 2-3 times (badly). It wasn't pretty but it was fun.

Also, MS flight sim is fairly accurate in their cockpit representations.

The fact that the flight paths the aircraft took were performed poorly at high speeds suggests a pilot without much expierence flying it. Why would a trained pilot do 360's at high speeds?

The issue of "navigation" being hard in a large aircraft at altitude is not accurate I believe. Through simple study of the terrain it is not hard to get the aircraft pointed in the right direction.... Spend a day studying a map or flying MS Flight sim and it won't be dificult. Also, the flight paths aren't straight lines if I recall correctly. This suggests the "pilot" was using terrain to navigate and had to make corrections... not a highly trained pilot who could have just put in GPS coordinates to fly direct.


These individuals received flight training as well. they might not have been the greatest pilots in training but they were getting training. I'm sure they absorbed SOME of their training. If they supposedly had this terrorist mission to complete, I'm sure they would have paid some amount of attention to their flight instructors.

So to add my argument up:

1. The irregular flight paths and manuvers suggests amateur pilots.
2. It is possible to fly these big planes with limited expierence.
3. MS Flight Sim is accurate enough to practice VFR navigation and figure out cockpit controls
4. Add in some actual flight training

I'm sure people "determined" to carry out these attacks could have done the above. With some study... its totally possible.

But the author of the article stated that someone had to be an experienced pilot to understand how to operate the most difficult part of flight simulation - reading only by instrument panel and not becoming disoriented in the proces. Clouds and fog under physical conditions, actual weather conditions,etc. I cannot say I disagree with that.

I am going to have to disagree with you about the accuracy of MSFS cockpits, atleast in jets, as nothing is properly simulated. Also, they actually were flying using basic navigation techniques. They also could of upselected DCA into the Flight Management Computer rather easily.

www.ntsb.gov...

[edit on 16/1/2008 by C0bzz]

Well by the time I had 15 hours of flight training i had already had about a half hour of "hood" time. At altitude.... its not a big deal. Close to the ground is another matter.

Were these flights ever in instrument conditions? As I recall Sept 11 was a clear day at least in the NY area.

Advanced cockpits also have lots of voice announcements... so even if you can't read the instruments it will tell u if you are going outside normal flight paramaters aurally.


Stuff like..

descent rate
speed
bank angle


so if you got a basic understanding of aircraft controls and know how to make corrections in flight atitude in the above conditions... you shouldn't have a problem even if you can't read the instruments!

hmm I have to disagree. If you take a look at cockpit pics form Boeing cockpits, you can see that the instrument layout is fairly accurate.

Check out:

www.spi.com.sg...




Pretty close I say.

reply to post by miragewsu


You bring up some good points.

However, I take the view people flunking out of instructor training on Cessnas, including the written tests, and then only playing the video arcade portions of commercial jetliner flight simulation, are bad candidates for jumping into the pilots' cockpit seat, and then putting planes exactly where they want them to go on impact.

Particularly,with all those tall buildings NYC is notorious for putting up. The winds are always blowing in off the Atlantic. The closer to sea level the more the speed has to be cut. They have to know all that in a real commercial jetliner, which none of them ever flew with instructor or solo, aside from being alleged on 9/11 and never proved. Good weather or bad that instrumental panel has to be well-known by any pilot, in case the weather should change drastically from one minute to the next.

Then there is that impossibility manuevering over Ohio, by not one but two alleged planes taking the scenic view over the same state.

Now if they were in B-1's they could make those near impossible turns. No problem. But could the alleged hijackers fly them?

Being a grandson of a pilot engineer for the United States airforce I was told that flying helicopters really isnt that hard at all. Flying planes however! Is a much different story, alot that takes much getting used to is at stake.

I for one, dont think the guy who "flew the plane into the pentagon," was a man, but a machine. I think the whole plane might have even been empty.

reply to post by topsecretombomb


Would a cruise missle with folding wings look to be more plausible at the Pentagon?

