QI | How Do You Land A Plane? 

Alan Campbell I take your point but landing and crashing are not the same thing.

@@mikewilliams258 It's a quote from a wonderful BBC Radio 4 comedy series, written by the genius John Finnemore, called Cabin Pressure. Check it out! It's really good :)

Most pilots pass around the variation of: " A good landing is one you walk away from, but a great landing is where you can fly the plane again...."

@@mikewilliams258 A Crash Landing is indeed a landing much the same way an Orca is a Dolphin. Just because it isn't what you think of when you hear the word doesn't mean it is incorrect.

Just to settle. Crashing means the passengers are unhappy. Landing means the passengers are still unhappy but only because someone with gloves just probed their ass going through customs.

my chest is in real pain from laughing so hard. that has to be one of my favourite moments from all of QI.

Man I love Bill. He's so effortlessly hilarious. Nothing ever appears planned.

I kept telling myself "It's such a stupid answer to give!" And yet I'm dying!!!!

It was perfect comic delivery -

Davy Ker, so true. His humour destroys me every time. Check out his appearance on the QI episode titled "J Places". First question Stephen asked was something like "where do chariots of fire come from?". Bill just pointed to the displayed picture that goes with every question and, in the blandest voice, just goes "it's something to do with this. . .". There was a slight delay but when everyone realised how dry his response was, they all lost it. Personally, I laughed so much I thought I was going to need an ambulance.

I was fortunate enough to do an aircrat simulator as part of a uni course. I crashed while in cruise, and again while trying to land. Even with someone sitting next to you and talking you through it, it's pretty difficult!

It's spelled 'definitely.'

Richard Joyce A crash is landing a plane in a way from which it can’t fly again. So if you land safely and you have no fuel left, oops that’s a crash. Lol

a good landing is a landing u can walk away from, a great landings one where u can reuse the plane

Best post of the day award you you Richard Joyce.

www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-01/trainee-pilot-makes-emergency-landing-jandakot/11468580

It has happened multiple times with small private aircraft but Stephen kept specifying that it has never happened with large commercial aircraft. There is a big difference in the complexity of the controls.

Manning Bartlett - he wasn’t a total novice. Had flown in a different aircraft type before. Media just ignored that not so minor detail, as is their wont.

I would have just parachuted straight the fuck out!

@@mavoc3094 Commercial aircraft are so complex that they won't even let you fly one in the game, Grand Theft Auto. Hahaha

+Simon Watts If you're going to do that, you might as well just nosedive out of the sky. It'll be over much quicker than attempting to slowly descend the plane down to earth prior to crashing it

@@nowandaround312 Actually, Simon isn't entirely wrong. In an idea situation, you want to touch down at just over stall speed, at which point the plane does stop flying.

almostfm "Fly as low as possible and then stop flying" isn't how you land a plane. I don't even have a pilot's license and I know you need to do basic things like adjust the angle of the plane and continue to control it after you make contact with the ground, slow down to an appropriate speed, get out the landing gear at the appropriate time, wind must be taken into account, and so on. The plane doesn't magically land itself once you get low enough. It's near impossible for someone with no experience to fly that low without crashing anyway.

You must have missed the part where Stephen said that a light aircraft pilot turned off the autopilot on the simulator and the plane immediately crashed. Getting a big passenger plane low to the ground is almost impossible without proper training.

@@nowandaround312 Yes, I oversimplified it. I'm sorry that I didn't spell out for you every single thing a pilot must do when performing an approach and landing. The fact remains that when you're landing a plane, if you touch down at just above the stall speed (when the plane is configured properly for landing), the plane will stop flying, because it's now not going fast enough to fly. Touch down with too much airspeed and you go bouncing down the runway.

He is human clickbait

@PlebzOr Blapparapp and who asked you for your generic, uninteresting, unfunny, and inhuman input?

Why better? Are you threatening me?

Only partially true. The code is just to set the alarm, the flight crew still have to let them in.

@AnPanda Only partially true :-) At least on Airbus planes. It also starts a timer. If the pilots don't deny, the door is opened after a certain time. So *IF* both pilots were unconscious, you could still enter the cockpit. See: "Q&A: How do you open a cockpit door from the outside?" on LA Times' webpage. I don't dare link since RU-vid almost always deletes/hides my comments with links in them.

If you could open cockpit doors from the outside, the 150 passengers of the Germanwings flight 9525 would still be alive.

It has been done with a light aircraft and it has happen a few times that one pilot is seriously ill and a passenger has to co pliot.

Air Helios probably was an example, but as it crashed it's not possible to know for sure.

There is a fair/good chance this could've been recorded pre 2005? can't recall how long QI has been going on, but it's a long time!!

That's a good point.

