As the aviation fare especially for local travels becomes more affordable, more Nigerians are now taking the air route. And so, just like its obtainable for travels by road, I thought it necessary to share this piece of info where emergency situations will require you handle the rest of the journey.

Tim Morgan - Quora
Filed to: hypotheticals10/29/14 2:30pm



So—your pilot passed out. The good news is the plane will probably have a sophisticated autopilot that can take care of most of the flying for you. The bad news is you will still probably have to land the damn thing. And since every aircraft cockpit is going to be different, it's not like you'd know exactly where to look to find the things you need.

Let's take an example aircraft—yep, you guessed it—the 737. The first thing you're going to want to do is put on the pilot's headset and find the pilot's audio controls. They'll look like this:



Note that there are three of these—one for a pilot, a copilot, and an observer. The one closest to you is the pilot's. Make sure VHF-1 is selected in the MIC SELECTOR button group. Otherwise you'll just be talking to your passengers—and chances are they sure as hell won't be able to help.

Chances are whatever frequency is dialed in will work, so just hold down the push-to-talk button on the yoke, and tell ATC your situation:



It's labeled here as "microphone intercomm switch."

Now, ATC is probably going to give you headings and altitudes to fly. These can be dialed into the autopilot's mode control panel (MCP), which is at the very top of the dashboard, along the glareshield:



First, make sure the autopilot is engaged by verifying that either the CMD A or CMD B buttons are lit. Press either one if not. To fly a heading, dial the heading into the HDG window and press the HDG SEL button to enable "heading select" lateral mode.

To climb or descend to an altitude, dial the altitude into the ALTITUDE window and select the LVL CHG button to set "level change" vertical mode. Once the aircraft captures that altitude, it should automatically activate ALT HOLD (altitude hold) mode.

ATC may also want you to slow down in preparation for landing. To control speed, select the SPEED autothrottle mode, dial the airspeed (in knots) you want to fly, and verify that the A/T ARM (autothrottle arm) switch is on. If the autothrottle is having trouble slowing the aircraft down (say, due to a descent), you can give it some assistance by deploying the speed brakes. When this handle is pulled back...

I just stop dreaming nd wake up..