> What I DO know: > When I was about 10 years old, my parents took me to visit a friend of > theirs in Kansas City Kansas who happened to be a flight instructor. He > took his daughter & I for a flight in a single engine Cessna. About 15 > minutes into the flight, he asked me if I wanted to take the controls, > and after a wee bit of coaxing I did. > > Flying an airplane once it's off the ground is easy... size doesn't > matter, assuming you have knowledge of where the controls are (...and a > 757 has innumerably more that a cessna, but there are flight simulators > for Windows & Mac that show you the whole layout with realistic precision).
Leigh, The article I suggested reading addresses the above. > The only thing I've heard in regard to 9/11 was that the plane that hit > the Pentagon was SO close to the ground when it came in, that it snapped > the power lines on the other side of the parkway. That takes some > specialized skills, as a large aircraft is aerodynamically more like a > rock than an airplane when it is that close to the ground.... which is > also one of the reasons that landings are more problematic than takeoff. Good observation. This issue is addressed in the second half of the article. Paul Z.