M A G A

@Jeremy Grigson he also did all the audio books for the Harry Potter series among many many others

Yep, that was standard procedure with a large number of airlines and was the regulation in the USA and China before Germanwings Flight 9525. After, it has become regulation in a large number of countries, as well as standard for pretty much all large airliners.

that's the extraordinary thing about air travel, _every_ accident is a new lesson they learn from and try to make it never happen again

666Tomato666 Well, its the same with most other forms of travel.

GroundHOG20101 car travel definitely is not like this....

HI - It isn't regulation in the UK for two people in the cockpit and there are many arguments to suggest that the second person my not be any help and or a distraction. Not sure on other countries rules though

Oh dear.

Hahaha!

You could be right. The front windscreen panels are very like MD. Also four engines and large cockpit.

Two white, two red and slow down. You'll be fine.

That means you are 5 minutes closer to a solution, you're welcome.

Ganters Greetings from England

Hej

All British humour will cease after October 2019.

@@Jungleland33 I dont think anything will cease british humour.

Scandinavia seems to have a similar sense of humour to Britain: that's why Eurovision is always funniest when hosted by Sweden, Denmark or Norway.

If I was on a plane in this scenario I would absolutely rather be attempting to fly an Airbus. But if I was to be taught how to fly I would rather be in a Boeing. That's my own personal preference anyway.

The Star of China Oh no we are going to crash. Let me just read this book.

I would fall asleep reading that

problem with the book is it starts mentioned something then James trails off into the history of the throttle lever

LoL!

I'm 18 and I remember this happening to me when I was maybe 5 (so 2003-ish). It was literally 2 minutes of standing in the cabin asking questions about what everything does. The plane had landed and people were getting off so there was very little risk.

muskatDR I did this on a flight from London to Florida. I think it was in 2001. I was about 8.

Mine was Spain to London and definitey post 9/11

Do you like movies about... gladiators?

Afalstein Have you ever seen a grown man naked?

Maybe my favorite movie of all time.

Maybe? Maybe??? That's just going to make my drinking problem worse.

Same. My favourite brit panel show. I learn how yo be more witty thanks to it somehow.

Ideally "all" you'ed have to do is set up the auto land system.

@@TheAkashicTraveller Would at least require getting on the ILS glide slope, though wouldn't it?

It's one thing to do it in a simulator. It's another when your ass is quite literally on the line.

Martina Dott same here! Yay John Finnemore

Fun fact, but not true. Pilots eat the same meals all the time.

Well, we can't have them both eating Surprising Rice.

@@aloysiuscredential4842 Eeh no

​@@cdog252 It's OK, the alternative meal choice is Fizzy Yoghurt.

Dashing a plane full of bloody corpses on the rocks

@@mrbenoit5018 😂

The Helios Airways flight 522 in 2005, I believe you're talking about. The flight attendant managed to turn the plane away from the city of Athens, but it still crashed into the mountain and unfortunately everyone died.

Was going to say. Best scenario is probably draining some form by flying in circles. The pilot could awaken. Or the copilot. And a plane without fuel wont suddenly burst into flames.

*His mate is a fighter pilot for the RAF and he owes him a favour*

And then everyone clapped

Yes, a good air traffic controller was able to get both of them down on the ground (in a simulator) successfully. Neither of them had any flying experience whatsoever.

At 4:11, Stephen says, "There is an autoland system."

International flight, you have gained access to the cockpit: you manage to find the radio and know how to use it, and you can speak the language of the person on the other end: you have completed step one. Good luck.

Calum Thaxter That language is always English. All pilots and air traffic control in the world is required to do everything in English.

Unless they're French. Even if your life depended on it, they would still speak French to you.

Mads I mean, he’s not dead!! Lol.

He was QI.

Possible: yes. Safe or a good idea: good grief NO better than auguring into the ground..... yah, likely.

And as we all know TV shows created for entertainment with production costs and deadlines have the scientific method at their heart which will ensure accuracy and reproducability.

Doug White is proof it is possible.

Valerie Singleton, on Blue Peter, did a talk down experiment, in a Cessna. She had an hour's instruction, then the pilot pretended to be incapacitated, and the tower guided her in.

Jack knew he bombed and tried to make up for it by answering that meal question straight.

The concept is simple but the execution is another kettle of fish during the heat of battle. e.g. The violin had 4 strings, what's the problem?

To operate the radio -- which is not like any radio they've used before -- is a big leap. You have to know 1) where it is 2) how to change frequencies (each model has different options involving a keypad and/or multiple dials) and 3) find and use the flip/flop button. It is not a single input device.

www.b737.org.uk/images/electronicpanel.jpg Which is the active radio? There are 5 (7 if you consider the dual transponders) Which one is the right one to use?

