Airline Pilot Breaks Down Airplane Flying Scenes From Film & TV | WIRED

you wanna know a little pilot secret like everyone here hi my name is Fox machete customized a captain for a major US commercial airline she's also a former avionics engineering officer for the Pakistan Air Force today I'll be breaking down clips from movies and TV about flying overweight take off American made No Mas no mas mas there's plenty of room guys it ain't about room alright it's about weight just because there's empty room that you can see in the aircraft does not mean you can fill it up all the way to the brain no mas an aircraft every time before it flights is required to be checked for performance and weight and balance you calculate a center of gravity for that particular flight and you calculate how much weight you can carry in what part of the aircraft the aircraft has to be within a certain operating envelope for it to conduct the entire flight safely oh whoa where the hell you think you're going big fella either I fly the big fella or I fly a product Tom Cruise was correct in kick kicking the guy out he's probably also flying the aircraft further away if so he's carrying as much fuel as he can maybe even more to conduct a long flight the depiction of an overweight takeoff they're doing is pretty much on point he tries to lift off and the stall warning horn goes off that stall warning horn is an indication that a stall is about to occur he does not rush the take-off which is exactly what you should have done when a stall occurs there's just not enough air flow and the way basically quits flying [Music] he wants to get rid of the drag of the aircraft so he lifts their landing gear up up until that point I was with it but then he's still stalling which means he still doesn't have enough lift the aircraft's still not ready to fly you're forcing it to take off and then now you're hitting trees and you keep flying not very realistic I do tend to leap before I look sky law 30 rock Stuart 21:18 that guy excuse me mr. sweat pants we're gonna need to check that bag and that is sky law no there's no such thing as a sky law per se or codes that we use with flight attendants as a matter of fact most of the times when we get on an aircraft to fly it we're meeting the pro for the first time in our lives excuse me young lady are you old enough to be travelling along so Matt Damon in this scene is acting all like has all this authority as captain of the aircraft is impressing Tina Fey Roger that and is wearing the wrong hat he's the Kazon of the aircraft he is wearing a copilot hat you want to know a little pilot secret besides the fact that we get a discount in sunglasses pilots get discounts at a lot of places so glass Hut at the airport is actually why no thumb but pilots get pretty much discounted all the retail outlets and food stores restaurants at the airport didn't miss a half an hour over an hour ago so the 30-minute rule you both start to get a little antsy back there yeah it's gonna be about another half hour I wish I could say it never existed however I can now say with a lot of confidence and faith looking into your eye that we're not doing it anymore the half-hour thing it's a trick it's enough time so that people know they're gonna have to wait but it doesn't upset them and can you tell me when we might be in the air captain sure in about a half an hour so when I as a captain give out any information it is pretty much exactly what I know Oh folks half an hour means forever Oh Bert's right celli well you know the only day to get out of it why what's that okay the flight attendants complaining about how awful the quarry is is very accurate the nickname for LaGuardia in the industry is 'la garbage a lot of reasons that LaGuardia is hated are this the similar reasons why most passengers don't like it either it's an airport that's overgrown its capacity a little bit of weather causes extensive delays once you've landed the taxi times could be up a few hours I love the board yet my favorite airport in the whole wide world there's LaGuardia very far by 2,000 pounds per Barnes we got 19,000 people the pilot and co-pilot when they're taking the runway that conversation that's happening it's not conversation it's not talking it's pure business it's called a thorough flight deck pilots cannot talk to each other have any conversation that's not about the particular flight they're flying until the aircraft is above 10,000 feet it may seem like why is there a need for two people to say the same thing the first officer is the pilot flying calls out 19,000 pounds required 21.8 on board the captain verifies it it's called a takeoff fuel or minimum take-off fuel for that matter birds withstand a certain limit or number of bird strikes there's no hard fast limit for it but it's not like the engine just one small bird will bring the airplane down get out the qrh both engines curate just a quick reference handbook any abnormal situation is handled by the qrh it's like a cookbook it is a step by step by step what tip Mayday Mayday Mayday this is cactus 1549 once an aircraft says Mayday he owns everything every help is available to him Teterboro tower I need a runway cactus 1549 needs to go to the airport right now Newark Tower what have you got they're giving him every option they stopped the airspace they give him every airport every one way that's available to him but I'll tell you everything they know that will help you make a good decision cactus 1549 to right to meet you you can land runway 1-0 if you look at this plate everything that has happened in it was very good with superior airmanship as we call it and that's why it led to the result that it did they followed all the right steps that should have been followed mission start I'm starting anything new and you see the result I came out of it emergency landing keine air we got a landing on the Las Vegas Strip bad idea out of all the places in Las Vegas what they could have picked Strip was the worst they weren't insane being a pilot is not just physically flying the aircraft a lot of it is the decision-making the most biggest airport it's just past the strip can you see it so right at this spot where they are don't pretty much wind up with McCarran Airport it's right there bad you can make it so if they're facing the West in that shot McCarran Airport has two runways runway one nine left and one ninth ray which is just to their left all the how to do is make a left turn and they had a straight shot to that runway as soon as they hit that guitar of the High Rock Cafe they'll lose half their wing they actually lose an aileron which is a control surface that controls the roll movement of an aircraft the roll movement with the this movement of the aircraft if they lose the left aileron on the left part of the wing that should be any of that plate the airplane should not be able to maintain level play after that it should go into a roll right away landing on the Las Vegas Strip was the worst of the ideas eyelet can make oh sure air traffic control Saturday night line all right no there's no a Tech Talk for molecules back man I know you're coming order or ple volley up there but I'm gonna have you do the escape faster than a weapon gets a hard-on okay English is English Bank comes with all kinds of accents from all over the world one of the harder ones is actually Scottish ships hi I'm so sorry your accent is very thick you can also ask them to repeat but there's only so many times you can ask them to repeat before annoying them and it they can also be busy so it's not like you can just like ask for them to repeat everything how about we show fear that when they didn't Agron tell me if you can rest your goggles upon or contortion plane station the instructions are standardized I'm expecting a certain type of instruction who's about to come every instruction usually contains a heading altitude or a speed I have an idea what's coming back there was active legit aviation instructions coming I probably would have been able to understand it I should be able to understand it don't do anything great what so I am speaking with a perspective of being an American person going into other countries but I have heard a lot of complaints from foreign pilots that when they come to New York especially Kennedy they have the hardest time with air traffic control for two reasons one its American English second New Yorkers speak really fast and third JFK or New York airspace is one of the most complicated airspace systems in the world they're dealing with a lot of traffic and the operation is very fast so all that is it's difficult to understand what the flight control plate [Applause] [Music] as soon as the aircraft goes in a nosedive the aircraft starts screaming whoa whoop pull up that doesn't happen at high altitudes that is a system and aircraft that stops it from