Stories where the non-pilot hero has to land a plane

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  • Stories where the non-pilot hero has to land a plane

    Howdy, everyone! I recently came across an article describing a study where 780 New Zeland men who have never flown a plane before watched a short, but informationally useless, video on landing a plane. Afterwards, just under 1/3 of them had an increased confidence that they could actually land a plane themselves if called upon to do so, despite the fact that none of them are pilots:

    https://www.renews.co.nz/a-disturbin...deo-new-study/

    This got me thinking about how often this trope has shown up in movies and TV shows. For example, Dennis Quaid has a movie coming out this month on Amazon Prime ("On a Wing and a Prayer") where his character - a pharmacist - suddenly has to land a plane even though he's not a pilot.

    In my head...at least according to my vague, fuzzy memory...it seems like this has happened somewhat often in film/TV, but when I started trying to think of specific examples, I came up mostly empty. But it "feels" like something that I've seen more often than not.

    So, I was wondering if the Done Deal hivemind here could help me out in thinking of other movies and/or TV shows (specific episodes would be great) where the main character is on a plane and has to take over and land it himself/herself, despite not being a pilot.

    Thanks in advance for any suggestions you can think of!
    "Tact's just 'not saying true stuff.' " - Cordelia Chase

  • #2
    https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...hCourseLanding

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    • #3
      This would probably would be determined by what type of plane, the conditions you're flying in and what hotel you slept in the night prior to the flight.

      Also, I think an average person can program the plane to land itself or it can be remotely landed by pilots.

      The biggest fear isn't automation but human error.

      Might also be asking yourself, "what does this have to do with Succession Season 4, Episode 3?" Which is a appropriate question, as everyone knows Connor Roy revealed in season one that he was a trained pilot, but doesn't fly because of the risk to his presidency or chances there of...but if he was flying could he have saved his father's life or would he have chosen not to? Remember on the day of Logan's daughter's wedding Connor asked for Willa's hand in marriage and also asks for his father's support in running for the president of the United States. This begs the question, "did Logan Roy commit suicide?" As Smith's father did...did Connor know his father wishes and know the only way for the family business to survive was to make the children fight for it and in turn make Connor president?

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      • #4
        Airplane comes to mind, even though hero was a pilot he didn't know all about flying a giant airplane. I feel it's happened in like 10-20 action-thriller movies when a Van Damme like character has to land the plane.

        Tons of sitcoms.

        But it's so true.I think I can do so many things because I've seen movies. Be my own lawyer for one. Diffuse a bomb. Yes, fly a plane.

        I was going to write a movie called WE SAW DIE HARD which was basically a few guys think they can save the world from watching action movies. I think about what I'd do all the time Jack Bauer style. But then the Workaholic guys made that movie GAME OVER, MAN and it was wonderful.


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        • #5
          Does Foo Fighters' Learning To Fly count? It's like an entire movie squeezed into four and a half minutes. Somehow they did it. Plus an acting masterclass.

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          • #6
            Literally every instance of it (including the Foo Fighters) is listed on the page I linked above. TVtropes is an invaluable research tool.

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            • #7
              What next, Go ask an AI! instead of drawing upon your own knowledge?!

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              • #8
                Originally posted by JeffLowell View Post
                Literally every instance of it (including the Foo Fighters) is listed on the page I linked above. TVtropes is an invaluable research tool.
                I didn’t see sh%t. It was a paragraph or two that said Crash Landing Course and mentioned Mythbusters...

                Now I freaking see it... I didn't even see the Examples below...

                Everyone give Jeff credit or he'll cry.

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                • #9
                  what a great website. Thanks for sharing it.
                  "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy b/c you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." -- Edward Snowden

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                  • #10
                    I can not exaggerate how helpful it's been to me when I'm setting off to write something.

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Optimus View Post
                      Howdy, everyone! I recently came across an article describing a study where 780 New Zealand men who have never flown a plane before watched a short, but informationally useless, video on landing a plane. Afterwards, just under 1/3 of them had an increased confidence that they could actually land a plane themselves if called upon to do so, despite the fact that none of them are pilots:

                      https://www.renews.co.nz/a-disturbin...deo-new-study/
                      To be fair most of us older Kiwi guys think we can do most things - so a good sized portion of that 1/3 of 780 probably thought the could land a plane before seeing the video (and probably thought being asked to watch a video to explain what they already knew was a bit rude!)

                      I heard the starting gun


                      sigpic

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                      • #12
                        Thanks, Jeff! Awesome resource.

                        I would give people likes on their comments here but for some reason I can't figure out how to do that. Which makes me feel stupid given that I've been a member of DD for over 2 decades now (though, we didn't have likes on the original board either). ☹😬
                        "Tact's just 'not saying true stuff.' " - Cordelia Chase

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                        • #13
                          For those of us who grew up in the 80s watching reruns, let's not forget how The Hulk landed a plane in the episode "747" of the 1978 The Incredible Hulk series.

                          If he can do it we all can!! LOL

                          The big question is...Do we have to be boiling angry to do it though?
                          Last edited by Darthclaw13; 04-24-2023, 03:34 PM.

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