Can inexperienced 'MythBusters' really fly commercial aircraft?

dsc.discovery.com

Jamie and Adam take wing to test if a person with no flight training can safely land a 747 and if a plane can take off from a conveyor belt speeding in the opposite direction. Tory, Grant, and Kari jump on some Hollywood-inspired skydiving myths.

12/12 9:00 p.m. est

This should be interesting!

It doesn't give many details. If those guys can land, an arguably, much more difficult airplane to fly while performing, an arguably, much more difficult maneuver to perform, then maybe some people will finally believe that the hijackers actually crashed the airplanes.

I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Hilarious!!!

I was having the whole conveyor belt discussion on another forum a few weeks ago. I'll save our conclusions so I don't spoil the show...

Heh, i can't wait to see it.
Oh crap they are on now! Missing it!

I believe THAT episode is scheduled for 12/12/07

but this is addressing LANDING - totally different than guiding an already moving plane into a building

and for a conveyor belt thing - all that matters is how much air is moving across the wings

I haven't seen the show so I'm wondering if they will be flying in a straight line or performing the Pentagon maneuver....or flying at all.

I think this is an apple to oranges comparison so far since the site is vague about the environment.Auto pilot?No auto pilot?They only get one try?

Let them re enact 9/11 with one try on a simulator, THAT would impress me if they pulled it off.

To this day I've seen no "proof" that highjackers crashed the planes.Slim evidence, but no proof.
If there was definitive and absolute proof on the official story, the 9/11 forum wouldn't exist.

If they are on about landing a 747 they must be on about a simulator right? I can't imagine any insurance company would give the go ahead for the real thing. should be good tho - any idea when that episode will make it this side of the pond?

I'd be more interested to see if they can take off with little/no experience and find NY and crash into the Twin Towers with both of them making their targets at 500-600 mph.

reply to post by Now_Then


I can't imagine anyone allowing those two guys anywhere near the controls of a real 747. I'm guessing that it's going to be in a simulator.

reply to post by bsbray11


Exactly, who cares if they can fly it. How did they navigate to the WTC and hit dead on in the first run. The whole east coast just looks like a field of cement...

It seems like they are trying to prove/disprove the myth of 'average Joe' being able to land a commercial airliner... as seen in 'ump-teen' many movies.

Some may feel it may shed some light on 911 strategies, but I think it is geared towards the movie scenarios.

As far as the actually piloted the plane, I have to agree with others. No insurance company, nor the producers would allow.

The show is surrounded by safety, this would be detrimental to their creed.

uh....the conveyor belt is gonna be busted. anyone with enough knowledge in aerodynamics will tell you that.

i can guarantee you that all u will see happen is the wheels spinning really fast rofl.

if a plane is on a conveyor belt. its technically Not moving forward. which isnt creating lift under the wings.

so how will it takeoff? simple. it just wont.

no lift = no flight.

myth busted by, oh whats is it they call it nowdays? oh yeah COMMON SENSE.

The plane gets its lift via the bernoulli effect. This has to do with wing shape and its interaction with air moving rapidly past. If the plane has no motion relative to the wind, there will bo no lift to force the plane up. That plane is going nowhere fast

[edit on 12/6/2007 by Mayan2012]

i lost all faith and interest in MythBusters after the episode where the chick gets implanted with an RFID chip.

Originally posted by Mayan2012
uh....the conveyor belt is gonna be busted. anyone with enough knowledge in aerodynamics will tell you that.

i can guarantee you that all u will see happen is the wheels spinning really fast rofl.

if a plane is on a conveyor belt. its technically Not moving forward. which isnt creating lift under the wings.

so how will it takeoff? simple. it just wont.

no lift = no flight.

myth busted by, oh whats is it they call it nowdays? oh yeah COMMON SENSE.

The plane gets its lift via the bernoulli effect. This has to do with wing shape and its interaction with air moving rapidly past. If the plane has no motion relative to the wind, there will bo no lift to force the plane up. That plane is going nowhere fast

[edit on 12/6/2007 by Mayan2012]

WARNING! CONVEYOR BELT MYTH SPOILERS!
WARNING! CONVEYOR BELT MYTH SPOILERS!

That would be accurate if the aircraft used its wheels to produce its thrust. Alas, an airplane is propelled through the air via a propeller or jet engine which is not directly connected to the wheels. The wheels are free rolling, which means if the conveyor belt is moving in at the exact speed of the aircraft’s forward motion in the opposite direction, all that will happen is that the wheels will rotate twice as fast (and probably rupture due to friction), however the aircraft would take off as normal.