If you don't now that you're doing you will cut yourself off from your current controller. Would you know where to find the push to talk switch? Assuming things are trivial when you've not been exposed to them before -- in addition to the the heat of a tense situation -- is a huge leap of faith. Even private pilots -- who should know better -- have problems.

If a passenger has to land the plane, they would either just do the whole thing on 121.5 or use the frequency which the plane was on when the emergency started, I think. Likely they'd also send up a flight of fighters to escort it.

Or navigator, or radioman.

I don't mean to spoil your childhood memory but you were probably not actually flying the plane 😛

I also had a similar experience, back in the eighties before the extra security measures. I was welcomed into the cockpit, and it was so exciting to see all the controls and look out of the window at the clouds in every direction, and to also be allowed to sit on the pilot's knee while he showed my wide eyes what the switches did. 28 years old I was, ladies and gentlemen, 28 years old ...

@@JesusJuenger I know, lol...but what a completely thrilling experience it was...it's one of those memories that will never leave me..I was and still am so very grateful..

@@MartinHiggins1972 well done to you sir..it was an incredible feeling seeing all those buttons and switches..and to be able to sit on the captain's knee and hold the control/steering was an experience that I'll never forget..thanks for sharing your story.

I was just thinking about this too. My first thought was the plane would have a risk of being hacked.

They should just fly every plane like this by default so that the pilots don't need to stay in different countries and can go home to their wife and kids :)

@@gdoubleu8045 I would think it technically IS possible to have planes pre-programmed to fly a set path, and give them subroutines to be able to make emergency landings at various airports if necessary... and just not have pilots altogether. No pilots, no steering mechanism, no way for anyone with poor intentions to control the plane, and of course then you don't have the risk of pilots falling ill or whatnot and nobody being able to fly the plane... that would remove the problem entirely. BUT then you run into issues with unexpected variables and there being potentially no-one on board who can take over if the guidance computer malfunctioned for any reason, and it'd be susceptible to EMPs (if those actually exist). Suppose a bird hits one of the turbines... I guess a well-programmed plane could probably counter that with incredible efficiency but it'd all depend on how much trust people would be willing to put into a system like that. I mean we do have computers controlling our rockets to a large degree, so it's not as far-fetched as one might think, and they already play a huge role in air traffic control as it it. Lots to consider, it certainly is an interesting thought experiment.

I'm sure many 9/11 conspiracy theories involve this.

Why not allow remote control of plane from the ground? Scenario.. Little Johnny is a computer whizz. he hacks into the remote system, starts "playing". Or maybe it's not little johnny, but big Abdullah?

Luckily they've rhought of this and leave 100 metres between each cloud.

Stephen stated that he was speaking specifically about large commercial airplanes.

I feel like this story isn't true just based on the fact that most military jets stall at a speed higher than most smaller piston engine propeller planes cruise at. sure, they could just keep blowing past him and then looping back around, but then wake turbulence becomes an issue. if it did happen, that's a once in a lifetime occurrence for the record books

update: I looked it up, and it did happen. Pretty amazing

He did but killed 7 people on the freeway. Only joking, glad that it finished well.

Us passengers had already been boarded for nearly an hour

Well, if I'm correct as to the flight you're referencing...yes, but everyone was unconscious, so the "can anyone fly the plane" situation never occurred

One of the cabin crew managed to get in to the cockpit and tried to fly it.

sianchild thats true

+sianchild The cabin crew person tried to use the cockpit radio, but it was on the wrong frequency (from take off airport) and he didn't know he was supposed to change to a new one. So in a way you can argue QI is right. He never tried to fly the plane as he gave up when he couldn't get in contact with anyone. QI should have mentioned it though imo.

I think he did try to fly it, he just didn't make contact with the ground. The pilots sent by the military to intercept saw him at the controls. I'd say that counts.

LALFAST it’s an entirely different kind of flying

@LALFAST It’s an entirely different kind of flying .

Have you been hoarding Wii remotes for just this reason?

This is nonsense. A qualified commercial airline co-pilot is trained to operate the aircraft on their own, without assistance.

John Dean edition.cnn.com/2014/06/03/travel/737-emergency-pilot/index.html

This happened recently on a Jet2 flight when one of the flight crew fainted. Luckily there was another pilot flying as a passenger, “deadhead” as it’s known. But yes, one flight crew could fly and land a plane although, by definition, not as safely as two.

Alex you are right, read about United Airlines Flight 232 in 1989

There is no code for the door to open from the outside, there is however a procedure in place for access to the flight deck in a situation where no one is responsive inside.

@@mitcho04 Is that the 'Teacup in the back of the cabinet is actually C4' procedure?

Yes I wanted to do what you did graduate in two and join the revolution he looked at me like I was stupid. I'm not stupid.