using or based on experience, instinct, or guesswork:
a seat-of-the-pants management style.
2.
done without the aid of instruments:
The pilot made a seat-of-the-pants landing.
Origin
1940-45
Examples from the web for seat-of-the-pants
Equally compelling is the picture of imaginative, seat-of-the-pants policymaking that emerges as the tale progresses.
Waiting until you know things are not going to work out is the wrong time to improvise a seat-of-the-pants decision.
Consequently, adaptive management can be thought of as a hybrid between pure research and seat-of-the-pants management.
To date, the location of the bands is based on seat-of-the-pants estimates of the mean wind between the surface and cloud top.
Slang definitions & phrases for seat-of-the-pants
seat-of-the-pants
adjective
Inclined to work by instinct, feel, impulse, etc, rather than by precise rules; practical: The news had seat-of-the-pants editors who knew their audience(1970s+)