In this day and age, we’re pretty lucky to have air-travel that allows us to fly all over the world at a whim. It’s something that would have been unimaginable a little over a century ago. In a matter of hours, we can fly to an entirely different continent, and minus the check-ins and security checks, flights usually go pretty smoothly.

However, there are still lots of people that are terrified of flying – especially those who’ve never been on a plane. They feel extra vulnerable being so many thousands of feet up in the air despite the fact that death by plane crash is extremely unlikely.

Personally, I think flying is a cinch. On the other hand, if I happened to have spot my pilot taking selfies while leaning outside of the cockpit window 40,000 feet in the air, I’d probably be pooping my pants too. Sound farfetched? Well, it appears that such pilots so actually exist. Pilot Ganso was flying over New York City, and being the main man on the flight, he was expected to, well, continue doing his job so that the passengers could finally reach their destination.

However, he decided that this time around he was not going to resist taking a peek at the concrete jungle from above. “What do I get out of being a pilot if I can’t take advantage of the beautiful views that are at my disposal“, he presumably thought to himself.

Just last month, the Brazilian pilot even posted the photos on his Instagram page – just in case no one believed him. While in his cockpit, he leaned out of the window to take the daring photo in spite of the undeniable danger in doing so.

In fact, this next picture is even more incredible as it shows the pilot reaching his selfie stick out of the window while flying over a sea of clouds.

In the following picture, it appears that his entire torso is firmly outside of the window as the captain puts his full trust in the autopilot to take a daring selfie above the beautiful South African coast.

The pilot’s 44,000 followers couldn’t believe that he had dared to do something so dangerous during a flight. However, some were pretty skeptical as to whether the photo was real or not. So, are the photos really all they appear to be?