- What are you doing?
- You've got the controls you're flying.
(Zach chuckling)
- Today we are flying an airplane without training.
Oh, your (beep) crazy.
- (screaming) It's really intense, Zach!
- Oh my god. - Proper stopped.
- [Matt] We have to land.
(Zach and Rachel scream)
- [Rachel] Why did I think it was OK to do this?
- What's our life insurance policy?
- [Rachel] They won't give me life insurance.
- They won't give you life insurance?
(bouncy electronic music)
(dramatic orchestral music)
- Welcome everyone.
Today we're gonna be flying a plane without training.
I'm concerned too.
- Normally in a Try Guys video
we'll do like a whole training montage and it's funny
and we mess up and then we learn and then we do it.
And in this one we said,
"What if we skip all that?"
- Oh boy.
Oh boy.
- I'm Wayne.
- I'm Matt.
- I'm Jean.
- The three co-CEOs of Sling Pilot Academy,
the biggest flight school in Los Angeles.
Oh, yeah. (Zach and Rachel laughing)
Aviation has a strong focus on safety.
Airplanes are designed with redundancy.
They have redundant fuel systems,
redundant ignition systems.
At Sling Pilot Academy,
any student, they fly on the first day that they sign up.
We’re gonna be backing you up, we’re gonna be keeping it safe.
This is the throttle to make it go forward, your controls.
That's where you say "my controls."
- My controls. - Your controls.
- They get in an airplane and they manipulate the controls
on day one. - Guys, I'm driving a plane.
You're doing it.
- I can't imagine you're gonna let us take off and land.
- [Rachel] Yep.
- Wait, are you outta your mind?
- So you can put your feet on the pedals.
Push the right pedal.
- This is funny, you're driving left and right
with your feet.
- Now Zach, actually here's a cool thing.
As pilots, we're on the line.
As a car driver, you're on the right lane
but you gotta get yourself onto the orange line.
- This is one of those things I didn't even dare dream of.
There was no point in my life where I thought
I would have the opportunity to do this.
And when life hands you an opportunity
to do something you're not qualified to do,
you do it.
- This is wild. - Yeah.
- This is crazy.
- When I take a flight, right when the plane is taking off
and I say "I love you" to Becky on text,
I think "I could die right now".
Drifting a little bit. - A little tipsy!
Drift a little bit.
I like adrenaline when it's safe adrenaline.
I like riding a rollercoaster at an amusement park.
I don't like riding a rollercoaster at a county fair.
You understand the difference?
Oh, this is sort of a nervous experience for me.
(Sequoia laughing)
- My name is Sequoia and I am flying a plane.
Allegedly.
- You're gonna really do everything here.
- I'm really bad with left and right also.
But something about a small airplane, I'm terrified.
Very scared.
- [Rachel] What would be the worst case scenario
for flying a plane?
- Dying would be the worst case scenario for flying a plane.
- [Rachel] What would be the best case scenario?
- Living would be the best case scenario
for flying the plane, mm hmm.
- [Matt] Once we're ready to take off,
we're gonna get a clearance from the tower
and we are gonna get onto the center line of the runway.
- Put this hand on there.
And hand on there.
Now look down the runway. - Uh huh.
- The number one rule is to stay calm.
We're configured for takeoff.
All pre-takeoff checks are done.
Let's get ourselves onto the center line.
You have the controls.
I'm just monitoring.
- You gotta keep your shit together.
Because if you do lose it, you die.
- Don't (beep) this up.
- I don't think they would let us die.
Here's the thing,
if you're watching this that means probably
that no one died.
- Or,
or you're watching this and we all died.
- If you haven't heard by now then we didn't die.
- When you're ready, ease this forward.
- Once we are on the center line
and aligned with the runway,
we're gonna smoothly advance the throttle
all the way to full power-
- (indistinct). - Uniform, just for next time-
- All the way. All the way, give it power.
- Here we go!
- All the way to the stop.
Even more. - Oh my God.
Keep it going.
And when we get to our, we call it rotate speed,
where the airplane is ready to fly,
we're gonna gently pull back on the stick.
- Now start easing the stick back a little bit.
Little bit back more.
- Start pulling back on the stick a little bit,
just tiny bit.
- [Rachel] Oh my God!
- Oh god. Oh god. - Push forward.
- You've got the controls. You're flying.
- Oh my (beep) god.
Oh my God. (Rachel laughing)
Sir, are you crazy?
- You are crazy. - Sir!
- Good sir, I am flying!
(Zach screaming)
- Look from the side! Look! - Oh my-
- You're doing it, keep going in that direction.
- [Zach] Oh my god.
Why are we drifting left?
- You tell me. - What just happened?
- Okay, now we're gonna make a gentle right turn.
So just put gentle pressure on the stick to the right.
- (screaming) It's really intense, Zach!
(Zach laughing and screaming)
- Rachel, I can't imagine how that was for you.
- Terrifying! Why did I think it was okay to do this?
- Honestly, you guys are both crazy.
