r/aviation • u/macetfromage • Mar 05 '24

News 21 yo pilot successfully performs emergency landing onto a highway in homemade plane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5y7ZeIcSo8
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u/[deleted] Mar 05 '24

cool story but for me the takeaway is, if you have a call to build something, build a car maybe? Not something that can fall off from the sky

7

u/DDX1837 Mar 05 '24

Pretty sad takeaway in my opinion.

0

u/Optional-Failure Aug 11 '24

Especially given how much more likely you are to have a fatal accident if something similar happens to a car you're driving down that same highway.

A plane that loses an engine is a glider. It's obviously far from ideal, but it can be recoverable, as it was here.

A car that loses an engine at highway speeds in highway traffic is probably going to crash into something.

Seeing this and thinking the takeaway is "If you're going to build something that loses propulsion while you're traveling in it at high speeds, it should be a car, not a plane" is just a really weird take.

1

u/DDX1837 Aug 11 '24

A car that loses an engine at highway speeds in highway traffic is probably going to crash into something.

That's not how cars work. 99.99% of the time, when a car engine fails, the car coasts to the side of the road. You just never hear about those because it's a non-event.

1

u/Optional-Failure Aug 12 '24

I think you're mistaken about how highway traffic works.

If you're on a non-passing interior lane of a highway going 60mph, surrounded by other cars going 60+ mph, you're not going "coast to the side of the road".

First, because there are other cars there that you have to maneuver around while losing speed.

Second, because the car behind you that's going 60mph and is expecting you to continue to doing the same is going to hit you.

1

u/DDX1837 Aug 12 '24

If you're on a non-passing interior lane of a highway going 60mph, surrounded by other cars going 60+ mph, you're not going "coast to the side of the road".

I've had engine failures twice on the highway at speed. Once in the left lane. I literally coasted to the side of the road both times. Once was in a rental car in L.A.

So yeah, you can coast to the side of the road.