Could you land a plane in an emergency? (Remastered)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: NO SUCH THING

Episode: Could you land a plane in an emergency? (Remastered)
Hosts: Manny, Noah, and Devan
Date: August 5, 2026
Main Theme:
A humorous, research-driven investigation into a viral hypothetical: Could an average person—with only instructions from air traffic control—land a commercial airplane in an emergency?

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Episode Overview

Manny, Noah, and Devan tackle the internet-fueled debate: could you, as a non-pilot, land a passenger jet with only remote instructions if the pilots became incapacitated mid-flight? They start with a spirited discussion about confidence, examine survey data, consult a psychology expert, and ultimately try to simulate the challenge themselves. Along the way, they explore overconfidence (especially in men), the difference between real expertise and imagined skill, and what happens when theory is put to the test.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Spark: How Confident Are We (03:26)

• The YouGov poll: "How confident are you that you could safely land a passenger airplane in an emergency, with only air traffic control talking you through it?"
• Initial poll results (US adults):
  • Very confident: 13%
  • Somewhat confident: 19%
  • Not very confident: 17%
  • Not at all confident: 42%
  • Not sure: 9%
• Hosts' reactions:
  • Manny and Noah both lean “somewhat to very confident.”
  • Devan is firmly unconvinced and skeptical—calls out the absurdity and the high stakes (“You either land it, or everyone dies.” – Devan, 04:28).

Confidence vs. Reality

• Manny and Noah argue that, with detailed instructions, they could do it; Devan stresses the complexity and unpredictability of real-world piloting.
  • Manny: “If someone’s giving me instructions, I think I could do it.” (04:17)
  • Devan: “You either land it, or everyone dies. So there’s a lot of pressure.” (04:28)
• The trio joke about their experiences (“I’m a great driver. I used to deliver pizza.” – Manny, 07:46).

Gender and Confidence (09:17)

• The YouGov survey shows a stark gender divide:
  • 20% of men are “very confident” vs. 7% of women.
• Devan: “Ladies got their mind right.” (09:30)
• Manny: “They need to feel more confident about themselves.” (09:34)
• The hosts reflect on society’s influence on confidence and gender stereotypes.

Enter the Dunning-Kruger Effect (17:38)

Interview with David Dunning, University of Michigan Psychologist

• Dunning explains the Dunning-Kruger effect: people lacking skill also lack the ability to recognize their own incompetence.
  • “Those who lack expertise lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise. So they do quite badly…but they think they’re doing just fine, until the world really makes the lesson very, very clear.” – David Dunning (18:36)
• The hosts relate their own (over)confidence to the phenomenon.

Is Overconfidence Bad?

• Dunning suggests context matters—overconfidence can sometimes be useful (e.g., a general inspiring troops before a battle), but is dangerous at the prep stage.
  • “Confidence and overconfidence is something you manage. There are times when it’s good…as long as you’re flexible, and there are times to be underconfident. You have to know the difference.” – Dunning (20:01)

Gendered Confidence (again)

• Dunning: Overconfidence often aligns with socialized domains (men with sports, women with cooking, etc.).
  • “If something is identified with a gender…people will tend to be overconfident in the things identified with their gender.” (22:28)
• The hosts reflect on how society hands men and women different fields (and permission) to be confident.

Would David Dunning Try to Land a Plane?

• “Oh, absolutely not. I react too slow, I overthink…People are answering [the poll] because they don’t know everything that’s going to happen. They have no idea…” – Dunning (24:35)

The Simulator Challenge (25:34)

The Experiment

• The hosts visit Manhattan Flight Club in NYC to try landing a small aircraft on a certified flight simulator—with no flying experience, only voice instructions from an experienced pilot, Taylor.
• Manny volunteers as “emergency pilot;” Noah and Devan observe.
• The simulation is not for a 747, but a small aircraft—still complex, with real controls.

Step-by-Step Attempt (Selected Highlights)

• Manny wrestles with controls and basic instructions (turn compass, lower throttle, talk to ATC).
• Memorable moment: After much struggle, Manny manages a (simulated) landing:
  • “Oh, we landed.” (30:28)
• The experience is humbling—Manny admits how overwhelming the cockpit is, and that every instruction (“press the red button”) is suddenly hard to interpret with dozens of unlabeled buttons.