In the same way, an airplane with wheels would be able to take off on ice. It doesn’t matter if the wheels spin or mostly just slide across the ice. Take of speed is not measured by the speed of the wheels.

I.e. if you put a car on the same conveyor belt, the car will in fact, remain in one spot because the cars propulsion is directly linked with the wheels that are in contact with the conveyor belt. This is not true for an airplane.

Understand?

In addition, whether or not the 9/11 hijackers were actually able to fly the planes, including navigate to their targets, is ultimately irrelevant if you consider that the collapse of all three buildings are highly likely to be the result of a controlled demolition, in one form or another, and not a “natural collapse”.


[edit on 6-12-2007 by SilentGem]

Well,

I just watched that Rfid chip episode on youtube and that was pretty sad. Definitely seems like this show has some kind of underlying propaganda or agenda - I wouldn't believe many of their experiments for these reasons.

I was really interested in the episode about the relationship between speed radar and paint color of the car. They said in the end that it didn't matter but I didn't really believe it. They certainly did not test all car colors. Can you imagine if say a black car fooled radar guns? Everyone would be driving black in no time at all - the only thing "busted" would have been the cops ability to track speeders. They would have never shown a dirty secret like that though on national TV.

And now this 747 stunt seems like an indirect attempt to debunk the claim that the 911 high jackers couldn't have flown those planes. I'm sure the comparison will be flawed in many ways but will be some kind of half baked subtle attempt to sway the lazy public.

Next episode will probably be - Myth busters tests the myth that jet fuel can't melt or weaken steel. Ha - can't wait for that one!


[edit on 8-12-2007 by CyberTruth]

this has nothing to do with 9/11, and everything to do with movies where the good looking lady is talked down by a guy in the tower

the hijackers went through a lot of training, they never had to take off, and didn't have to land. All they had to do was turn off the transponders, use visual navigation (rivers) and hit the target

reply to post by Anubis Kanubis


go to the hudson river, turn left

Finding the twin towers wouldn't have been too challenging as they couldn't exactly hide behind anything larger on a clear day.

Now these guys would have the budget and support to attack quite a few disputed facts. I 'd like to see them work on the 'hi-tensile aluminium alloy can cut through steel columns' theory for example.

Well somebody asked how they found their targets.
Well, having done a bit of flying on my PC Simulator
and in a Cessna, it's really rather easy to do even
though the cockpits of a Cessna and a commercial 767
or 757 don't look too much alike. The only controls
you would need to know is the autopilot, the GPS, rudders
the flaps, the stick and the thrusters. Everything else is irrelevant
as the autopilot is gonna fly it for you. It takes it's
instructions from the pilot doing the programming.

Each commercial airliner is equipped with a Satellite
Navigation system which gives them coordinates and
their present location on a SAT MAP. The only trick is to
know how to use it.

All one would have to do is locate the closest VOR to
the twin towers and memorize a general heading it is to the
towers after passing over the VOR radial. As the ground VOR
is NEVER turned off and could have been used as a homing
beacon to the closest VOR.

The GPS brings up the VORs by location in a list and gives you
a heading to reach that VOR. Plug that heading into the autopilot
and you are on your way to the VOR.

Once you take over the cockpit then you would punch
in a heading into the auto pilot to reach the VOR closest
to the towers. I'm almost sure LaGuardia has a VOR
within eyesight (depends on visibility) of Manhattan.

The Garmin also gives you heading and distance as well
so you will know when you get close enough to the VOR
then the pilot can almost see the towers after passing
over the VOR. If the hijackers were heading east to reach
the VOR then they may have to adjust slightly on a new
heading to meet the towers. Once again you would also have
to adjust altitude on the auto pilot as well as you can't hit a building
if you are 29K feet in altitude. The auto pilot would actually
gradually descend the plane to the desired alt set on the
auto pilot. This way, they would not have to fly manually
until the final 5 minutes (or less) of flight time.

At 100 miles out on the GPS, set the alt in auto pilot to 15k, at 50 miles
out then set it to 7,500 feet. once you get within 10 miles then
reduce it again to 3,000 then cross over the VOR.
Once you hit the VOR you will have to disengage the autopilot
or else the plane will turn around and head back to the VOR.

Once at 3K feet Alt over the VOR you are within sight distance of the towers.
Disengage the auto pilot and adjust your bank to the heading
you will need to intersect the tower. Adjust your altitude lil by lil
down as you pass between the buildings and look for the tallest
ones you see in the distance. Max your thrust and set flaps to
zero for a faster speed. Leave landing gear up so as not to
create drag and just point it into the target. Once you are
within a half mile of your target then rotate the wings in
a slight bank to increase your chances of damaging more
floors. If you will review each impact tape you will see
the left bank. That was it's purpose. Multiple floors!!!

