Man who isn't a pilot tries to land a plane in order to prove the Dunning-Kruger effect

This airplane enthusiast pulled out all the stops to try to sit in the cockpit of a plane and land it with no prior pilot experience, thanks to the Dunning-Kruger effect… Well, not quite.

You see, one man was trying to prove that overconfidence is ultimately a downfall thanks to the aforementioned Dunning-Kruger effect.

The effect basically explains the relationship between what you think you know versus what you actually know.

And, when he sat in the cockpit, the difference between his knowledge level versus his level of expertise became extremely apparent.

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The Dunning-Kruger effect: what you really need to know

We all like to think that we can master lots of skills, even when watching someone else do something.

So, in light of this, one creator decided to try and land a plane in a simulator despite not being a pilot.

He had previously watched lots of videos of others landing planes and playing games, but now came his turn.

“I wanted to understand how we judge what we think we know, or what we think we’re good at, versus what we actually know,” explained the presenter over on the Be Smart YouTube channel.

Widely known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, he put his knowledge to the ultimate test.

“The Dunning-Kruger effect suggests that unknowledgeable people lack the very expertise they need to recognize their lack of expertise,” states the British Psychological Society.

“People who aren’t knowledgeable don’t know the depths of their lack of knowledge,” explained David Dunning, one of the creators of the scientific theory.

So, what better way to test this than a person who has only ever played flight simulator and watched videos, trying to land a whole plane, with no prior experience?

Here’s what really happened when the non-pilot took to the controls

The creator was confident that he knew more than an average person, but was it really enough?

Well, under the watchful eye of an experienced pilot, he took to the flight deck with the expert only communicating via radio, and with no vision of flight controls, only air traffic.

The Boeing 737 replica cockpit was set to take the jet from Chicago to Boston, and it really was all systems go.

The first scenario that he was faced with was ‘full-autopilot’, with the creator having to carefully program the plane correctly to land itself, such as inputting GPS points.

“It’s not easy,” he remarked as he got to work and touched down on the runway in Boston.

After just inputting directions to autopilot, he explained that he was exhausted, but his job was far from complete.

The next task that the simulator pilot had to complete was known as ‘autopilot approach and manual landing’, which meant he had more control this time.

As you’d expect, this was more difficult, and even though he brought the plane to the runway, the gears were crushed, which meant it could have started a major fire.

“So it turns out that flying is harder than I thought,” he said as he got ready to tackle his third and final task.

This time, autopilot and auto throttle were disengaged, and after the final test, he crashed again.

“That was just so much harder than I figured it would be,” explained the creator once he eventually exited the cockpit for good.

The bottom line?

We are all simply clueless when it comes to the things we have no knowledge about, which means if we were to mess up, we wouldn’t actually realize.

This sometimes means that non-experts think they have more knowledge than they actually do, and the content creator explained that he felt like he should have been doing something, but didn’t quite know what.

He did find, though, that according to data, pilots with around 200 hours of flight experience had the most fatal accidents, not pilots who had just started out – interesting, right?

The way to beat it? Well, Dunning says to rely on other people’s expertise, as someone else’s brains are better combined with yours.

Overall, the creator had some trouble flying the plane, and his confidence ultimately decreased.

But hey, at least he gave it a go.

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