Reflection & Takeaways (33:05)

• Manny is still confident “in theory,” but more respectful of difficulty and real-world stakes:
  • “I’m still confident I could do this, but I now have more respect for how hard it actually is.” (33:29)
• Real jets are much more complex than the simulator plane; landings happen at double the speed, with less time to react.
• Noah, Devan, and Manny discuss the limits of simulation, real-life anxiety, and how confidence doesn't always translate to competence.
• The Dunning-Kruger effect is revisited: not only do incompetents overestimate themselves, but sometimes competent people underestimate their abilities.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You either land it, or everyone dies. So there’s a lot of pressure.” – Devan (04:28)
• “If someone’s giving me instructions, I think I could do it.” – Manny (04:17)
• “Landing a plane is like—people who clap are weird. It’s not like we…can’t talk about these people.” – Manny (06:36)
• “Someone who lacks expertise also lacks the expertise to recognize they lack expertise.” – David Dunning (18:36)
• “Confidence and overconfidence is something you manage…there are times when it’s good to be overconfident, as long as you’re flexible, and there are times to be underconfident, but you have to know the difference.” – David Dunning (20:01)
• “Rest in peace to all my haters, but I landed the plane.” – Manny (33:05)
• “I’m still confident that I could land a plane in an emergency situation with the instructions of air traffic control, but I now have so much more respect for exactly what that process is.” – Manny (36:44)

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Key Timestamps

• 03:26 – The YouGov survey: how confident are people (and hosts) about landing a plane?
• 09:17 – Major gender differences in self-reported confidence.
• 17:38 – David Dunning interview begins; explanation of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
• 20:01 – When (over)confidence helps vs. hurts.
• 22:28 – Gendered domains and confidence.
• 24:35 – Dunning: “Absolutely not” would he land a plane by ATC instructions.
• 25:34 – Hosts go to the flight simulator; experiment setup.
• 27:27 – 30:28 – Manny attempts (and lands) the simulated plane.
• 33:05 – Post-experiment reflections; confidence recalibrated.
• 35:22 – Real jet landings are way faster and more complex than the simulation—“the second part is pretty detrimental.”
• 36:44 – Final thoughts on confidence, skill, and the reality of human (in)competence.

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Takeaways

• People (men especially) significantly overestimate their ability to land a plane with instructions—even when never having flown.
• The Dunning-Kruger effect explains persistent overconfidence: people don’t know what they don’t know.
• Simulated experience brought respect for the complexity and high risk of real piloting, but some confidence lingers—especially if guided step by step.
• Using confidence as a tool can be helpful, but unchecked, it leads to dangerous overestimation of one’s own skill.
• You probably cannot land the plane—but you’ll hope you’re the exception if the time ever comes.

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Useful for Listeners Who Haven’t Heard the Episode

This episode is a punchy, research-based deep-dive into a viral hypothetical, with plenty of humor, humility, and expert commentary. It’s ideal for fans of group chat debates, pop science, and the intersection of psychology and pop culture. The “would you land the plane?” question becomes a vehicle for talking about confidence, gender, and the ways we all misjudge our own abilities—plus the fun and humility of actually trying (safely) to prove yourself wrong.

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Transcript

[A]

Hey, no such thingers. Manny here. Remember that episode we did about how to do your laundry properly? What we learned from our expert Patrick seemed to blow a lot of your minds and change a lot of your lives. And for that reason, we're gonna do a part 2. Go back and listen to the episode titled are you doing your laundry wrong? And if you have any questions that weren't answered in that episode, send them into mannynoadevinmail.com or even better, leave us a voicemail at the number in our show notes. Now please enjoy this remixed and remastered version of one of our very first episodes. Could you land a plane in an emergency situation with the help of air traffic control? I'm Manny.

[B]

I'm Noah.

[C]

And this is Devin.

[A]

And this is no Such Thing. The show where we settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research on today's episode. Could you land a plane in an emergency situation with the help of air traffic control? We learn a lot about overconfidence in men. And I attempt something I have no business attempting. Oh, that's the Runway. I'm looking at this thing.

[D]

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[B]

So there's a survey that's gone around. It came out early last year. And here's the question, and I'll ask for your answers. This is from YouGov. The question is, how confident are you that you could safely land a passenger airplane in an emergency situation relying only on the assistance of air traffic control? And you can answer, very confident, somewhat confident, not very confident, not at all confident or not sure.

[A]

And this you're not. You're not landing it by yourself.

[B]

Like someone they're helping, they're on the phone with you. Yeah.

[C]

Okay. I would probably say not very confident to. Not at all. I'm somewhere between there.

[A]

I'm pretty confident I could land very. Yeah, I think somewhere between somewhat and very confident. If someone's giving me instructions, I think. I think I could do it.

[B]

I think that's how I feel, too.

