Originally Posted by
JungleBus
The guy was an airline pilot for many years, and although he self-identifies as a writer much more than as a pilot, he consistently writes about aviation for the general public in a much more accurate manner than almost anything else seen in general interest publications.
I agree, except I'm not sure he has ever been an airline pilot. Where/when/what did he fly?
Originally Posted by
effsharp
No less than 4 major airports within 10 miles. Was the best decision to ditch in the Hudson considering this fact? It all ended well so responses will reflect that. But think about it? How many of those airports could he have made? 10 miles is not very much, even at 3000 feet with one engine still producing power. I take nothing away from Sully's heroic decision to ditch, but that doesn't mean the conversation ends there. And you better believe the NTSB feels the same.
Originally Posted by Langewiesche
Over the months after he [Sullenberger] made the decision not to try for the runway, multiple simulations of it have been run, and not a single pilot has been able to stretch the glide to La Guardia—an outcome that would seem to justify Sullenberger’s decision to go for the Hudson instead. But that misses the point. Even if it had been shown in simulation that Sullenberger could in theory have glided to La Guardia, in practice the approach would have been a very close thing, a crapshoot in a place where undershooting the runway by 20 feet would be like undershooting it by a mile. Once you committed toward La Guardia, you either had luck on your side or you died.
While the conversation doesn't end there, I don't think anyone else is questioning Sullenberger's choice, including Langewiesche. The NTSB will run the #'s, of course.
Originally Posted by
Spanky189
For this scumbag to implicate that the 'plane would have safely landed on its own' is ludicrous.
I think that's what we are all assuming.
Originally Posted by Langewiesche
Suffice it to say that if Sullenberger had done nothing after the loss of thrust the airplane would have smoothly slowed until reaching a certain angle with the airflow, at which point it would have lowered its nose to keep the wings from stalling, and would have done this even if for some reason Sullenberger had resisted.
Read this as . . . "The airplane would have smoothly slowed until reaching a certain angle with the airflow, at which point it would have lowered its nose to keep the wings from stalling",
and the aircraft would have slowly descended into the densely packed suburbs of New York City, likely resulting in the loss of life of all the passengers and crew, as well as many on the ground, had Sullenberger not intervened.
I just read the article (it takes awhile, its long). Other than when Langewiesche writes:
Care was taken to mimic the old mechanical systems and provide familiar feedback to the pilots—for instance, by artificially stiffening the flight controls in response to increases in airspeed. It was felt that this was necessary to keep pilots from overstressing the airplanes. We now know that this was wrong. There is, for instance, no control-stick feedback in the Airbus A320 that Sullenberger was flying, and, even in conditions of degraded control, no history in that design of excessive loads’ being applied in flight.
I believe the Airbus does have resistance in the sidestick (I am wrong?), and the lack of a history of excessive loads has to do with the load factor limitation protections of normal and alternate law (as well abnormal alternate law).
Other than that, the article seemed better than the average aviation article to me. The WSJ post that is linked to this thread doesn't seem to do the article justice, and takes some liberties with interpreting what the article says. Read the full Vanity Fair article, don't judge it based on the WSJ blog.