Learning to Fly a Commerical Aircraft from Simulators

I came across this article and wanted to share with everyone on this board!! After reviewing many of topics about the top reason why 9-11 was or was not an inside job, very few people talk about the ability of the highjackers to fly the airplanes!!! This article is short, so please feel free to read and let us know your thoughts and opinions!!!

Article

By the way the article is by a Nila Sagadevan who is an aeronautical engineer and a qualified pilot of heavy aircraft!!!

I don't think this is the case.

If they learned to fly on simulators then why did their flight instructors say they were such terrible pilots ?

Every description of these guys as pilots is total incompetence.

Originally posted by NoobieDoobieDo
I don't think this is the case.
If they learned to fly on simulators then why did their flight instructors say they were such terrible pilots ?
Every description of these guys as pilots is total incompetence.

Can you provide me with a link that states the instructors said this? I don't remember reading those quotes and would like to take a look at it.

Once you provide a link I will read it and then comment on here again.

Thanks!

M.Agenda!

Thanks for the link. It supports what I have known for some time. I cannot figure out why people cannot be swayed by intellectual, well worded arguments like the linked article?

Looks like you are on your way to an illustrious posting history.

I remember the day of the attack.

I was watching the morning news as I was getting ready to go to work. BTW, at that time, and to this day, my job-site is a secure state gov't facility, so many details of that day are "burned" into my memory.

One of the things that I vividly remember was that the impact at the Pentagon was originally reported simply as "a report of a fire at or near the Pentagon".

At least initially there was no report of a plane crash at the Pentagon; just a fire with a possible explosion.

This was on an ABC-network affiliate, just after the first plane hit the Trade Center, and before the second plane hit the WTC.

I distinctly remember the timing because, as soon as I saw the second plane hit (it was a live feed), I knew I would be heading into a possible target area when I drove into work later that morning.

I've printed the article referenced and I'l be sharing it with a commercial pilot friend this weekend. I have a feeling this just might rattle her cage a bit.

Originally posted by Vinadetta
I came across this article and wanted to share with everyone on this board!! After reviewing many of topics about the top reason why 9-11 was or was not an inside job, very few people talk about the ability of the highjackers to fly the airplanes!!! This article is short, so please feel free to read and let us know your thoughts and opinions!!!

Article

You certainly ask a question I've been wanting address. How did the hijackers get to where they were going without charts? I defy anyone who doesn't have a flight sim to go out and get FS, a 757 add-on for the sim, some photographic scenery for the NY area, and go do what the hijackers did, first time and without any practice. You'd get lost, and fast. Hell - even pilots land at wrong airports sometimes, and they know where they're going!!!!

Great post!

[edit on 16-3-2007 by mirageofdeceit]

A couple of things:

Having had the fortune to spend time in a 747-400 simulator at the Boeing Renton plant and talking to the peopel there (Pre 911 BTW) its pretty clear that you could figure out how to fly the darned things.

The two most difficult things to do is landing and taking off. A ton of accidents occur during those transitions. But if you were only interested in say turning, and flying level and some basic navigation, then you may be ranked as terrible, but have enought skill to crash the plane where you want.

I would like to play the devils advocate. For starters, one of the ideas that I will put forth comes from the military. In the US military there are manuals, and if a person is bright enough can take and fly a fighter craft and land it. It may be shakey but can still be done, and has been rumored for such. I think that simulators that they used were in combination of different factors as to allowing them to do such. There is also not alot on the back grounds of these individuals before they got to this country. There is really nothing that states that they did not train in the acutal planes or have the manuals to allow them to do such before coming over. If you think about this, with as much planning that went into the actuall events of 9/11, it is very plausable that they had training in the actual aircraft that was hijacked and knew enough to do the deeds at the time.

That is a point esp int he case of the 757's which are plentiful and if you can get some real flight time in a 737 you would get the same basic effect. Iran Air for example flies the A300 in various forms and that could simulate a 767 in real flight.

Without having to learn the takeoff and landing part, I suspect that the terrorists could have learned fairly quickly how to fly the planes in a suicidal manner

Originally posted by FredT
A couple of things:

Having had the fortune to spend time in a 747-400 simulator at the Boeing Renton plant and talking to the peopel there (Pre 911 BTW) its pretty clear that you could figure out how to fly the darned things.

The two most difficult things to do is landing and taking off. A ton of accidents occur during those transitions. But if you were only interested in say turning, and flying level and some basic navigation, then you may be ranked as terrible, but have enought skill to crash the plane where you want.

I agree - to actually fly an aircraft is pretty straight-forward, and with the basic flight training they allegedly had, that would be sufficient.

What I question is their ability to find what they were looking for, although from altitude, you can see the earth quite clearly. Visibility was good, and pointing out major landmarks, such as rivers, would be quite straight forward.

