I base the claim that it would be easier to fly down into the roof than into the side on my discussions with a friend who has over 20 years of experience as a commercial pilot, having flown both 757's and 767's.
And his name is...? I want to talk to him. And how many commercial airliners has he flown vertically at high speed into the ground?
His opinion concurs with other pilots who are on record saying that it is much easier to do.
Where are these type-certified pilots "on record"?
I have a dozen years or so experience with subsonic and supersonic aerodynamics and controllability, and I am currently working with Boeing on the controllability factors for the B-787. It is my opinion that a largely straight-down suicide dive would overspeed the airframe and render the aircraft uncontrollable and unaimable.
An inexperienced, irrational pilot? From the impossible maneuvers this pilot is alleged to have accomplished? LOL!
Hogwash. I have yet to hear a type-certified pilot call these maneuvers "impossible". They are atypical of how these aircraft are commonly flown. The amazement is that someone would fly it that way, not that someone could fly it that way.
I am not type-certified on the B-757 or B-767 although I have flown the full-cockpit commercial simulators manufactured by Evans and Sutherland and used by airlines to type-certify their pilots. Unlike your friend, I have the same experience as the hijackers -- I am trained in other aircraft, but I have to fly the Boeing by the seat of my pants and not by the book as a type-certified pilot would.
I can say that the novice pilot's intuition derived from other aircraft types is to overcorrect and overfly a commercial aircraft. That is, control movements are usually abrupt and excessive, causing excessing roll, pitch, and yaw rates and requiring considerable "jinking" to maintain a desired attitude and heading. The observed behavior of the 9/11 aircraft is fully consistent with an inexperienced pilot swerving around extensively trying to fly them. The notion that "only" an expert pilot could do such things is just a begged question.
From a cockpit visibility point of view (pun intended) the straight-down approach is considerably difficult to line up.
The most effective bet in this case is to fly the aircraft essentially the way it was designed to be flown. You can keep the aircraft reasonably within its flight envelope and in control, and you can keep the target centered in your windshield. This, in my opinion, is far preferable to a flight mode to which the pilot is utterly unaccustomed in any aircraft, and to which the airframe is not at all suited.
|