T. Sparks
3 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2013–2016
14:21 · 878K views · Nov 28, 2012
A man with no flight instruction and only desktop flight simulator experience attempts to take off and land a Cessna 172, with a commercial airline instructor aboard who gives no help. The flight came out of a prop bet.
HN cites it as real evidence for whether a non-pilot can land a plane, whenever the topic comes up.
3 comments from Hacker News
You might not want to skim through the forums (though I find the discussion interesting). In the end, this actually happened and you can see a video of it here this video EDIT: and rdancer also linked to the final report, see his post, thanks :)
The answer is yes. Someone actually did this experiment. this video But it's pretty challenging. Today's simulators are pretty good, but there's something about having your life actually on the line that can't be captured by a sim.
And here is the video: this video The trip report will spoil the outcome, so the video is somewhat more nerve-wrecking.