[C]

So you both think that.

[B]

I'd say very. I think between someone and very.

[C]

You know, when you're landing an airplane, you either land it or everyone dies. So there's a lot of pressure.

[B]

Pressure.

[A]

There's a lot of pressure.

[C]

It's not just.

[A]

I think that's helping me, though.

[C]

I think that's definitely hurting. It's not just like, okay, you know, if you don't land it, everything's cool. Like, even think about, like, my first time driving a car, I was so nervous with the driving instructor.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And the stakes are so much lower.

[B]

Yeah. I guess from what I understand of landing planes, which isn't much, but it just seems like because of the way planes are set up, it's all just

[C]

like, is this a commercial plane?

[B]

Passenger airplane?

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. That's like a commercial.

[B]

So I'm assuming big Boeing 747. Not like.

[C]

And y' all think y' all could land the Boeing?

[A]

Well, what to do?

[B]

I think that's easier. I'm saying I think that would be easier than a small little plane where it's like, okay. Like, because these planes have so many buttons, it seems like it's mostly kind of automatically set up.

[A]

You just have a lot of the.

[G]

Right.

[A]

Automated now.

[C]

Yeah. But y' all are confused. Okay. Once they're in the sky, landing and takeoff are still done by pilots.

[I]

It's.

[C]

It's like a random person can't just take off.

[B]

Yeah, but maybe they can.

[A]

Landing and takeoff are done by pilots, but at the same time, I think we're imagining them, like, having some kind of, like, steering wheel where they're turning. They're like typing in numbers that make the plane.

[C]

No, but they're pulling and pushing for. See, you don't even. You.

[J]

You better.

[C]

You better do some research.

[B]

They're pulling the throttle.

[C]

Yeah. Well, how high and low the plane. There's some. Yeah, but like, movement.

[B]

Again. This. This person in air traffic control has all these numbers, and they're saying, like,

[A]

okay, pull this until this, pull that, turn this.

[B]

It's just.

[A]

I can do my eyes closed.

[E]

Yeah, exactly.

[D]

I'm not even looking.

[B]

I'm pressing the keyboard.

[C]

Sorry. That is insane. The fact that have hundreds of people on this plane. You have never flown a plane in your life before, and both of you think that. Yeah, I could probably do that. Have you been on a plane when people clap when you land?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

That's someone who does this, like, every day of their lives. Like, there is.

[A]

Landing a plane is like, people who clap are weird. It's not like we can't talk about these people.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Flying a plane is not just something that anyone can do.

[B]

Anyone could do it, probably. We just don't. Because there's not that many planes. I mean,

[A]

if there were the demand. Yeah, the demand isn't really there.

[C]

Look, I don't even. Like, I think that that's crazy. I think most people shouldn't even be allowed to drive.

[A]

Does the survey say what percentage of people think they can do it?

[B]

I can read you the results.

[A]

Okay. Yeah.

[B]

So this is for all people that answered. Very confident is 13%.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Somewhat confident is 19%. Not very confident is 17%. Not at all confident is 42%.

[C]

Okay. So most of people are normal and

[B]

not sure is 9%.

[A]

So combine the somewhat and very confident numbers.

[B]

Yeah. That would be 19 plus 13. 32.

[A]

So 32% of people.

[B]

32% of all people. Yeah.

[C]

Crazy.

[A]

This is the weird part. I don't think 32% of people could safely land.

[B]

It's one in three people.

[A]

But I believe that I could.

[C]

Are you a good driver?

[A]

Yeah, I'm a great driver. I used to deliver pizza.

[C]

What the hell have to do?

[A]

Because in a.

[C]

Some of the worst drivers I know deliver pizza.

[A]

You have to be able to weave around traffic. You want to get there on time, you have to know how to parallel park.

[B]

And you don't need to do that with a plan. The Runway is clear.

[C]

But you said you don't think that 30 something percent of people could do that. Right.

[A]

You think that's to land the plane.

[C]

You don't.

[E]

You're.

[C]

You're built different.

[A]

You can do it different.

[C]

I'm not at all confident. I think if I landed the plane, it would be a miracle.

[B]

Well, it would be a miracle for any of us to do it.

[A]

That I agree with.

[B]

But not.

[A]

It would be really hard.

[C]

But y' all are seriously. How is it a miracle if both of you feel like you could. Y'.

[B]

All.

[C]

Y' all doing miracles out here daily

[B]

just because it's an emergency situation.

[K]

Yes.

[B]

Every day is a miracle. While we're here.

