Pilot died during Brussels to N.Y. flight
- Thread starter #juan
- Start date
Or someone is just being a jerk. I imagined he meant that if George Bush (the first) was able to land an Avenger on an aircraft carrier during WWII anyone could because all Bush Haters KNOW the George Bush (HW) was very stupid. WWII Era avionics allowed Avengers to basically land themselves is the insinuation. When shown by experienced flyers here on CanCon that it is not so simple he tried a little damage control.
Landing planes on carriers then and now is a harrowing experience. Landing an passenger jet is not so easy. I talked to an airline pilot who stated that unless you are trained on a specific aircraft the odds of landing the plane aren't very good. An untrained civillian stepping in an airline cockpit and landing it are pretty much nill when it comes to an airliner.
George W didn't. He was referring to his visit to an aircraft carrier just a couple years ago.
I don't see how he was relating to George W. Avengers haven't landed on carriers in over 60 years. However George HW DID land Avengers on carriers and he is saying thanks to amazing avionics George W can land an Avenger on a carrier...adding that flight crews are secondary.
He may be completely confused.
If you were doing a quick search for what kind of plane Bush rode in to that carrier on... I can see where Google might throw you for a misinformation loop. lol.
It may have been a long stretch of attempted humour to suggest that with modern avionics, W could even accomplish what his father did...but if that was the attempt, it was poorly done and pretty much failed.
Flyboys was about the airwar in the Pacific. Good book, very bi-partisan if you will. It is not a USA ALL THE WAY-WE DID IT ALL book. I think you would like it.
I will read it. The U.S. did some remarkable things in the Pacific. Midway is still one of my favourite movies.
Believe me...you will really like the book. I assure you that it isn't a USA Rah! Rah! book.
The Battle of Midway was in and of itself remarkable. The movie was real good but it could be redone so much better today. The use of vintage Japanese Kamikazee footage into the attack scenes was disingenuine (sic?). The Japanese didn't use the kamikazee until the end of the war. The Japanese pilots at Midway were the cream of the crop and knew how to place a bomb and torpedo and did not need to crash their planes into ships. The spectacular part was having most of them being caught on their flight decks ready for take off when McCluskeys Dauntless's attacked.
If you like Midway read "Incredible Victory"
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When I first heard this story, the first thing I thought of was Leslie Nielsen and Julie Hagerty standing in the cockpit...
Leslie: We have to land this plane and get this man to a hospital.
Julie: What is it Doctor?
Leslie: It's a large building with sick people but that isn't important now.
Julie: Surely the co-pilot can land the plane.
Leslie: He probably can...and don't call me Shirley.
Leslie: We have to land this plane and get this man to a hospital.
Julie: What is it Doctor?
Leslie: It's a large building with sick people but that isn't important now.
Julie: Surely the co-pilot can land the plane.
Leslie: He probably can...and don't call me Shirley.
That may or may not be entirely correct, unless mandated by law, the third pilot probably won't be qualified. When 2 flight crew member aircraft were originally certified for flights of 14 hours or longer they needed to be supplemented with a cruise relief augmentation pilot, which formed a rather demeaning acronym. To save money, airlines don't train these folks to the same criteria, so they are not type endorsed, do not take off, land, or fly the aircraft below 10,000 feet.
Bob you are probably right. I admit I didn't read much further than the following article from one of the news sites. I assumed that one of the 1st officers was dead-heading on a scheduled flight.
Juan; I read initially that it was a relief pilot who was on board, news media rarely gets things right even after several attempts;-). I can't imagine needing a relief pilot on that flight, but then again that's an awful long deadhead from a rather distant point in their system too. But it is fortunate anyway that there was someone else to mitigate the workload, fully qualified or otherwise, sure beats trying to handle it alone.
It's a little hard to quantify these days as flight operations have progressed quite a bit in the last number of years, (both in good ways and bad). There is more interaction between Captain and FO than in the past. Much of the "Captain bravado" is gone, (but not all) which would have the skipper feeling undermined by the FO and proving his point, or "pulling rank". Over managing or micromanaging can also be detrimental, just like mismanaging. These issues have caused a number of accidents in the past, human factors have been studied and changes made.
There is more of a team approach today, but specific duties are generally well defined. For example; though verbiage and actual procedures may differ between airlines, the basic concept is when weather is at or below limits on a precision approach, the FO will fly the approach and the Captain will be looking outside approaching decision height or altitude, the FO will call "decide" and depending on the approach the Capt. will either say "go around" and the FO will fly the go around, "continue" and the FO will continue until the Capt. says "landing I have control" where he takes control and lands. So it standt to reason that during a low visibility landing the Captain has more of a chance of having an accident.
Although the Captain has the ultimate authority it usually isn't excercised as militarily as in the past, but it still happens. Now accidents happen when no one's hands are at the controls and either the autopilot gets overloaded and kicks off, unnoticed or otherwise, or no one is monitoring the thing and it goes just where it was erroneously programmed to go. Gotta love progress and technology, but it brings new challenges.