fly blind

Idioms  

1. Feel one's way, proceed by guesswork, as in There are no directions for assembling this furniture, so I'm flying blind. This hyperbolic expression dates from World War II, when it was used by pilots who could not see the horizon and therefore had to rely on instruments. It was transferred to broader use soon afterward.

---

Example Sentences

Insurance companies are flying blind when they want to compute the blended risk of taking on additional pools of policies from other brokers.

From The Wall Street Journal

“Without this program, we’re flying blind. The first step in addressing any public health threat is understanding what’s happening on the ground,” Simon said.

From Los Angeles Times

A regulator told MPs SEW was "flying blind" for weeks before the crisis.

From BBC

Dr Mancini added that without the thousands of volunteers who collected the data every year, the scientists would be "completely flying blind".

From BBC

For a central bank that is highly data dependent, this is tantamount to flying blind.

From MarketWatch