If they used the auto pilot to make slight adjustments
during the flight then only in the last 5 minutes of flight
would there be any evasive maneuvers. As you hear Betty
Ong on that recording saying the plane is doing some drastic
maneuvers. By the time it got to that point then there would
have been only about 5 or less minutes of flight time left.
How long was her conversation with the airlines?? Less than
5 minutes til it went dead. This theory of time length would
work as she didn't say the whole flight had been turbulent but
only the last part or last 5 minutes. So it would appear they
used the auto pilot to control the plane til they got within
sight distance of the towers. It would be too risky to just
give a heading after take-over and HOPE you find the Hudson.
LOL They used the GPS system and autopilot
to hit the targets. Programming the autopilot to your wishes
is relatively easy to do. The reason why the flight instructors
didn't give the terrorist a good flight record is because when you
go to an airport and request to rent a plane they make you fly
without using the autopilot, you have to fly manually which
is NOT what they were gonna do in the cockpit of the 767
or 757. It's all a matter of programming the autopilot
and reading the data from the GPS to interpret it to the
autopilot.

That's one way they could have done it. As a matter of fact
I tried the same process on my simulator leaving Cleveland
and flying east to meet the VOR and I was successful in hitting
the tower every time I tried and I'm not a real pilot nor do
I have a license but I do have some flight time in a Cessna
with an instructor. I just never had the money to finish the
training

But it can be done, IF you know how to program the
autopilot and read the GPS.

As with the Pentagon flight, it makes perfect sense that an
amateur pilot forgot to disengage the autopilot after crossing the
VOR and the plane started to turn around which is why it banked
right and headed back over the same spot (the VOR). Another thought
is he may have thought he was too high and had to descend a lil to hit the
building. Remember he is just an amateur and may have forgotten
to punch in his last descending altitude adjustment til he crossed
over the VOR near the Pentagon. The Pentagon is a lot shorter
in altitude than the towers so he had to make one extra adjustment
the 2 tower flights didn't have to make.

As far as altitude, I noticed in the flight data he was
descending in the right bank. I believe this turn was to compensate
for being too high in altitude. Once he crossed over the VOR
the 2nd time then he disengaged the autopilot. Call it human
pilot error, and needed a 2nd try to hit his target. But he did manage
to get it right the 2nd time. Why he was going so fast in the turn
was cuz he did not program the speed decrease into the autopilot
for the turn. He didn't fly it manually, he did it with the autopilot.
And disengaged auto after the turn before impact into the Pentagon.
He wasn't concerned with slowing down, he was more worried about
altitude and hitting the building.

As far as flight 93 goes, after the pilot realized the take-over was
gonna happen. He disengaged the autopilot as his last maneuver
and nose-dived. At a low altitude of 5K or less, nose over for
about 2-3 seconds would be unrecoverable at that speed and
was destined for ground impact.

Maybe John Lear could add his 2 cents into this discussion
as he is very familiar with pilot controls

reply to post by Mayan2012


Alright, so with your knowledge of aerodynamics and the bernoulli effect maybe you could explain something to me.

Since an airplane needs wheels to provide the thrust for take off, then how does a seaplane do it? Or, for that matter, what about those C130's down in Antarctica when they have use skis?

Ha ha, I can see everyone's going down the rabbit hole on this one.

Here's several scenarios to ponder:

1- The conveyor belt can do 25, or 50, or 150 mph. The tires would have to do whatever speed the belt runs plus its' takeoff speed - we'll assume 150 mph for the sake of this argument - and it would take off as normal.

2- Since a conveyor belt with this capability is mythical iin itself, assume that it has no phtsical limitations. Assume the plane retains it's limitations. The pilot advances the throttles and the conveyor belt accelerates until the tires blow. The landing gear comes into contact with the belt and is spit off the back of the belt and is wrecked.

3- the conveyor belt has no physical limitations. The plane's tires, wheels, and bearings, etc have no physical limitations, but retains its' rolling resistance. Now assume that it takes 2000 lb of thrust to overcome 150 mph - take off speed - of rolling resistance. Rolling resistance, unlike aerodynamic drag, increases linearly with increased speed. Also assume that the plane has 100,000 lb of thrust. So the belt/tires accelerate to 50x - 100,000/2000 - takeoff speed, or 7500 mph - which is around mach 10 btw, LOL - and the plane just sits there in one place.

4- this is the hard one. The conveyor belt has no physical limitations. The plane's tires, etc have no limitations and has zero rolling resistance. The conveyor and tires accelerate to infinity. So in order to take off, the plane must do infinity PLUS 150 mph. Is this possible??????