[A]

I treat every day when I wake up as a miracle. Thank you very much.

[B]

Every heartbeat.

[A]

The reason why I feel like it'd be a miracle is like, just think of the headline guy who's never flown a plane before lands.

[C]

Yeah. And I think that's my point.

[A]

Based on these very specific instructions given to him.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Through the headphones by a pilot.

[C]

So this has been not too long ago, but it was a small plane and the guy had flown like hundreds of times before. And he was able to land a plane, but it was a smaller plane. He had been in the small planes. You see what the guy is doing all the time.

[L]

Yeah.

[C]

Neither one of you have ever been in a cockpit and you think you.

[A]

I've been in a small plane. I've been in a cockpit just to, like, say hi to the pilot.

[B]

I've also played Ace Combat, multiple games in that series.

[G]

Yeah.

[A]

Have you ever heard of Star Fox?

[B]

So by gender, this is how it breaks down. So for very confident, which was 13% of all people, it's male 20% and female 7%.

[C]

Yep. Ladies got their mind right.

[A]

So no, they. They need to feel more confident about themselves.

[B]

Society. That's unfortunately, you know, ladies are push down our.

[C]

The guys are confident queens.

[A]

The limit queens.

[C]

I think so. I think this is a classic case of guys just thinking they can do shit that they can't.

[B]

In my opinion, it's a bad thing that women don't feel more confident.

[C]

Women are not a.

[B]

It's not a detriment to. To me.

[H]

Yeah.

[B]

I wish everyone was answering that. They're very confident.

[A]

If I was on a plane and the. The pilot passed out, I wish men and women stood up to to volunteer to land.

[B]

Also say, I would probably prefer a confident woman to take that.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I fully believe that, like, men in general are too, like, overconfident about things. But I think specific, I think this specific question is different, though, because why you are. You aren't relying on yourself. You're relying on a professional who knows how to land a plane.

[C]

No, but you are the person who is, at the end of the day, going to be responsible for whether or not you live or die.

[B]

When I fail and the, you know, it's on the COVID of the newspaper the next day, they're not going to be like, oh, and this guy, this clown thought he could do it. We gave him perfect instructions and he messed up. They'd be like, brave hero.

[A]

Yeah. Gave it a shot.

[B]

Tried his best. And he was the only one who could.

[C]

Absolutely tried his best. I think the point that it's not easy is the issue with guys, period. If it were easy, then who would care? Right? Guys think that they can do impossible stuff all the time. And they have confidence, unearned confidence. And I think that's what. What's happening here. Why, why do you think that you can land a plan? You have no experience with anything plan related in your life.

[A]

Because the thing you're bringing up about unearned confidence, I don't think it fully applies to this because someone is holding your hand through the process.

[B]

Yeah. I don't think you need a super high IQ to do this.

[C]

Y' all are both saying that this is not that hard of a thing to do, period.

[B]

Kind of.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Let's say, Devin, there's something wrong with your car's transmission and you don't know how to fix that.

[C]

I don't.

[A]

You've never seen, you've never tried in your life?

[C]

No, I don't know anything about cars.

[A]

Now, what if a mechanic called you on the phone, you have all the tools, and he's just walking you through.

[C]

I can barely watch a video and put something together.

[A]

Yeah. But okay, if you don't fix it, it's gonna explode and kill you.

[J]

Okay.

[C]

Yeah, this is a little bit higher. I'm gonna try a little bit harder.

[A]

I think you could fix it. If he told you exactly what to do, that doesn't mean his job's easy.

[C]

You can only give me but so much guidance. But at a certain point, there's a lot of judgment also involved. They can tell you what button to press. They can tell you when to do something, but you are still flying a plane. This isn't like putting something together or taking something apart. Right. Like, this is a moving vehicle in the sky, and there's a lot of things that can go wrong. I think y' all are thinking of it as like, okay, you are putting together IKEA furniture with, like, a blindfold. Like, can you do.

[B]

I guess from my perspective, from what little I do know about these planes, is it kind of is like that more so than, you know, you know, a race car going around a crazy bend.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That is skill based. And, like, you need. You need a very special amount of skills.

[C]

Talking like, there's. There's gonna be wind. There's gonna be things that. I know we're not, like, putting, like, something in the middle of the tarmac intentionally, but, like, it's. There's probably gonna be something happening that day. You know, like, even if you're driving a car, right, like, if it's not raining, they're still, you know, like, maybe there's a pothole. Maybe, you know, it's like, there's always variables.

[D]

Sure.

[A]

Yes. But they're gonna.

