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Comment by randall | Hacker News Reader

It seems reasonable that if someone is in a two person cessna they probably have some additional flight exposure, right? I wouldn't know anything about most of that stuff... but I could probably figure out some of it in the moment just because of my technical bent. A lot of my founder friends are pilots, and were able to adapt pretty quickly... so maybe it's one of those things?

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> It seems reasonable that if someone is in a two person cessna they probably have some additional flight exposure, right?

I think that's true as you stated it, but this wasn't a little 150; it was a 208 (which seats up to 14). Very common to have non-aviation passengers in something like that. On the flip side, the fact that he was sitting front-right seat could be evidence he had some aviation background (e.g. as a pilot + aviation enthusiast, I would excitedly take that seat if it was an option).

We're all ignoring the possibility that the pilot gave him the, "Now if I become incapacitated," speech before taking off.

The handful of times I've been up with private pilots who took me in their cessna, I did get an if I become incapacitated speech where they showed me how to operate the radios how to squawk 7700 and how to keep the plane level before we even took off.

I’ve given my wife the basic heading, airspeed, trim, radio comms briefing and experience. (And also given my older kid the same experience but just for fun.)

If I kicked off in flight on day/good weather, and she was up front, I’m pretty sure that airplane would end up inside the airport perimeter, probably stopped on all three wheels on a runway. That’s not to take anything away from this pax feat, but it’s pretty likely they at least had a pretty good idea of how things work. (And were in a fairly simple airplane.)

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