- [Rachel] Yes!
We are!
- All right, Rachel.
Yes, Rachel!
- Here we go. - Yeah.
- You got this. - Put it right to the front.
- [Matt] There we go.
- Oh boy.
Okay, When do I pull?
- [Matt] We'll start pulling it pretty soon.
- Oh my god.
- You're doing great.
- Here we go.
- (laughing) Yeah, Rachel! (Rachel screaming)
- You did it! - Yeah!
- Ease it back. That's it, here go.
- [Keith] There we go. (cheering)
- Rachel, you're flying!
- You're doing it. - I know!
- You're doing it. - Okay. (squeals)
- Yeah, Rachel. - You're doing it!
- Oh my god. - Let's go!
- [Rachel] What the (beep)!
- The nice thing about flying a powered airplane,
nothing ever comes up on you by surprise.
- [Keith] Man, we're really banking.
- Oh yeah, we're turning.
- Oh my God. - Oh yeah.
- Oh my god! - How do I go straight?
- If you find yourself getting a fright in the air
or having an adrenaline rush in the air-
(Sequoia screaming) - Okay, whoa, okay.
- You messed up.
- [Rachel] So I, (yelps).
- Yeah, it's a little bumpy here.
- (chuckling) I'm so scared.
- Have you ever taught somebody how to fly a plane
who didn't want to learn?
- How's that feel?
- It feels wild. Feels surreal.
Feels like we're being pushed around.
I am so terrified right now.
- Confidence is really important in a pilot.
A pilot has to be confident in their abilities.
- Okay, okay, a little, a little,
a little too lean. - There you go, perfect.
- [Matt] That doesn't mean overconfident.
- Are you having a blast?
- Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
- Just the right amount of confidence
and you have good aeronautical decision-making
and a good outcome.
- I'm the opposite of relaxed.
- Your shoulders seem a little tense.
- I'm so tense fucking tense right now.
There's nothing relaxing about this.
Heart is, feels like it's both not beating at all
or beating 1,000 beats a minute.
- I never dreamt of doing anything in the sky as a child.
Oh my god! (yelling)
I'm a Capricorn rising and a Virgo moon.
We're very grounded.
(screams) Okay, I hate when it drops like that.
So no, I never had any sky dream.
No!
Okay.
- Okay! (Sequoia laughing)
No, I don't like when you put your hands up, Jean, please.
No, I don't like it, put your hands,
- Yeah been flying (indistinct) anyway.
- I like the, yeah, yeah, take that, thanks, thanks.
(screams) Oh my god, oh my god. Okay, okay.
No, I'm fine. It's great.
- So once we level off in flight,
then it's our job just to maintain an altitude.
- [Sequoia] Good job's staying
right around the number, Keith.
You're doing so good.
- I'm trying to do a slow approach.
I don't wanna shoot up into this cloud.
- You have one module for your height.
So once I get to that height,
I just wanna make sure that I look like I'm going straight.
- It feels like it wants to drift right
and I have to keep it kind of left.
- [Jean] Yeah, yeah, go for it.
Do what you need to.
- Then you have a line that you're trying to get to.
So I can see now I'm on this path
and I just kind of basically want to
set my sights on a point in the distance and keep going.
- There you go.
- Okay, I'm on the line. - Getting a feel now.
- That (indistinct) feels perfect.
- The plane's doing it. I'm doing it.
You're doing, Sequoia's doing it.
- We're doing it. - We're all doing it.
- It's great intuition that you wanna
look out the window and find a spot because
if you're trying to chase a line by staring at a screen
you can end up oscillating back and forth.
You may as well set your heading, look at the distance,
and then fly towards the mountain.
It's much easier.
So you are responsible for our ride quality right now.
- Okay, well our ride quality is not great.
- So a new student can do
a lot of things that they shouldn't,
including over controlling the airplane.
- How can I make it less bumpy?
- As we get a bit higher, it's gonna be a little nicer.
- Okay.
- I'm definitely getting the,
that rollercoaster feeling in your stomach.
I'm getting that a lot. - You do?
- what should I do? Can you tell me?
'Cause this is horrible. - Oh, it's horrible?
- Okay, so if you see the little mountains there,
we're aiming just to the left of the mountains.
See where those clouds are there?
Try to just keep the nose pointed in that direction.
And if one wing gets knocked up,
then just help it get back down again.
So we've got all these little thermals
coming up from the ground here.
So if a thermal upsets our,
our nice straight and level flight, then just fix it.
And then just keep fixing it with a light touch.
You almost have to consider
just applying pressures to the stick
instead of moving the stick.
So you wanna hold it with a real light touch
and just apply pressures
in the directions that you want to go.
So a new student will often over control the airplane.
- It is really subtle movements,
'cause if you move your hand at all, the plane goes.
(Zach chuckling)
- How bout that?
- 121.35- - That is the seatbelt.
All right. (giggling) - Okay.
- It's the first time I looked left to be honest.
I've been looking like that way and that way.
