Hacker News Reader

Mythbusters did something like this, but it was just using one of those big commercial training simulators instead of a real plane if I recall correctly, and showed that it was possible.

View on HN

I would wager a small plane would be easier to land than a commercial airliner partially due to the fewer number of switches in the cockpit.

Commercial airliners have autoland systems. Much less common in smaller planes.

The supposed scenario is manual landing, don't know if that was mentioned in the op

Configuring these is very difficult (for a non-pilot) and it might rely on airport-side equipment that not all airports have.

Configuring an autopilot is not that difficult when someone is telling you exactly what to do. It's also more likely to have a good result vs. relying on underdeveloped stick and rudder skills.

In a situation where a non-pilot is pressed into flying an airliner because of pilot incapacitation, tiny municipal airstrips without ILS aren't really an option, anyway.

Most modern airliners are equipped with capabilities to conduct Category IIIa ILS approaches with autoland.

One would probably be able to coach a passenger through the steps necessary to get set up this kind of approach.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com