Watching a TV-show (not going to name names) where someone is trying to land a small propeller airplane and is asked by the “expert” to decrease speed by pushing the foot pedals just made me go bonkers.

This was the second episode of this show where some airplane “expert” seem to have kidnapped the scriptwriters and held them at gun point until they incorporated their “knowledge” in the script.

The first episode featured an airplane going into the water at an obviously unsurvivable angle, then floating for hours as a boat, and the ditching was explained by someone having hacked the plane’s “crash-landing” protocol.

SHUDDER!

Or how about the book where the pilot is night flying a passenger jet and suddenly the altimeter starts showing descent, but the pilot is confused because they can’t feel anything going on with the airplane, so they quickly (and “smartly”) concludes the ground must be coming rushing up towards the airplane.

DOUBLE SHUDDER!

For the uninitiated: Airplanes do not float. The Hudson River splashdown plane floated for a while then sunk. They do not have crash-landing protocols… they have checklists and so on the pilots follow, but not a hackable protocol for crash(land)ing an airplane. Not even Boeing had a crash landing protocol in MAX 8… though only God knows what they were really trying to do there…

Also, the foot pedals seem to have two purposes in airplanes. One, to adjust the rudder, the other to activate the wheel brakes… there’s some finesse where you press the upper or lower part of them but not in the air… unless you want to roll and crash… spiral into the ground… or something… (I have to research what pushing the pedals as if panic braking in midair will do to an airplane!)

And for the airplane with the strange altimeter? Where do I even begin? An altimeter doesn’t measure distance to the ground, it measures air pressure (speed is also not measured against the ground… it turns out, when flying, your relation to the air is way more important than your relation to the ground… as long as you keep from flying into it…)

When flying in the night, pilots have felt things going on with the airplane, in really unfortunate cases, grabbed the controls and (almost) crashed the airplane. Pilots are advised NOT to listen to their sense of balance or what their eyes tells them when flying in darkness, but rather look at the instruments.

So, a moderately trained pilot would in this situation concluded that the airplane was going down, not that the ground was coming up and done something about that…

There are instruments to measure “the ground coming up against the airplane” it’s called the radio altimeter, but in this case it’d likely be used to issue terrain warnings when the airplane is about to crash… which is what a moderately trained pilot would have assumed, had they seen the ground come rushing up against them with this instrument… I.e. that they were flying into a mountain.

Back to the original question…

Want to know how to slow down a small propeller airplane in the air?

RESEARCH IT.

Or, heck, just ask ChatGPT. (Though, as always, don’t take its words for granted, but it could get you started on researching how to land a small airplane):

Slowing down a small propeller plane involves reducing its speed while maintaining control and stability. Here are several steps commonly used to slow down a small propeller plane:

1. Reduce Throttle: Gradually decrease engine power by reducing throttle settings. This reduces the thrust generated by the propeller, resulting in a decrease in forward speed.
2. Pitch Up: Increase the aircraft’s angle of attack by gently pulling back on the control yoke or stick. This increases the aircraft’s drag and reduces its forward speed.
3. Deploy Flaps: Extend the flaps to increase drag and lift. Flaps increase the wing’s surface area and change its shape, allowing the aircraft to maintain lift at lower speeds. Most small propeller planes have adjustable flaps that can be deployed for takeoff and landing.
4. Extend Landing Gear: If the aircraft is equipped with retractable landing gear, extending it will increase drag and contribute to slowing down the aircraft.
5. Air Brakes or Speed Brakes: Some small propeller planes are equipped with air brakes or speed brakes. These are surfaces that can be deployed into the airflow to increase drag and reduce speed quickly.
6. Use Spoilers: If the aircraft is equipped with spoilers, deploying them can disrupt the airflow over the wings, increasing drag and aiding in slowing down the aircraft.
7. Maintain Level Flight or Descend: Flying level or descending slightly while reducing power helps bleed off speed more effectively.
8. Trim Adjustment: Adjusting the trim settings can also affect the aircraft’s speed and descent rate. This is typically done in coordination with other control inputs to maintain stability.

It’s important to remember that all these actions should be performed gradually and in coordination with each other to maintain control of the aircraft. Sudden or abrupt maneuvers can lead to loss of control or overstressing the airframe. Additionally, the specific procedures may vary depending on the aircraft type and manufacturer’s recommendations, so pilots should refer to the aircraft’s operating manual for guidance.

Or hey, guess what? There’s a YouTube-video for this!

And I bet there are a ton more where this one came from!

Also, had the scriptwriters watched this video they’d figured out the thing to hack on an airplane is the auto-land function, tricking the plane into thinking it was going to land on an airport.

Just don’t ask me what they thought the pilots would be doing when they figured that one out… perhaps shut the autopilot off? I guess that button had to be hacked too… oh well…

Or just hack it to perform what’s commonly called “a controlled flight into terrain”. Though, those usually end up killing everybody because the plane goes too fast (which is why the MAX 8 incidents were lethal…)

The key takeaway: RESEARCH IT!

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Header image: By Nguyen Hung, pexels.com, Link