VintageAirRally

What type of pilot are you? A very well-planned one or more a seat of the pant's style one? ;-)

Where on earth does that expression come from though?
Well, it seems that the expression "Flying by the seat of one's pants" was originally a literal (or nearly-literal) phrase, meaning to use all of one's senses -- including lateral and vertical "G forces" transmitted to your derriere through the seat -- to control an aircraft in flight. Early flight "instrumentation" consisted largely of a magnetic compass (which is only useful when flying straight and level) and a length of string (really!) to tell you the direction of airflow relative to the plane.

Before aircraft had instruments, pilots had to rely on their innate sense of balance to detect changes in movements of the plane, transferred to the body by contact with the seat. And, until the development of the "slip/skid indicator" towards the end of WWI, for instance, pilots had no instrument to help them turn efficiently - with the aircraft banked but neither "slipping" towards the lower (inside) wing nor "skidding" (with the tail hanging out) towards the outside of the turn. If the aircraft slipped, their bottoms would be sliding "downhill" in their seats. If they skidded, a slight G-force pushed them "uphill".

So, while improvising everything in life probably isn't a good idea, instruments (metrics) can lie, and blindly following procedures can exacerbate a problem that situational awareness and instincts developed through experience could nip in the bud.

Whilst the phrase therefor came straight out of early aviation parlance, it emerged in the 1930s and was first widely used in reports of Douglas Corrigan's flight from the USA to Ireland in 1938.

That flight was reported in many US newspapers of the day, including this piece, titled 'Corrigan Flies By The Seat Of His Pants', in The Edwardsville Intelligencer, 19th July 1938:

"Douglas Corrigan was described as an aviator 'who flies by the seat of his pants' today by a mechanic who helped him rejuvinate the plane which airport men have now nicknamed the 'Spirit of $69.90'. The old flying expression of 'flies by the seat of his trousers' was explained by Larry Conner, means going aloft without instruments, radio or other such luxuries."

Two days before this report Corrigan had submitted a flight plan to fly from Brooklyn to California. He had previously planned a trans-Atlantic flight rejected (presumably on the grounds that the 'Spirit of $69.60 wasn't considered up to the job). His subsequent 29-hour flight ended in Dublin, Ireland. He claimed that his compasses had failed. He didn't openly admit it but it was widely assumed that he had ignored the rejection of his flight plan and deliberately flown east rather than west. He was thereafter known as 'Wrong Way Corrigan' and starred as himself in the 1938 movie The Flying Irishman.

The 'old flying expression' quoted above (although it can't have been very old in 1938) that refers to trousers rather than pants does suggest that the phrase was originally British and crossed the Atlantic (the right way) prior to becoming 'flies by the seat of one's pants'.

#VintageAirRally