I've looking straight.
I'm like oh yeah, there's sky over there too.
- The cool thing about flying an airplane is
you can look down or look to the side for a while
without hitting anything.
When you're driving a car down the freeway,
if you look down for 10 seconds
you're probably gonna die.
With an airplane, you can kind of take a little break.
- Wow, this is wild. - It's like (indistinct).
- Just a sea of clouds, fluffy clouds all around us.
- It's so stunning.
- Oh wow. Holy cow.
That is something. That's gorgeous
- Emotionally, the awe that you get
when you fly over a city like LA is amazing.
The snowy mountains, the ocean.
We see whales all the time, we see dolphins.
- This is cool.
I'm a lucky freaking guy.
- Yeah, it never gets old, man.
- Magical. We are floating above the clouds.
My micro movements are controlling a metal tube
that is hurdling through the air.
- It's a beautiful world we live in
and the fact that we can sail over this earth
on a magic carpet is pretty amazing.
- Okay, so you are gonna do the landing.
- Allegedly.
- Can I set you up for landing, Rachel?
- You can try.
- Yes, Rachel. Yes, Rachel!
Rachel, this is the big moment.
- I know, I feel pretty ill.
- When it's time to come in for landing,
our first job is to start to slow the airplane down.
So now, Zach,
let's pull the stick back until you get to 85 knots here.
- Most accidents happen close to the ground.
- I'm so scared. I don't want to do it.
- Best case scenario,
I feel more alive than I've ever felt in my life.
Worst case scenario (makes explosion sound).
- Little planes are the ones that crash.
- So once we slow the airplane down to flap speed,
we can deploy the flaps.
- 85. - Here comes full flaps.
- Oh, and now we're going down.
- Yes, so now the flaps are coming out.
Look out the window. There go the flaps.
And now we're gonna trim the airplane back a little.
When the flaps come out of the wings
and allow us to descend at a decent rate
without speeding up too much.
- Rachel, we're good.
Don't even worry about it, Rachel.
- Uh huh.
- Don't worry about the fact
that we're hurdling towards the ground.
- We getting lift. - We sure are.
- Sure are. - Cranking.
- We're good. I'm banging on you to help me do this.
(Keith laughing nervously)
- So this is how it feels when we coming in on a descent.
- Yeah, it feels great.
- I hate it.
- The main way we are gonna enter stabilized descent
is by controlling our air speed.
And we're gonna use the stick forward and F control
to set the air speed that we want on the descent.
- And let's start the approach. Push this down once more.
Good.
Throttle back, throttle back forward.
- All the way.
All the way.
Here we go.
Here we go. - Here we go!
(dramatic orchestral music)
- [Jean] (indistinct) go around.
- [Keith] What are you doing?
- (indistinct) go around, we woulda been too deep.
- Too deep.
Okay.
- The nice thing about flying a powered airplane,
anytime you're not happy with the landing
or an approach or a touchdown,
you can add power and it's called going around.
- Okay, we need to go around it (indistinct).
- Okay.
- Yeah, if you could put it down a smidge sooner,
that'd be totally (indistinct).
- Okay.
- You're always ready to abort the landing, so to speak,
and do a go around full power and and go again.
- And now are we're gonna fly towards the runway,
we're gonna land on the big runway.
Your controls again, Rachel.
You have it so just hold for the nose like this.
- Yeah, Rachel.
- Come on, little plane.
- Feeling good? Remember what I said.
Just as we get above the ground,
you're gonna try and fly it as far as you can.
- Yeah.
- You got it. Okay.
A little bit to the right.
- Oh my god.
- Proper stopped. We committed, we have to land.
Over to the right. - (indistinct) fucking crazy.
Now start pulling up. (Rachel yelling)
- Who's running across my tarmac?
Get out of the way.
- And there you go.
And touchdown!
Nice one!
- Yeah!
We just landed a motherfucking plane!
- Here we go, here we go.
- [Tower] Five whiskey tango is overhead.
- Did it! On the ground! - Nice!
- Okay, you got it.
And there we go. - Yeah!
- Yes, Rachel!
- Wow. Look at you.
That was wick. That was great. - Oh yeah!
- You are really good at this, man.
I'm proud of you.
- [Zach] I found the one thing I'm good at.
- Hey!
We did it!
Just crazy.
- Being on land feels crazy right now.
That was exhilarating, it is elating.
- I was so nervous going in and taking off.
It was absolutely terrifying.
100% warranted in the nerves.
So you know, we survived.
- I had a blast. It's so fun.
I fully could imagine if I had the means to do so
that I would do this all the time.
- Check off the, wow,
I did something I never thought I'd ever do.
And that feeling is amazing.
I didn't think I could do it 'cause so few people do it.
But you're actually capable of it.
And of course people fly planes.
You are people. You could fly a plane.
And that's pretty cool.
- "Top Gun" was good.
It hurts how good it was
'cause it's really war propaganda.
Very clearly and shamelessly.
And it worked on me.