1 in 3 Americans believe they could land a jet

[Squaretail]

Once you realize the FAA, like all regulators, are just composed of people, then you realize they are prone to making all the mistakes that are endemic to the rest of the population.

Personally its my conceit that I think I could take a better stab at it than probably 95% or the rest of the passengers in the death tube, though that may not be that much better. Its hard to quantify until one tries. I mean untrained people have landed arguably tougher airplanes.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-spac ... 20a%20ride.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holden%27 ... ing_flight

I mean the possibility even exists that a plane can land itself in a survivable manner without a pilot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber

Maybe airplanes just aren't that hard to fly.

[Slick Goodlin]

Maybe airplanes just aren't that hard to fly.

Easy to fly, hard to fly well is probably a good way to look at it. That and you only have to survive the landing. Set that bar low for success.

[David MacRay]

Maybe that’s what would bite me. I would want to try to get the nose up and land it nicely on the mains near the centerline by the numbers.

Probably should just drive it on then stand on the brakes.

[Slick Goodlin]

If you’ve travelled a lot you’ve probably experienced at least one bad landing. Just do that good.

[Colonel]

Sure, like Halifax or Montego Bay.

Just don’t land on the taxiway with four airplanes on it at SFO, ok?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Canada_Flight_759

instead of lining up with the runway, the aircraft had lined up with the parallel taxiway, on which four fully loaded and fueled passenger airplanes were stopped awaiting takeoff clearance. The flight crew initiated a go-around

… the Air Canada airplane descended to 59 feet above the ground before it began its climb, and that it missed colliding with one of the aircraft on the taxiway by 14 feet

[David MacRay]

I guess that would be worse than doing the same thing in a taildragger.

I would not want to do it in either.

[Colonel]

You can do better than this AC hard landing:

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/166254

While on short final approach, the airspeed decayed well below final approach speed (VAPP), placing the aircraft in an undesired aircraft state at a very low altitude. The aircraft touched down hard, with a vertical load factor of 3.12g. The landing subjected the main landing gear to very high loading.

The aircraft was subsequently inspected and the main landing gear shock absorbers were replaced as a precaution.

[Slick Goodlin]

You can do better than this AC hard landing

Exactly! The bar is low, just do better than that. Or if you’re some schmoe from the back tasked with figuring out how to land a jet you only need to equal it.