By Phil Riske | Managing Editor, Rose Law Group Reporter
My love for flying is genetic.
At age 16, my blood father taught his flight instructor banjo lessons in exchange for flying lessons. In the early 1920s, he flew the U.S. mail in a biplane across southern Wyoming, using bonfires set at key locations to navigate at night.
In high school, I recreated some of his flights in a Cessna Skylane, and I’m still flying today — on a home training simulator, called X-Plane. A more advanced version of the software is used by the Federal Aviation Administration for home -training for licensed pilots.
After word of the Asiana Flight 214, I took a seat in the left seat of a Boeing 777, the same aircraft that crashed on landing at San Francisco International Airport (KSFO). I set the flight at 10 miles out in line with Runway 28L. My approach speed was 143 knots, with 30-degree flaps and landing gear down. I had set the weather conditions the same as they were around that airport on Saturday.
The autopilot can literally land an airplane, but normally the pilot will take the controls at what’s called the middle marker, which is about three-fourths of a mile from the end of the runway.
It was an eerie feeling as this huge aircraft went lower and lower on the glide slope. The scenery on X-Plane is very realistic, and I could see the seawall at the end of the runway overrun.
I landed safely, but told myself, “This wasn’t the real McCoy, flyboy.”
Aviation accidents are infrequent, thanks to safer airplanes and better trained pilots. Any given modern pilot will never experience a crash.
My Dad walked away from two of them.
