30 Questions About Planes And Flying Answered By These Awesome Twin Pilots

I always wondered this. Now I know :D

That's interesting

Air Canada Flight 143 was a Boeing 767 that made an emergency landing at Gimli Air Force Base without engines. It was nicknamed "The Gimli Glider"!

Just ask the guys who piloted the Gimli Glider.

No problem. I hear gliders are fun and there is no more of that stupid engine noise.

engine off landing. Seriously. It's that simple. Engine off landing. In order to get a multiengine rating you have to be able to fly with an engine out. Two engines out just means you look for a safe place to land and probably do a slow flight landing. It's not going to be the smoothest but it's quite safe actually.

You find someone on that plane who knows a lot of yoga, and you ask them to help you kiss your ass goodbye... :D

There are documented cases of passengers landing light aircraft. On a large jet, one would hope at least one of the passengers had some flying experience, though I'm not sure I'd ever want to hear an "is there a pilot aboard" announcement!

All that scenes in movies were lies!!! Oo'

Except in movies. Once u remove ur jacket or tie up a ponytail you become a pilot

I suppose that might depend on how long of a final approach ATC can vector them to, and how much fuel they have for go-arounds. It also depends on the aircraft; An A380, definitely not. A Dash-8, maybe. A Cessna 172, probably.

Haven't you watched the movie "Airplane!"? Happens all the time.

Do they really ask if there is a doctor on board, or is that a movie thing?

Thanks for this, I've always wondered and was afraid to ask

Don't eat the fish

Makes the movie Airplane less funny

Follow up question - what would the child's place of birth be recorded as? If it was an international flight, would it be the country whose airspace you were in at the time? Healthy baby, bureaucratic nightmare!

awwwwww (I can imagine all passengers applaud)

tbh that would be really cool

Everyone instantly becomes the child's godfather/mother.

That's the biggest BS answer ever. You could explain how headwinds make it so the actual ground speed can be lower for take off. Or how the perspective from the side really doesn't show the actual (immense) speed of the aircraft building up, because you can't see the ground directly beneath you and even just looking 20 meters away reduces the perceived speed drastically. You wouldn't be able to drive a car otherwise. See airplane pilots also just know their little trick, like so many. Glad that they do though ;)

it might interest you to know just how a plane is able to take off in the first place. One thing that really matters is the speed at which the plane is driving down the runway. The "speedometer" marks what the ground speed is (same instrument used to read air speed) and each plane has a checklist that tells the pilot - among other things - what the speed for nose up/take off is. If there is a problem on the ground with that speed then the pilot won't even take off. They'll slow the plane down and drive it to the taxiway and likely park it at a gate.

That's not fair. I mean to the person who asked, they probably thought there'd be more of an answer. The least these two could have said was that flying through clouds is instrument based.

"We continue flying." "Why is there a mountain goat straight ahead?" "Uhhh...."

Late to the party but if it helps. Two elements to this: Attitude and Navigation. The navigation bit is easy, just think of a highly accurate GPS combined with a mapping system, but mostly using waypoints and simple line diagrams (RNAV - Area Navigation). Older systems include VOR/NDB beacons, but GPS is taking over almost completely now, certainly in Commercial. THe second bit is attitude, so we know where we are going from the nav section above. Now, are we level, climbing, turning etc. The artificial horizon which on most primary flight displays nowadays is a biggish screen with brown and blue to indicate earth and sky. FLy the wings level off that, and pitch according to requirements for climb/descent (combined with power settings). Pretty easy. Or even easier, as is done most of the time in commercials aviation, let the autopilot take the strain and just dial in what's required in terms of speed, heading, clmb/dscnt profile etc.

Uh, was this asked by a child?

I mean what did they expect? To turn around?

I have read stories of people dying in full to capacity planes and the deceased being covered in a sheet and left in their seat, because there is nowhere else to put them.

My uncle died mid-flight while headed overseas on vacation. Not really much of a vacation. It was pretty awful for her

You've heard of burial at sea? Same thing on a plane. Open the door and yeet.

I was on a flight to UK - a gentleman passed away but they covered the body and laid him down at the back of the plane where the crew prepare drinks, behind the curtain. Most folks didn’t even know…