Friday Humour

[beancounter]

The following are two accounts of (alleged true) exchanges between airline pilots and control towers.....


The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are a short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one's gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a Pan Am
747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call sign "Speedbird 206":

Speedbird 206: "Top of the morning, Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of the
active runway."
Ground: "Guten Morgen. You vill taxi to your gate."
The big British Airways 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a
stop.
Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"
Speedbird 206: "Stand by a moment, Ground, I'm looking up our gate location
now."
Ground (with arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, haff you never flown to
Frankfurt before?"
Speedbird 206 (coolly): Yes, I have, actually, in 1944. In another type of
Boeing, but just to drop something off. I didn't stop."

-------------------------

A Pan Am 727 flight engineer waiting for start clearance in Munich overheard
the following:
Lufthansa (in German): Ground, what is our start clearance time?"
Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak English."
Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany. Why must I speak English?"
Unknown voice (in a beautiful British accent): "Because you lost the bloody war!"


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[BrendanS]

Several years ago whilst flying at London Gatwick and in the infancy of Virgin Atlantic the following was heard over the Ground frequency during the normal morning rush to depart within allocated runway/airway slot.
British Airways: Ground Speedbird 332 stand 16 request push and start for Paris.
Twr: Speedbird 332 standby there's a Virgin pushing back behind you with a tight slot!

===================================================

Tower: "Eastern 702, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on 124.7."

Eastern 702: "Tower, Eastern 702 switching to Departure. By the way, after we lifted off we saw some kind of dead animal on the far end of the runway."

Tower: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on 124.7. Did you copy that report from Eastern?"

Continental 635: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff, roger; and yes, we copied Eastern and we've already notified our caterers."
===================================================
What's the difference between British pilots and Iraqi pilots?
Britsih pilots break ground and fly into the wind.
===================================================
This apparently appeared in a USAF magazine. It allegedly happened about 20 years ago during a very long and boring trooping flight on a C-141 Starlifter.
About half-way through the trip the pilot was seen to walk slowly backwards out of the cockpit area and gingerly back himself down the aisle, trailing two taut lengths of string. As he reached the middle of the plane he turned to one of the bemused soldiers watching him. "Er, excuse me, Private. My co-pilot's off sick today and I'm the only guy flying, but I need to go to the john. I've tied these strings to the controls, but they're not long enough to get all the way. Can you just hold on to them for a minute, but whatever you do, don't pull them. I shouldn't be long... but I am feeling a bit squitty down there, so don't be surprised if I'm not right back.".
The soldier obediently grabs both bits of string whilst the pilot disappears to the bog. After about five minutes it is clear that the pilot isn't coming right back so the soldier - getting a bit bored - gives the left string a bit of a tug. The plane starts to turn left. Horrified, the soldier pulls the right string. Sure enough, the plane starts turning right. After a few more minutes the soldier gets the hang of 'steering' but spends half an hour or so sweating in the thought that he holds the life of himself and 200 colleagues literally in his hands.
Eventually a rather relieved looking pilot reappears, takes the strings off him and slowly 'reels himself in' back to the cockpit. Of course, what the pilot hadn't told the soldier was that the strings were not tied to the controls but were being held by the flight engineer, who was telling the co-pilot "left, now right, now left a bit" in time with the tugs he could feel from the other end of the string.
===================================================

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[vyv_cox]

This is true

A VIP was visiting one of our offshore installations. At that time there was in-field flying in a 4-seater Bolkow helicopter. The VIP was told by admin to go and sit in the helicopter to await the arrival of the pilot. There he found two other people, one the safety man (who told me the story) and the other a man in working overalls who was complaining about the delay as he had to get to the main platform for an emergency job.

After 5 minutes, during which the one man continued to complain about the delay, still no sign of the pilot. Suddenly the man in overalls jumped up, saying "that's it, I'm not waiting any longer", sat down in the pilot's seat, started the engines and took off. VIP began shouting in terror. Safety man said nothing, as he was in on the plan, as were the admin staff. The man in overalls was in fact the pilot. He was sacked.

