I blew the minds of a few lads recently while at a football match. We were going to somewhere in Northern England that was serviced by Aer Lingus Regional and the ATR-72. That’s the wee prop plane. You’ll know if you were on one. But I love them. It got me talking about flight simulator and how much I enjoy giving routes a lash on my gaming PC. You never know when you might have to flight the plane home from Newcastle away.
So imagine my joy when I saw that Pete the Irish Pilot and RTÉ presenter Carl Mullan had teamed up to create a video on YouTube to see if the duo could land a plane into Dublin.
Who is Pete the Irish Pilot?
If you haven’t been following Peter the Irish Pilot on Instagram, you’ve been missing out – regardless of your interest in flying. He is Pete Hutchison, an ex-commercial and military pilot from Belfast, Ireland. He has over 40 years of flying experience and more than 20,000 flight hours.
After years of commentary on the aviation industry, Pete started his social accounts and YouTube channel, regularly commenting on viral events and bad landings. What you’ll typically notice is that he doesn’t have a filter, which is great when a pilot makes an arse of a landing. Pete lets you know all about it.
Who is Carl Mullan?
Carl Mullan probably doesn’t need as much of an introduction. He’s been growing from strength to strength in recent years. Carl is is an Irish radio and television broadcaster, podcast host, and general content creator. He currently co-hosts the “2FM Breakfast” show and has just been announced as Rose of Tralee MC for 2025.
A couple of years ago, before rising inside the RTÉ ranks, Carl was also a massive fan of Casey Neistat. So that title of “content creator” doesn’t come lightly. His YouTube videos are edited in a similar style to Neistat and regularly as funny and entertaining.
Another massively important thing in Carl’s life is aviation. He’s a plane nerd. If you follow his Instagram, you won’t have to wait long to see him at Dublin Airport with his kids monitoring planes landing, or not at Dublin Airport absolutely fuming that he’s missed a rare Antonov AN-124.
So you could argue it was only a matter of time until Pete and Carl met and created a video. And that time has come.
Carl Mullan Flying a Plane
In Pete the Irish Pilot’s most recent video, he takes Carl into a Boeing 737 simulator setup in Swords. I’m not going to spoil the video, but I will say I highly recommend watching it because if you only know one, or neither, of the two guys – it’s a great intro.
It’s also highly interesting to see non-pilots taking on the controls of a plane. Because surely we’ve all wondered if it came to it – would we be able to land a plane?
Throughout you get the classic humour of Carl, who is also giddy at nerding out over planes, and Pete’s unfiltered approach to coaching. For example, when Carl asks ATC what he should do next, Pete gives him an encouraging, “just land the f*****g thing”.
Watch Carl Mullan Landing a Plane
And if you enjoyed that, you’ll probably like when Tom Scott tried to do the same thing. This one has less cursing, so it’s naturally more boring.