[C]

There's a reason.

[B]

I'm assuming they know that and they're gonna handle it.

[C]

Let me say this. There's a reason why, like, air traffic control doesn't just fly to planes.

[B]

What reason is that? That they're not in the plane.

[C]

There's a reason there's a pilot in the plane. Yes.

[A]

I'm not even saying that. Like, in this transmission scenario, you might have been able to fix it, but not as good as the mechanic.

[C]

Yeah, that's.

[A]

So in this scenario with the plane,

[C]

I'm not saying real close to landing.

[A]

I'm not saying everyone's gonna live or like, maybe. I don't know if I'll. I'll do the landing wheel gears to come out. Maybe I'll fuck that part up.

[C]

I don't think killing a couple people safely landing.

[A]

Yeah, it is. Come on. There's 200 other people on the plane. It's a miracle.

[C]

Okay, so you. So I think that changes things a little bit, though. If you're saying, I can get us

[A]

on the ground, we're gonna get to

[C]

the ground, everyone is gonna live. It's very different.

[B]

We're gonna live.

[A]

There might be some.

[B]

We're gonna live. We're gonna live there.

[C]

You're saying safely. Everyone. People may get like, some whiplash or something.

[B]

It'll be more turbulent probably. Sure. Yeah. I'm planning on getting the wheels out.

[C]

You can, like, you know, one of the wheels fall off or something like that. You combine.

[A]

Maybe I'll land.

[B]

The plane doesn't need to be in perfect condition.

[A]

No, of course not.

[C]

You can crash land, but everyone needs to be alive and be able to, like, get off the plane. And I'm not talking, like, half the plane blows off.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

I know the concept of making it to the ground.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

And I'm going to have a parachute, so I'm getting out of there a

[A]

little bit early, but. Okay. So I think I need to try and actually land a plane.

[E]

You might be able to just point slightly towards the Runway with your control. And what you see.

[A]

Oh, that's the run.

[L]

Right.

[A]

I'm looking at this thing.

[D]

See?

[A]

But first, I'm gonna talk to an expert. This guy has studied overconfidence so much that he has an effect named after him. That's after the break.

[I]

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[A]

Last time we were here, we debated whether Noah and I could land a plane, given instructions by air traffic.

[C]

No, we debated whether all of us would be able to land a plane.

[A]

Yeah. But it turned into me and Noah because you decided that we were crazy.

[C]

Well, I decided to have common sense.

[A]

I interviewed this guy named David Dunning. He's a psychology professor at the University of Michigan. I went to Ohio State, so I almost hung up the call when I found that out, but we let it slide. David Dunning is the founder of this concept called the Dunning Kruger effect. The Dunning Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with limited competence in a particular domain, so me and Noah, in flying planes, overestimate their abilities. So after our debate, we landed on, like. Like, we were just interested in why people are overconfident in certain areas that they have never done anything before. And that's why I decided to conduct this interview.

[C]

Yeah, what's. What's in there? Do they have something wrong in their brain?

[A]

Yeah, that I wanted to know about myself.

[B]

Why do I think it's true?

[A]

And I still think it's true, but I want to kind of break it down first. I'll just play for you. Like, the very beginning of the interview, where he explains the concept a little bit.

[L]

Well, the Dunning Kruger effect, as it's come to be known in popular culture, is the idea that those who lack expertise lack the expertise. They need to recognize that they lack expertise. So they do quite badly in various skills, but they think they're doing just fine until the world really makes the lesson very, very clear.

[C]

Interesting takeaway there is that he's saying that these people don't even realize. I thought it was like, okay, I'm super confident at this thing. I try this thing, thinking I'm gonna be good at it. But then as I'm doing it, maybe I realize, okay, you know, it's like we talked about playing Serena Williams in tennis. Obviously, that's an extreme example, but it's interesting that he says the person doesn't even realize they're not good at it, even while or after doing it.

[B]

Yeah. That's like total obliviousness versus in the plain scenario, we're talking about saying, I'll try this.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Not like, maybe you're doing it and now the plane is crashing and being like, oh, this is fine. Which, like, Devin, you have to allow. That's different than we're not that delusional.

[C]

Well, with our example is if you don't do it well, you die. Versus, like, if it was like you thought you were great at, like, painting

[A]

or something, I wondered whether it's a quote unquote good or quote unquote bad thing to be overconfident in an area.

