Tag Archives: flight

Nila Sagadevan is an aeronautical engineer and a pilot. There are some who maintain that the mythical 9/11 hijackers, although proven to be too incompetent to fly a little Cessna 172, had acquired the impressive skills that enabled them to fly airliners by training in flight simulators. What follows is an attempt to bury this myth once and for all, because I’ve heard this ludicrous explanation bandied about, ad nauseam, on the Internet and the TV networks—invariably by people who know nothing substantive about flight simulators, flying, or even airplanes. A common misconception non-pilots have about simulators is how “easy” it is to operate them. They are indeed relatively easy to operate if the objective is to make a few lazy turns and frolic about in the “open sky”. But if the intent is to execute any kind of a maneuver with even the least bit of precision, the task immediately becomes quite daunting. And if the aim is to navigate to a specific geographic location hundreds of miles away while flying at over 500 MPH, 30,000 feet above the ground the challenges become virtually impossible for an untrained pilot. And this, precisely, is what the four hijacker pilots who could not fly a Cessna around an airport by themselves are alleged to have accomplished in multi-ton, high-speed commercial jets on 9/11. For a person not conversant with the practical complexities of pilotage, a modern flight simulator could present a terribly confusing and disorienting experience. These complex training devices are not even remotely similar to the video games one sees in amusement arcades, or even the software versions available for home computers. In order to operate a modern flight simulator with any level of skill, one has to not only be a decent pilot to begin with, but also a skilled instrument-rated one to boot — and be thoroughly familiar with the actual aircraft type the simulator represents, since the cockpit layouts vary between aircraft. The only flight domains where an arcade/PC-type game would even begin to approach the degree of visual realism of a modern professional flight simulator would be during the take-off and landing phases. During these phases, of course, one clearly sees the bright runway lights stretched out ahead, and even peripherally sees images of buildings, etc. moving past. Take-offs—even landings, to a certain degree—are relatively “easy”, because the pilot has visual reference cues that exist “outside” the cockpit. But once you’ve rotated, climbed out, and reached cruising altitude in a simulator (or real airplane), and find yourself en route to some distant destination (using sophisticated electronic navigation techniques), the situation changes drastically: the pilot loses virtually all external visual reference cues, and is left entirely at the mercy of an array of complex flight and navigation instruments to provide situational cues (altitude, heading, speed, attitude, etc.) In the case of a Boeing 757 or 767, the pilot would be faced with an EFIS (Electronic Flight Instrumentation System) panel comprised of six large multi-mode LCDs interspersed with clusters of assorted “hard” instruments. These displays process the raw aircraft system and flight data into an integrated picture of the aircraft situation, position and progress, not only in horizontal and vertical dimensions, but also with regard to time and speed as well. When flying “blind”, I.e., with no ground reference cues, it takes a highly skilled pilot to interpret, and then apply, this data intelligently. If one cannot translate this information quickly, precisely and accurately (and it takes an instrument-rated pilot to do so), one would have ZERO SITUATIONAL AWARENESS. I.e., the pilot wouldn’t have a clue where s/he was in relation to the earth. Flight under such conditions is referred to as “IFR”, or Instrument Flight Rules. And IFR Rule #1: Never take your eyes off your instruments, because that’s all you have! The corollary to Rule #1: If you can’t read the instruments in a quick, smooth, disciplined, scan, you’re as good as dead. Accident records from around the world are replete with reports of any number of good pilots — I.e., professional instrument-rated pilots — who ‘bought the farm’ because they ‘lost it’ while flying in IFR conditions. Let me place this in the context of the 9/11 hijacker-pilots. These men were repeatedly deemed incompetent to solo a simple Cessna-172 — an elementary exercise that involves flying this little trainer once around the patch on a sunny day. A student’s first solo flight involves a simple circuit: take-off, followed by four gentle left turns ending with a landing back on the runway. This is as basic as flying can possibly get. Not one of the hijackers was deemed fit to perform this most elementary exercise by himself. When professional airline pilots, the majority trained by the United States Air Force, were asked to recreate the New York 9/11 attack in a flight simulator, two thirds failed entirely. None could duplicate the Pentagon attack at all. This is what the pilots had to say: “Regarding your comments on flight simulators, several of my colleagues and I have tried to simulate the ‘hijacker’s’ final approach maneuvers into the towers on our company 767 simulator. We tried repeated tight, steeply banked 180 turns at 500 mph followed by a fast rollout and lineup with a tall building. More than two-thirds of those who attempted the maneuver failed to make a ‘hit’. How these rookies who couldn’t fly a trainer pulled this off is beyond comprehension.” .Much more at the link…… http://canadiansforpalestine.ning.com/profiles/blogs/israels-preelection-attempt… added by: treewolf39