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Cessna 172 pilot with no training, no hours, only flight simulator experience. Takeoff and landing

T. Sparks · 877.5K views · 2012-11-28 · 14:21

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Overview

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.

On Hacker News

HN cites it as real evidence for whether a non-pilot can land a plane, whenever the topic comes up.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2013–2016

Topics

Aviation & aerospace engineeringDocumentaries & storytelling
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cessna 172flight simulatorprop betaviationfirst flight

What people said

myztic · 2016-01 · Reference

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 [VIDEO] EDIT: and rdancer also linked to the final report, see his post, thanks :)

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lisper · 2014-02 · Reference

The answer is yes. Someone actually did this experiment. [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.

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revelation · 2013-02 · Reference

And here is the video: [VIDEO] The trip report will spoil the outcome, so the video is somewhat more nerve-wrecking.

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Sources

Video by T. Sparks, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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