[L]

The way I like to think about it is if you are a general and you're leading your troops to battle now, the day before the invasion, you want to be very, very underconfident. You want to worry about every contingency, every risk, everything that could go wrong, every devious scheme the enemy might have and prepare for it. You don't want to be overconfident. You want to be diligent to a fault. But then the day of the battle, you want to be overconfident because you want to transmit to your troops that this is the plan and we got to go in because that's the way you're going to succeed. So confidence and overconfidence is something that you manage. There are times when it's good to be overconfident as long as you're flexible, and there are times to be under confident, but you have to know the difference of when you're in the first situation versus the second situation. So that's the way I think about it.

[C]

That's interesting.

[B]

Yeah. I think sports is the easiest example to think of. Like, at some point you have to push yourself to try to do something or, like, even just working out or something.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

It's easy in, like, you know, X minutes into a workout to be like, oh, man, I'm really tired. I don't want to do this last thing. Obviously you push yourself and it's the peloton instructors screaming at you. You feel better, like, they promise you

[C]

would as like, you can do it

[B]

and you can do it.

[C]

It's not like you're like, yeah, I can do it.

[E]

Yeah.

[B]

So, I mean, shout out to them.

[A]

Yeah. And to try to kind of tie this to the plain scenario, I guess he's saying it's bad that we're confident before we're in the scenario.

[C]

That's true right now. See, he's saying, basically, you should be me right now studying, like you should be.

[B]

Okay, what exactly do you want to

[A]

be prepared and measured. But when the emergency comes, it is good to be confident.

[B]

Yeah, Roll up the sleeves, which is

[A]

like the inverse of what we are. We're confident before the emergency happens. When the emergency happens, we're nervous and like, can we do it?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I'll be like, hey, Captain, if you need a few minutes off, just, you know, I'm in row 17 back there. Economy.

[A]

So the next thing we talked about was this kind of breakdown between men and women, like, the gender aspect to this. Because as a reminder, men were way more confident than women were in this specific question. And in life, and in life in

[L]

general, if something is identified with a gender, like sports with men, and still cooking with women, people will tend to be overconfident and confident in the things that are identified with their gender. That is one of the things that produces this overconfidence is this preconceived notion you have about yourself. So if you think you know everything, you're male. You're just much more likely to think you know everything about sports because you watch a lot of sports. It's not as true as it used to be, but it still is true. And so men will be more confident and overconfident in what they know about sports than women. It'll flip if you talk about something that's identified with being a woman.

[A]

So I was struck by this passage because when we were talking about women being less confident that they could land a plane because they are essentially just more measured.

[B]

So it's not necessarily that women are just less confident than men. It's that society gives women fewer things to be confident about.

[A]

So pretty much every insight that he's had in this interview goes against our confidence in landing a plane.

[B]

I can't argue with this guy. You know, this guy sounds like he knows what he's talking about. I guess I still probably wouldn't change my answer at this point.

[A]

I don't think I would either. But it's like. And, you know, I'm learning more.

[B]

I don't know if that's necessarily. I don't think that's his point either.

[C]

No, I think he's just like, we're

[B]

falling into how it. That's just how it works.

[A]

This is just the way we all think about this.

[C]

It's just explaining why you. Why we are both so overconfident and why you shouldn't be.

[B]

And it is easy to feel that way now, obviously.

[C]

Yeah. Because you're not on a plane falling out of the sky. You're not in a scenario where you possibly would be.

[A]

Yeah, right, exactly. Now I had one more question for him. If you were given instruction by an air traffic controller, do you think you could land a plane in an emergency situation?

[L]

Oh, absolutely not. I react too slow. I over, I overthink. I mean people think that people are answering because of self puffery, but really what it is is they don't know everything that's going to happen. They have no idea. And, but they, but in that they have some idea. Well, there's a little steering wheel and you just do the steering wheel. It's like a video game. I'm great at video games.

[A]

Yeah, so he kind of cooked me at the end there. Like I just found it so interesting to understand a little bit better, like why we thought the way that we thought and why we think the way that we think. Yeah, I thought present tense. Now obviously testing out this YouGov survey question in real life would be illegal, I think. I'm assuming. I don't think.

[C]

Well, we did it. We got manier on a plane.

[K]

Yeah.

[B]

We orchestrated the emergency situation.

[C]

We pushed the pilot.

[B]

You've probably been hearing about these little Boeing incidents and that's been us trying to get this ready. What if one of the doors falls?

[A]

We're just trying to make a really good podcast so we can't actually test this experiment in real life. So we did the next best thing, which is a flight simulator. So the three of us went to a place called Manhattan Flight Club in midtown New York City and we linked up with a pilot named Taylor loosely. And we decided to try and play out this scenario as close as we. As close as we could get it to the scenario in the YouGov survey question. So we get to the Manhattan Flight Club and then we get in, we meet Taylor and he takes us to the actual simulator. This was chair at a desk and it had like two big monitors, but it was legit. Like they had like all these controls.