impact when it is close to ground or close to structures or a close to terrain and 30,000 feet the aircraft does not say pull up it's just adding drama and chaos to the scene you need to dump the fuel don't weigh fuel dump is only on very large airplanes that carry fuel for hours and hours and hours domestic airplanes that have a range of four or five hours don't have fuel dumps on them it's not like a light switch on and off you turn the fuel dump on and off aside the entire aircraft is out of fuel it takes high pilots are there to flight the aircraft they can reach every switch and button from where they're sitting at their station buckled in they don't need Margaret to come for that manual control which does not even exist on that aircraft this movie was made post 9/11 in the United States post 9/11 flight that door is not open the flight attendant is not going in and out just like it's a walk in the park maintain altitude but oil pressure failure let's talk about that fire the first saucer in a very scary way oh my god we have like the right engine on fire so he what goes ahead and pulls that one lever that's lit up already once you pulled that handle you shut that engine off then a few seconds later the first officer once again all freaking out says we just lost an engine of course you lost an engine you just suck them up there should be no power there should be no electricity on the airplane everything should go dark they shouldn't be able to have any radio communication the very next thing is he asked Margaret you just shut those engines off what are you adding power to so this aircraft has a problem that it is in an uncontrolled nosedive situation the captain decides to fly the aircraft and burn it so he can stop losing that altitude that they're losing extra fast that makes sense [Music] they go inverted the Obrecht they arrest the rate of descent by themselves time at all the spine but no when they come out of that inverted lathe or back level again how did the aircraft not go back into a nosedive right away they have not fixed the problem all that engine shutting down in the fire shutting down and all the drama that just happened has not corrected the problem the problem still exists this is a very peculiar situation not something that you train for every day video game but it has to have rhyme or reason and logic behind doing what you're doing which does not exist in this gunfight non-stop [Applause] so there's one gunshot fired a bullet goes through the window of the aircraft there's wind like there's a hurricane inside the cabin one small bullet hole will not make so much wind and debris flying all over the the cabin [Music] the bullet hole was not enough to cause a rapid decompression and the cabin but the loss of the window did there's rapid decompression and the oxygen masks come down which is a correct picture but how did the window just decide to fly out there's no good reasoning behind that those panels are lifting up when the aircraft is going down or actually sweet breaks he is trying to get the airplane down fast in the shortest amount of time the manoeuvre they're showing is not coherent with that weight loss situation to get the aircraft weightless you would actually do the opposite you climb the aircraft when you reach the top of the climb when you push back down is when you get weightless commercial airliners are not designed to be flown in a weightless situation none of that should not happen right I fail to unruly passenger meet the parents no we still cannot say the word bomb there are certain trigger words that get attention and bomb is one of them ba ba ba ba ba ba BOM ba ba ba ba ba ba ba in this particular scene the flight attendant was very very nice and she let this go much further than it would it would have in real life take a little sticks out of your head clean out your ears and maybe you would see that I'm a person who has feelings and all I have to do is do what I want to do and all I want to do is hold on to my bag and not listen to you we all get someone on the aircraft something very similar to this saying oh I swear my back fit it will fit it always fits it been in the previous flight the only way that I would ever let go of my bag would be if you came over here right now and tried to pry it from my dead lifeless fingers not everybody is there to get you was against you this happens more often than people can fake pilot schedules la today's what's your problem man problem right now is I'm talking to an overrated hack whose stick work is pedestrian so basically what he's trying to say that is a big insult for a pilot but I was never serious about taking over this godforsaken flight I mean come on Dave look at me I fly international there is some unwritten prestige involved the pilots who come off an international flight somehow they have to just say hey I'm just coming from London I just landed from Paris I have done that and I see others day back so it's there I fly Internet okay stop calling it international Steve let's call it what it is it's Canada he's actually right for the purposes of airline International Planet schedules Canada is not considered an international destination nieghbors Mexico what counts they have their own money that doesn't even fit in wallet engine fire Air Force One [Music] so the Air Force when is intercepted by MiG's Megas a Russian fighter jet if there's an aircraft with more than one engine losing an engine is not a huge big emergency that is going to make you fall out of the sky wait a fourth I he says what we're turning to the right very typical response in an engine failure there is less thrust on the right side than the website naturally the aircraft will rotate towards the right which is happening in this case Harrison Ford's first remark is oh should I pull number one engine back which is a good good idea I like for someone who's not a pilot however we don't take away the power that we already have on an engine or the thrust that's being produced thank you how we compensate for it is by the user rudder rudder is a flight control surface that controls this motion of the aircraft how rack the nose going towards the right side you would apply it left rudder once you've lost an engine for the entire duration of the plate you'll have to hold that rudder in to keep the nose like this as soon as you release the pressure on your leg or you feel like that's tired the airplane will turn back to work so right again you have to put it off the trim is just relieving the pressure the pilot has on the rudder holding it in it's like riding a bike i wanna diei my american-made the DEA was using these fancy new Jets that we couldn't outrun Tom Cruise's in a smaller aircraft which consumes or burns less gas as opposed to the fancy jet that the DEA is flying they could go fast in again we could go slow for a long time so he forces them to calm down at a lower altitude fly slower burn more gas aircrafts do burn more gas on their lower and slower as opposed to flying higher and faster and that is why all the commercial flights are flown around 30,000 some feet no you don't wait that long if you're waiting for the earth masses tell you low fuel you're way behind the aircraft to begin with so bingo fuel is where you would not continue what you're doing and just go and land the aircraft to bring it back on the ground maximum altitude the crap [Music] nealy you have control I have control so let's talk about how Prince Phillip takes control of the aircraft from the pilot who's flying it who's also a trained pilot it was done very professionally you have control I have control it's visually and verbally verified it's not like I'll fly a little bit you fly a little bit to see this aircraft is 45,000 feet the service ceiling in the air practice is fixed decadent number published in the aircraft manuals the absolute ceiling of the aircraft as a variable number depends on the temperature of that given day the weight of the aircraft and other environmental factors the conditions are favorable the aircraft can climb from the service ceiling to the absolutely do not do this at home it is not a practice that's common is it doable yes and that's exactly what Prince Philip is saying in the steam the difference between us how fast the airplane can go and how slow the airplane can go becomes very little at that high altitude which we in aviation terms called a cop in corner but currently the very image of what this aircrafts can do exactly what the pilot in that scene so we're operating this aircraft to the very limit right now beautiful if you have ever thought about flying if you've ever looked up in the sky I've seen an airplane and think I wish I'd be there the only one recommendation I can give you is do it the feeling that you have when you're soaring above the clouds that is a feeling that is indescribable [Music]