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[Twister_Ken]

Must be true

>It allegedly happened about 20 years ago during a very long and boring trooping flight on a C-141 Starlifter.<

I heard the same story about an RAF Hastings on a trooping flight to Cyprus. So It must be true.

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[stubate]

crew change day in angola

the state oil co had started training local people to be pilots and some of the expats werent to happy about.
any way we loaded onto the small twin engined prop plane and the texan, spotting the black pilot, comes out with the classic "good god almighty a nigra aviator" the said aviator turns round, gives him a big beam from behind his aviator shades and says "thats right sir, thats me" he was a kenyan with more hrs on the bird than you can shake a stick at.
s

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[nicho]

Recently, there's been an effort to have pilots sharpen up their radio practices, some have it seems been getting a bit sloppy. At Heathrow one wet evening, there were the usual 15+ aircraft queuing short of the active take off runway, but no one was being given take off clearance. For 15 minutes they all sat there, whilst the queue got progressively longer. Suddenly, radio silence was broken when one captain (sounding like someone I know very well), said over the airways "well, this is a f.....g waste of time and fuel!!". Immediately the ground controller came on and demanded that the "...aircraft using bad language, identify yourself"....No response. Again the controller demanded the same information,. Still no response. After the third, by now very aggressive attempt to elicit just who had contravened the airwaves in such a dreadful manner, a reply came:

"Zis is Lufthansa 3142, I vould like to confirm zat it vas NOT us zat said zis is a f.....g vaste of time unt fuel". Immediately another... "Yeah, this is Midland 034, and I too would like to confirm that it was NOT us that said this was a f.....g waste of time and fuel", followed by....."American 005, I also confirm it was NOT us...etc etc", and followed again by a chorus of other, similar denials!!

"OK guys, you win, just keep it down please....." came the exasperated controllers response!! They got the aircraft in the sky pretty quickly after that!

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[peterb]

Some thirty-odd years ago there was an air race from London to Australia. One of the pilots gave a talk about his experiences to our gliding club.

On approaching Karachi they asked for a current weather report. Tower came back with the usual info on pressures, winds, temperatures etc, and finished "it is raining and there are nine oktas of cloud (i.e. nine eighths of the sky were covered by cloud)." Our pilot said "But you can't have nine oktas, it only goes up to eight." "Oh no, sir; we had eight yesterday, and this is much worse!"

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[TheBoatman]

A friend of mine was a controller at Birmingham and relayed the following stories to me.

A number of aircraft were in a holding pattern when a "lady" 1st officer asked for the barometer reading and was given it in millibars, she then asked if it could be regiven in inches, before this could be done some "wag" from another aircraft said "for Gods sake give it to her long and slow".
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After a particularly heavy down pour of rain which closed the runway it eventually stopped and the runway was re-opened the first aircraft enquired as to the current runway condition as was told "sir it's damp and ready for ironing"

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[BrianJ]

A LITTLE FRENCH HUMOUR
A long time ago, Britain and France were at war. During one battle, the French captured an English Major. Taking the Major to their headquarters, the French General began to question him. The French General asked, "Why do you English Officers all wear red coats? Don't you know the red material makes you easier targets for us to shoot at?" In his bland English way, the Major informed the General that the reason
English Officers wear red coats is so that if they are shot, the blood won't show and the men they are leading won't panic.
And that is why from that day until now all French Army Officers wear brown pants.
BrianJ


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[Jeremy_W]

Another Frankfurt story

Various planes had been circling Frankfurt waiting for a landing slot. Along comes a Lufthansa flight which is given immediate clearance to land ahead of all the waiting planes.

Aggrieved pilot>>Why has the Lufthansa flight been allowed to land first?
Air Traffic Control>>He left his towel on the runway!

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