[B]

Yeah, it had all the throttle components.

[C]

He said it was FCC whatever. Right?

[B]

You mean FAA certified? Yeah.

[A]

Taylor, who is so kind to help us out with this and so patient because we had the dumbest questions ever. He is not an air traffic controller. And so he's just a pilot and he knows how to pilot these smaller aircrafts. And so it's worth noting before we listen to the tape that. The simulation we were running, it was not a simulation of a passenger commercial jet. The simulation is a smaller aircraft. So, yeah, let's take a listen to the. To me trying to land a plane in an emergency. All right, this is Manny. I'm here with Noah and Devin at the Manhattan Flight Club flight simulator. I'm looking at this kind of monstrous setup here, and I will say I'm a little less confident than I was when we first recorded. So, yeah, let's do this.

[E]

4 Foxtrot Tango, are you still heading towards Runway 22 or. Foxtrot Tango, copy.

[A]

I'm hearing a voice, but I don't know how to respond to the voice.

[E]

Poor Foxtrot Tango, I see you losing altitude early. Are you in a emergency situation? Poor Fox Truck Tango?

[A]

Yes, please respond. Okay, here's. I'm gonna try this.

[E]

If there's a pilot of capacitation, look for a red button on your controls to talk to us. There should be a red button on your control wheel.

[A]

Oh, okay. Hello, can you hear me?

[E]

Four Fox Shot Tango, I heard your transmission. Are you a pilot at the controls?

[A]

I'm only technically a pilot, but I've never flown a plane before.

[E]

Our.

[A]

Our pilot had some kind of emergency and now I'm at the wheel.

[E]

Four Fox. Roger, understood. I'm going to declare an emergency and it's gonna help you get to the Runway. So stay calm and we're gonna figure this out together. Sound good?

[A]

That sounds great.

[J]

This is.

[A]

Thank you. Thank you so much.

[E]

4 Foxtrot Tango, are you able to see what looks like a compass with north, south, east and some other numbers on one of the dials in front of you?

[A]

Yes, the dial on the top has that.

[E]

We're wanting you to turn to the south. Are you able to turn right to the letter S as you see on that dial?

[A]

Yes, I'll try it.

[E]

Go ahead and stop your turn now.

[A]

It just keeps turning.

[E]

4 FoxTrotango, to stop the turn, push the controls left. 4 Fox Shot Tango, you're doing good. You're headed towards the final approach path of the Runway here. Go ahead and verify that just so we can see you. Your landing light is on.

[A]

Here's one problem I see. If I go to press a button, I'm then not on the steering wheel.

[E]

Four Fox Shot under. Understood. Go ahead. And now turn left to one five so it's on the other side of the letter S. Okay, your left turn is looking good. We see you turning left on the screen here. Go ahead and reduce that throttle by about a quarter of an inch. We're gonna start your descent here to help you out.

[A]

Okay. I'm just trying to balance.

[C]

I do love that sometimes when he acts as if these are suggestions,

[B]

I'll get too loose.

[E]

You might be able to just point slightly towards the Runway with your controls. And what you see.

[A]

Oh, that's the Runway. I'm looking at this thing.

[E]

If you can see anything that says

[A]

wing flaps, we might have to go without the flaps. I don't see the flaps button.

[E]

Your speed's perfect for a final approach and landing. Grab the throttle and slowly pull it all the way back towards you and go ahead and slowly point up.

[A]

Oh, we landed. Reactions to my successful landing of the aircraft. After the break,

[I]

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[K]

What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers.

[J]

Hey, what's up, y'?

[E]

All?

[J]

It's your girl, Sam Jae.

[K]

And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together in iheart Women's Sports.

[J]

Because, let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days.

[K]

So Kelsey Finler. She became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii.

[J]

My first thought is, like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating?

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The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire

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[K]

Naomi Osaka showing out. She beat Sabalenka.

[J]

Shout outs to you, Naomi.

[A]

You get the Palm, Naomi.

[K]

You get the Palm for that.

[J]

Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[A]

All right, we're back. Rest in peace to all of my haters, but I landed the plane.

[C]

So now, after having done the simulation, do you think that you feel more or less confident than beforehand about the probability of you successfully landing an actual plane?