Channel: WIRED

Views: 669,079

Rating: 4.8918295 out of 5

Keywords: airline pilot, airline flying, airline, airplanes, flying airplanes, flying airlines, airline captain, wired, technique critique, technique critique wired, wired technique critique, airline technique critique, flying scenes, pilot, pilot explains, pilot breaks down, pilot breaks down scenes, pilot technique critique, avionics, sully landing, sully movie, airplane movies, flying movies, airlines, commercial airline, airplanes wired movie, expert break down, fatima shafi

Id: UY346b_gzpw

Length: 23min 19sec (1399 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 07 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/dethb0y]

There's a few videos like this on youtube, if you poke around. Don't know how i feel about it really since cinema has it's own language and absolute accuracy is not a requirement to convey what a film needs to convey.

[u/madcat033]

Howcome they never cover the most obvious movie: Airplane!

Like, do you really have to inflate the autopilot? We must know!

[u/WoodyWoodfinden]

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCovVc-qqwYp8oqwO3Sdzx7w

This is my favourite Youtube Pilot, he does lots of movie reactions (even an Airplane! reaction which is brilliant) and is very insightful on everything to do with Aviation. Better than this video imo anyway!

[u/twointimeofwar]

Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed this. I love all “transportation disaster” films and knowing what’s made up doesn’t ruin it for me.

[u/tenthousandlakes]

GQ posted similar video a week ago.