Oh he would have to do the whole flight, basically stealing the plane.
I can see that it's nearly impossible I guess. He can't talk to anyone either.
I think I have a solution though. If he were to have an injured pilot with him, probably blinded, to talk him through the whole thing? Maybe do some of the stuff for him?
Tia!
Actually, that might work pretty well. There are still a lot of problems, though.
A real big one is the 707 (well most of them) doesn't have an Auxiallry Power Unit, which you'd start the engines with. You need an air cart to start up. having said that, a small percentage of them did have them.
Most DC8s had them though. Similar airplane. The Convair, I dunno, but it was probably sans APU as well. This would mean involving some ground crew to get the air cart to the airplane and unplug it after starting at least one engine. If you re stealing it, that's a problem. But, like I said, some of those machines did have APUs so it is not beyond the realms of possibility that you would have one on the airplane. You could make a bit of a big deal about it, your blind guy finding the start switch on the panel and sighing relief that they have one.
Even in 1963 the requirement for a flight plan would be a issue. having said that, the tower would probably accept one at startup if the crew lied and said they were going local for some reason. that wouldn't happen nowadays, but it would be perfectly possible even in a place like Idlewild back then. (I'm presuming it would not be called JFK until
after your book's time frame!
)
All of these aircraft are three crew. Pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer. You could easily fly one without a flight engineer, though the blind guy whould have to do his work as well as help your low timer fly the airplane. Not impossible, but his workload would be ferocious. He'd need to know the airplane well. Be quite experienced.
You do NOT need a navigator unless you're going oceanic. The navigation portion and instrument flying portion would not be too much of an issue with your onboard expert to help. The 707's autopilot is crap, but it would serve to keep your guy out of trouble in the climb, cruise and descent. An autopilot of that vintage will not handle the airplane very well on approach or departure, though. So the weather would have to be good at departure and destination for him to have any realistic chance. Enroute you could give him some small problems. Jets don't really have issues with airframe icing, by the way, so leave that out or any jet driver will throw the book down at that point (it isn't impossible, just very unusual) if you need some excitement enroute I'd suggest you have plenty just having your blind guy trying to figure out navigation.
Radar and ATC would not be that much of an issue in those days. In any case, your blind pilot could get them wherever they needed to go. An important thing to understand about ATC ( which seldom comes across in film) is that they are there to clear the way for you, not fly the airplane for you. So if you tell them what you want to do, they will give you a clearance, which really just means the way is safe and clear. Once airborne he could easily say "Change of plan, company wants us in (wherever) and ATC would work it out for you. Post 2001, different story, but in '63, easy.
I'd still only give 'em 50/50, but hey; James Bond has a Beretta and shoots a hundred guys with machine guns dead without getting a scratch. Suspension of disbelief will reign supreme here, but it's do-able.
And by the way, simulators are no real guide to flying any kind of airplane in real life. Even the modern sims and certainly not MSFS
They're good for procedural things, but that's about it. And simulators in that period were very primitive; no motion, and visuals were a new thing entirely, so it is extremely unlikely your protagonist would have been exposed to one.
Hope this helps!