Well I'm not really aware of the exact flight paths they took. I'm not really arguing that the official story occured. I'm mainly saying that it is possible for a person to navigate a large plane with minimal practice. It's not as hard as the article makes it sound.

Give me 20 hours of flight training and a person willing to earn.. I could "train" someone to fly a large jet into a building. I'm 100% confident of this. There is just not that much to it.

Oh and MS flight flight dynamics is fairly realistic. It can be configured to be an approved FAA instrument flight sim for limited hours.

EDIT: Why did the Hijacker's show up to their flight training if they were such bad pilots? I dont' really buy that argument that their piloting skills being that horrible. I'd have to read more about that aspect of the situation so sorry about my ignorance. If I remember right.. they weren't interested in learning to take off or land. makes sense to their "mission". And I can understand an instructor would "flunk" a pilot for not doing these things.

REALLY... Any iditot can be taught to point a plane in a direction... you can go take an intro flight with an instructor... They let you Take off!!! no expierence.. you fly the whole time except to land. It's really not that hard. it does take a bit of practice to do this in a large jet... but the principle is the same.

[edit on 16-1-2008 by miragewsu]

reply to post by miragewsu
I agree

If you take the first thing you find in google as gospel then I can understand the claim that, to avoid crashing an aircraft, all that's needed is to simply go a lot faster

These hijackers didn't have any bad weather or difficult conditions to deal with and they'd had more than enough training to accomplish their task.

FAA doesn't officially issue hijackers licenses either but it could be a suggestion to help keep track of them in future.

Again, this is my view and my experiences with flying.

Every time I went to NYC, I always flew into and left via JFK. I could tell when we were getting close to NYC, the ride became very bumpy. Some stretches far more bumpy than others.

The last thing I wanted to hear was some pilot flunking Cessna written and instructor flight testing, plus, flunking the video arcade portion of commercial jet flight simumlation, was flying the plane, even on a clear day. It would not be possible to finish coming in for a safe landing and hit the runway. Much less do turning and punching the engines. for speed to come in on an exact spot, on some buildings as the "official" reports allege. Not under those conditions.

The reason they flunked is stated to be they could not speak or understand English very well. There is no way they were going to be flying commercial jetliners, when they had never flown actual jetliners, before as instructors reported to be interviewed stated.

They could not possibly have understood any of the control panel, if they could not understand the English speaking person instructing them in a flight simulator. They had trouble with the actual Cessna for the same reason according to the same reports from ex-instructors. One was reported unable to pronounce much less explain what a transponder was.

Professional pilots, including those with Pilots for 9/11 Truth, have stated none of the alleged hijackers were remotely qualified to fly commercial jetliners. I am quite inclined to agree with their judgment and expertise on that matter. I know what it felt like flying under adverse conditions with a professional pilots at the helm when I have flown. Those seasoned pilots knew what they were doing.

The "aircraft" that hit the Pentagon I would say was the hardest to accomplish and hardest to explain by far. It may be that hitting it in the matter described in the official story was implausible. I just haven't done the research in order to express a real opinion on it.

I also wanted to add that ground effect doesn't prevent an aircraft from flying close to the ground. As a pilot you can feel ground effect. it's just a slight cushioning effect that's all. You can easily "push" through it.


I think something about wingtip vortices was mentioned as well..
Wingtip vortices decrease at higher speeds so I doubt they would have much effect at 400 mph.

reply to post by OrionStars


well if your expeirences incoming into JFK are from a passengers perspective then its not really applicable here. Turbulent air is something all pilots learn to deal with. If these guys got any flight training it wouldn't be a problem.

I really do think I could train you to fly a large jet into a building given some flight training and sim time. Just my opinion.

I would assume that these hijackers were actually trying to carry out their missions they would take the effort to make Allah happy and learn the controls. Why bother trying... You know what I am saying??

I'd have to read more about the 9/11 pilots for truth statements to comment on them.

I'm just going off what I know.