[A]

So, basically, throughout this whole experiment, what I learned was that, number one, pretty good at this. I think I'm pretty good at landing planes.

[B]

Now you must be more confident.

[A]

Well, here's the tricky part. The reason why I'm not more confident is because it goes without saying this is a much different scenario than in real life. And of course, we knew that going into it. But, like, sitting in the chair, seeing all the controls, doing everything he was telling me to do, I'm still confident that I could do this, but I now have more respect for, like, how hard it actually is. Yeah, just the overwhelming amount of numbers and dials and controls and switches and levers and buttons that are sitting in front of you are so overwhelming that, like. And I know that Taylor, our fake air traffic control guy, was saying exactly what to do, but when he says, press the red button. Yeah, there's 50 red buttons. Like, it was very hard to get.

[B]

And they're not necessarily labeled.

[A]

So clearly because for. They're not able to know what they're doing scenario.

[B]

It's not like, here's the one you really need.

[A]

Now, the other reason I'm probably a little less confident is this. So, like, after the experiment, I emailed Taylor to try and tell us what the difference is between that aircraft we did in the simulator versus a real, like, passenger jet that would have, like, 200 people on it. There are two key differences. One is that it's even. Obviously it's even more complex. The controls on a bigger flight. However, he noted that in this emergency scenario, you would be ignoring 90% of the controls on the plane.

[C]

Yeah, but more stuff to look at.

[A]

There's more. It's more stuff you have to get through, so that's hard. The second part is pretty detrimental. The speed of the aircraft. So our aircraft was going and landing at around 70 knots. Do I know what that means? No, but A passenger jet goes at 120 to 150 knots.

[E]

Okay.

[A]

So essentially I'd be doing that simulation at twice the speed.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

And that just gives you fewer minutes.

[C]

Yeah. Because you're coming in a lot.

[B]

Not much time to mess around.

[A]

Reaction time is like. In the simulation, you could. We were really slowly going back and

[B]

forth to find the control, and you could correct everything.

[E]

Yeah.

[C]

After this, I was pretty. I was like, okay, this was actually a lot easier than I thought. Maybe I'm overthinking it. But now hearing that, because we did have a lot of time in the air, even from when we started to, like you said, experiment and figure stuff out. So 120 knots, I just looked it up, is like 138 miles per hour. But it's also.

[A]

And this was landing. This is like the landing area. So the stuff in the air is pretty similar. It's when you're approaching the Runway, you're going twice as fast.

[B]

You have way less time to change anything if you're messed up.

[A]

And if you remember, I landed and then immediately, like, veered off into other lanes. So that could have been a high casualty event. So that's kind of my takeaway from this, is that, like, I. I'm still somewhat confident that I could land a plane in an emergency situation with the instructions of air traffic control, but now I just have so much more respect for exactly what that process is. And, you know, someone can be confident about something and still fail, obviously, as we've learned for. During the entire course of this podcast. But. But that's what I came away with,

[B]

you know, removing this from the very specific plane scenario. I think this is, you know, I'll definitely think about using confidence, you know, in my kind of regular life and, like, how I actually can use it to my advantage.

[C]

Using confidence as a tool, I think is like an interesting takeaway.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Intentional. Being more intentional about using confidence in that way. Although I feel like sometimes you just can't control it, you know?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I can't control the fact that I don't think I could land that plane.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. You can't necessarily lie to yourself in that way. I'm too real, you know, too honest.

[A]

Well, the other part of the Dunning Kruger effect is people who are not confident when they should be. So maybe you can land a plane.

[D]

I get a little bit nervous whenever I get on a plane. I have this vision where everyone's screaming out their lover's name, and then I think of my mother as I become one with the flames but nothing ever happens

[A]

no such thing as a production of Kaleidoscope Content. The show was created by Manny, Noah and Devin and the theme song was produced by me, Manny, the Show's executive produced by Mangesh Hatikadur. Thank you to our expert guest David Dunning of the University of Michigan and shout out to the Manhattan Flight Club for allowing us to use their flight simulator. The song you're listening to right now is called Nothing Ever Happens by Daryl Ron and we'll be back with more content next week.

[D]

The way I imagine it will. I had it all in my head Where I be when I turned 25 with a band in a house by the Hollywood sign and now it feels like all that I'm doing is staying alive Cuz nothing ever happens. The way I imagine it will. I always figured that I'd be the guy to wind up on his own that all my habits were too hard to break or my heart was a stone and then I went to that party and he changed the meaning of home. Nothing ever happens. Nothing ever happens. Nothing ever happens the way I imagine it will. The way I imagine it will.

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