by
Morgan Reynolds
John Lear, retired pilot, recently sent me this pic of the Boeing 757 cockpit (identical to the 767). While admiring the complexity of flying this machine, I sent the photo to my dear wife Pat via email and asked her to check for new emails.
“Why?”
“Just humor me.”
Then she saw the photo and I asked, “Do you think you could fly it?”
“No, I wouldn’t know where to begin. Well ok, where is the key and ignition for it?” LOL.
P.S. In the photo John has outlined in yellow the cockpit ACARS messaging screens and keyboards.
P.P.S. I just spoke to John and he said, “Doesn’t look complicated to me!” LOL.
nomoregames.net 
Look at that big sky when you’re in a plane. You could easily miss New York entirely if you didn’t know exactly what you were doing. Of course, this was a day when fragile plane wings didn’t snap off, and buildings went to a powder. And a plane evaporated in the Pentagon and a plane plunged into the ground and sank out if sight. Disney took over America years ago.
Holy misleading photo, unlike you and your wife, the highjackers were not totally unformiliar and intimidated with airplane controls, they at least had some simulator and flight school training. They also did not have to land or take off, just steer and change altitude, which I assume could be “mastered” to some level of minimally required proficiency fairly easily. Afterall, airplane stability that could negatively impact passenger safety / comfort would the last of the highjackers concerns. Some of the passengers and flight attendents did report via phone conversations before impact, that the plane was flight very erratically.
You haven’t done your homework. The problems with the hijacker tale are legion, making the story impossible, but here is just one aspect of it, courtesy of pilot John Lear:
Reynolds: Can you even gain access through the door?
Lear: Yes, the door is pretty…but suppose that you put a knife to a flight attendant’s throat and had her open the door. OK, you get in the door and there are two pilots. Now just tell me, say you’re a hijacker and you’re going to kill these guys because you want to fly the airplane. How do you do it?
Reynolds: Well, first of all wouldn’t you threaten them with death and instruct them to leave the cockpit?
Lear: No, no pilot is going to go for that, none. No pilot is going to let his airplane be taken over by somebody who says leave and get in the back and have a drink or so while we take this airplane somewhere.
Reynolds: OK.
Lear: They’re going to fight.
Reynolds: So you have to kill ‘em.
Lear: So you have to kill ‘em, so what I’m asking you is how do you kill ‘em? The only way to kill ‘em is if you had a sharp knife is to slit their throats and get their carotid artery. Now what will happen then is that you will have blood all over the cockpit.
Reynolds: There’s going to be a struggle as well.
Lear: Of course, the pilot is going to get up and he’s going to fight and there’s just going to be all kinds of things happening in the cockpit that one hijacker is not going to…it’s impossible. It cannot happen, one hijacker going in the cockpit, killing both pilots, sitting in the seat and then flying. First of all, he kills these two pilots and gets both of their carotid arteries, blood all over the place, blood all over the controls, everything sticky…
A lesson in flying a Boeing from Ted Striker in Airplane! (1980)
It is easier to fly a 757 than a Cessna. It starts with p-factor and gets better. A kid can fly a 757 with no training, the terrorists wasted their money learning to fly.