I know that seems to contradict what I said in my post above, but if you consider that they didn't know where they were when they took over, and the speeds they flew at, it wolud be quite easy to overshoot where you think you want to be (remember, they started a long way from where they wanted to be; this is the part I have a problem with).

Spotting the WTC would be easy enough as it is on the point of a peninsula in NY city. The Pentagon is harder though. Whilst the satellite images clearly show its shape, from 7,000 ft it is a different story. That one would not have been easy to spot, and is the reason I think that the aircraft looped as it did (he saw it, then turned to hit it).

One thing you are taught for basic flight training is turning. He beamed the Pentagon, then did a 320 degree turn, leveling out when he saw it ahead of him. That is very plausible indeed. Question is, why does the flight path of the official story, and the light poles, not add up the eye-witness accounts of the aircraft flight path?? These shouldn't be contradicting each other at all, especially when the flight path data came from the FDR (see the FDR thread).

Apart from the question of how they found their way there initially, that they could have flown there is very possible.

[edit on 16-3-2007 by mirageofdeceit]

I´ve mentioned that before, countless times...

I design, build and fly r/c airplanes, and of course I like and understand about airplanes, from single motors to airliners. Besides that I´ve flown a sailplane and a low wing sailplane tractor a couple of times and its not like the flight simulator, at all levels...

I am positive, I´ve always been that only a very good pilot can fly an airliner at 500 knots/h on a curve trajectory into a 50 meter wide building.

There is no way for a beginner pilot to do so, its completely impossible. He would loose the trajectory very easily, over react to try to correct it and loose it all then.

I can only find a way for that to be done. The plane would have to fly on autopilot with the gps coordinates of the exact spot into the autopilot.

Some talk about someone somewhere remote flying the planes, it is possible but then the planes would have to modified and a receiver and some kind of override system would have to be installed.

Or the terrorist pilots were not the ones they said or they were real pilots or this is all a lie. And this is all a lie

It makes me sic the way this event was used by the politicians.

More,

The chinese, the french and german, the russians they all have secret services, I bet they have men inside the fbi and cia, and other important places in the us I bet they know much more about than the rest of us.

So why are they so quiet? why didn´t the french that were so against this all from the beginning are so quiet now?

There is much more here than we imagine...

Probably they understood the potential of this type of events, terrorism or not...and decided to leave the public in the same state of mind...official version believers...

[edit on 16/3/07 by derfred33]

Excellent post, derfred33. That is also my conclusion as well. Definately more here than meets the eye. The way it was all handled later was a disgrace.

Another interesting point that the author brings up is about the manuever that the pilot made coming into the Pentagon!! This is what I find very difficult to believe was accomplished by an inexperience pilot with his first time at the controls of such a large and complex aircraft!!! I think Loose Change also covers this point. Sure it could be luck, but I'm not going to write this one off as one of those strange "coincidences" of that day.

Another thing that I've always wondered about, was why hit the Pentagon from that particular angle. You just highjacked an airplane that you know your going to crash into a building. Also knowing that you are going to die, or even be shot down before you accomplish your goal With the shape and layout of the Petagon why not come in at a much steep angle and just fly the plane almost stright down. Why go through all the trouble of making that particular manuever instead of a stright or near verticle assault. I'm no expert but, I could imagine flying getting plane to fly fast and down, would be easier than making a giant steep angled turn and flying that low to the ground.

How hard is it to crash a plane? Dont need much training for that.

And they didnt even crash good, one of the planes almost missed one of the towers.

One little factoid missing here.....Several of the hijackers had QUALIFIED for their commercial pilot's licenses........

Originally posted by Swampfox46_1999
One little factoid missing here.....Several of the hijackers had QUALIFIED for their commercial pilot's licenses........

Which is kind of hard to believe since they could barely fly a Cessna.

I'm willing to bet my life I could correctly start up a airliner just by flying Microsoft Flight Simulator with addons. I doubt I'd be abled to handle ATC and be abled to land properly.

In terms of flying, whoever thinks a 757 is WAY harder to FLY than a Cessna 172 is a moron. (I'm not talking about systems / procedures) It is EXTREMELY simple to fly a plane into a building, it's EASY.

Gawd. 30 minutes ago I landed a Cessna 172, and it was simple to land it on the centre line of the runway. It's NOT hard to fly a jet into a building.

Also, from what I've heard, the instructor stated the hijacker was very quiet, and hard Average to Below average flying skills. EASILY enough to fly a jet into a building.

[edit on 16-3-2007 by PisTonZOR]

Which is kind of hard to believe since they could barely fly a Cessna.

Now try looking up their later training.........

Originally posted by Swampfox46_1999

Now try looking up their later training.........

I do not need to look it up,, thier is plenty of other evidence against them.

Please tell me how the hijackers surprised flight 93 pilots when thy were told to secure cockpit door and about the other hijackings ?

Why out of 4 planes not 1 got off a emergency call or signal ?