Malaysian Jet

Yes, they are. And you can get credited a certain amount of flight hours towards licenses with them, depending on which system.

There are many pilots out there in the last 15 years who, the first time they ever were on their typerated jet, had paying pax in the back. They got all their initial flight hours in sims. It's not even unusual any more.

Quote: rxwine

Are gaming flight simulators sophisticated enough to use for practice inflight hijacking?

Maybe.

See these articles about something similar written by an airline pilot:

Quote:

Can someone with only flight simulator experience take off and land an airplane on the first try? I wanted to find out

http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/the-experiment-part-one-6144962/

http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/the-experiment-part-two-12340240/

Quote: rxwine

Are gaming flight simulators sophisticated enough to use for practice inflight hijacking?

Without a doubt, yes.

I've been into several, and many are as real to life as, well, real life. One of the combat sims I play has the entire air frame modeled real to life. If one chooses to do a ramp start, that is, be in a cold plane on the tarmac and have to get it fired up, you can perform the entire start up procedure from turning on electrical, firing up ECUs, fuel, spooling engines... just to get it able to roll is a 30+ step procedure that takes 10+ minutes to complete. Not to mention accessing flight plan, adjusting way points, arming and programming weapons delivery, radar warning receiver, A/A and A/G radars and target selection... it's very in depth.

If I remember correctly, Microsoft Flight Simulator X was used by the 911 hijackers as not only are the planes real to life, but all the geography in game is also modeled real to life.

There was a bet on 2+2 where a flight sim pilot bet he could do a complete taxi, takeoff, flight, and landing all on his own with no more knowledge or experience than he obtained playing Microsoft Flight Simulator. There happened to be a private pilot as a member and after months of planning, the bet went off. To win, the pilot had to be hands off for the entire event, just there for emergency purposes.

As I remember, there was one minor moment where the pilot took control, just for a few seconds. Something to do with an issue coming up which made them take a flight path different than the one the sim guy had practiced. But the pilot gave him total credit, and other than that one, minor, in flight adjustment, the sim guy completed the entire challenge and won the bet, doing all of that stuff completely on his own.

Professional pilots congregate on pprune.org, with lots to read if you are obsessed about this.

I did the tomnob thing and looked for the plane using some satellite imagery.

Not it appears that ACARS was turned off (which explains why RR never received data), followed by the Navigation beacon, then the message one minute later. This indicates deliberate hijacking. Not to mention now the seven hours of pings received by Inmarsat by the plane with the strength of the signal giving an arc. The plane's last ping was at 8:11am, 7 hours after last contact.

I think they'll figure out where this plane went down by looking for additional pings and correlating the data with military and eyewitness account. It's only a matter of time now.

Pprune has a good many posters who clearly are not professional pilots.

No data but a series of pings indicating ready to transmit means a hijacking by techologically sophisticated personnel, possibly including the flight crew.

Of course anything is possible, but with the two pilots being Muslim, and the two stolen passport passengers from Iran, does anyone think this was anything other than a hijacking by Muslim terrorists?

Exactly what their motives were, and how they were 'pleasing Allah' we will never know, but the general concept is pretty easy to piece together....

Quote: SOOPOO

Of course anything is possible, but with the two pilots being Muslim, and the two stolen passport passengers from Iran, does anyone think this was anything other than a hijacking by Muslim terrorists?

Probably not, but this is Malaysia

Under Article 160 of the Constitution of Malaysia adopted August 31, 1957 the definition of a Malay is a Malaysian citizen born to a Malaysian citizen who professes to be a Muslim, habitually speaks the Malay language, adheres to Malay customs, and is domiciled in Malaysia or Singapore. As a result, Malay citizens who convert out of Islam are no longer considered Malay under the law.

Only people who meet the above definition qualify legally as bumipatras.

In the 1970s, the Malaysian government implemented policies which The Economist called "racially discriminatory" designed to favor bumiputras (including affirmative action in public education) to create opportunities, and to defuse inter-ethnic tensions following the extended violence against Chinese Malaysians in the 13 May Incident in 1969.

So, one would presume most of the pilots of Air Malaysia meet the above definition of "Malay".

The average person flying from one place to another doesn't think about the ethnic heritage of the flight crew, nor should they have to. I admit that as an investigative lead we start with at least one member of the crew but most likely both of them. Except for evasive maneuvers involving dives to low altitudes where fuel is burned rapidly, just how far could that plane have flown. Surely its course was soon set. Were they bringing one of the passengers to Islamic justice?

Many things are being hidden from us as it's a criminal investigation and there is still a remote possibility that the plane actually landed somewhere.

If the US data is correct, there will be additional data points from radar and satellite pickups that we are not being told about, in order to find the downed plane.

If all of the facts are correct (a rise to 45,000 feet, the course, etc), it seems fairly obvious that the person(s) who hijacked the plane was a pilot who knew how to turn off the various communications systems. The course change after the ATC handoff, outside of radar range, the disabling of the ACARS and the transponder at exactly the right time, only could have been done by someone who knows how to drive planes and knows the procedures in that area. The fly over northern Malaysia was to avoid airspace and ATC. The rise to 45K to disable the cabin and kill/disable any resistance. it was probably a one person job -- either the captain or first officer. Perhaps the motive will come clear in time.

But it's weird that if the plane's final demise was the death of all pax and crew, why not a fiery shot into the ocean which would accomplish same? If it was politically motivated, why not the fiery crash. I think of the airspace the 777 would have to get through to do the northern path and I think it just wouldn't be possible unless they did a U around India and landed in Pakistan, but I am betting US intelligence would be all over that.. Any theories about landing on one of the Indian Ocean islands is just bull as all of the islands are are administered by the West and there would be someone on those islands who would report the landing of a 777 on their island. Anything that came close to Diego Garcia in the western Indian Ocean would be detected by the Americans.

This whole thing is just strange.

Quote: Fleastiff

The average person flying from one place to another doesn't think about the ethnic heritage of the flight crew, nor should they have to.

Maybe not up until now. But if I had to that trip for business, I would ask my company to put me on China Eastern Airlines and fly via Shanghai ot China Southern Airlines via Guangzhou. Alternatively you could fly the 213 miles to Singapore, and fly to Beijing from there. A 213 mile flight is to short to steal a plane.