Aviation stories

A veteran 747 captain recently retired and got checked out in a Cessna 172 for "puddle jumping." After filing a short IFR flight plan over the phone one day, he definitely got the attention of the Flight Service Station specialist when he added, "..and I'd like to declare an emergency at this time." Intrigued, the FSS man dutifully recorded in the "Remarks" section of the flight plan exactly what the old captain had to say: "I'm down to one radio, one VOR receiver, no deice equipment, one flight crew member, and one engine."

The controller working a busy pattern told the 727 on downwind to make a three-sixty (do a complete
circle, usually to provide spacing between aircraft). The pilot of the 727 complained, "Do you know it costs us two thousand dollars to make a three-sixty in this airplane?" Without missing a beat the controller replied, "Roger, give me four thousand dollars worth!"

PSA was following United, taxiing out for departure. PSA called the tower and said "Tower, this is United
586. We've got a little problem, so go ahead and let PSA go first". The tower promptly cleared PSA for takeoff before United Had a chance to object to the impersonation!

A DC-10 had an exceedingly long landing rollout after landing with his approach speed just a little too high. "American 751 Heavy, turn right at the end if able. If not able, take the Guadalupe exit off of Highway 101 back to the airport."

A husband suspects his wife is having an affair with a pilot but she keeps denying it until finally the husband just knew when his wife said:

Honey, I've told you once, I've told you twice, I've told you niner thousand times, negative on the affair ...

A student was having difficulty with his landings. Seems like he would bounce it in every time. However, on the first night lesson, the student greased in all of his landings.

Puzzled, the instructor asked, "How are you doing that? You have so much trouble during the day?"

The student replied, "It's easy, I continue the approach until you stiffen up, then I just pull back."

On my first solo cross country, I was flying north through the San Fernando valley and trying to keep track of traffic callouts. Apparently there was a controller with a similar problem.

He had managed to confuse a commercial jet on approach to Burbank with a private plane that was transitioning south across the valley. For a period of about 90 seconds he was calling out instructions to them that weren't quite what they wanted ... and finally the commercial jet pilot enquired as to where he was being sent.

There was a brief exchange about intentions, followed by an "oops" and 30 seconds of silence. The next voice I heard on that frequency said:

"Attention all aircraft. Previous controller no longer a factor.

EXCERPT FROM RECENT FAA ACCIDENT REPORT

EYEWITNESS STATEMENT

AIRCRAFT: CESSNA 172
PILOT: 30 YRS OLD, CFI, IR
FATALITIES: None
DAMAGE: Substantial
DATE OF ACCIDENT: July 10 1982

WITNESS: Line attendant at *** airport

Pilot came to airport at 9 AM 10 Jul 1982. Line boy reports padlock on his hangar door was so rusted he had to break it off with a 10# ball-peen hammer.

Also had to inflate all 3 tires and scrap pigeon droppings off wind- screen. After several attempts to drain fuel strainers--pilot finally got what looked like fuel out of the wings sumps. Couldn't get the oil dipstick out of the engine but said it was okay last time he looked.

Engine started okay -- ran rough for about 1/2 minute. Then died. Then battery would not turn prop. Used battery cart and although starter was smoking real good, it finally started and the prop wash blew the smoke away.

Line boy offered to fuel airplane up but pilot said he was late for an appointment at a nearby airport. Said it wasn't far. Taxied about 1/2 way out to active runway and the engine stopped. Pushed it back to the fuel pumps and bought 3 gallons for the left wing tank. Started it again. This time, he was almost out to the runway when it quit again. Put a little rock under nose wheel; hand propped it; and was seen still trying to climb in the airplane as it went across the runway. Finally got in it; blew out the right tire trying to stop before the cement plant.

When he taxied back in to have the tire changed, he also had the line boy hit the right wing with 3 gallons of gas. Witness, who saw the take- off, said the aircraft lined up and took off to the north. Takeoff looked fairly normal -- nose came up about 300 ft down the runway. At midfield nose came down. Engine coughed twice -- then cut power and applied the brakes which made both doors fly open and a big fat brown book fell out on the runway and released probably a million little white pages with diagrams on them. Looked like sort of a snow storm.

After several real loud runups at the end, he turned her around and took off in the other direction going south into the wind. Only this time he horsed her off at the end and pulled her up real steep like one of them jet fighter planes -- to about 300 ft -- then the engine quit!

Did a sort of a slow turn back toward the airport -- kinda like that Art School guy -- and about 30 ft off the McDonald's cafe she started roaring again. He did sort of a high speed pass down the runway; put the flaps down to full and that sucker went up like he was going to do an Immelman!

The engine quit again and he turned right and I thought he was coming right through the front window of the F.B.O.; but he pulled her up -- went through the TV antenna and the little rooster with the NSE&W things -- over the building then bounced the main wheels off the roof of 3 different cars in the lot -- a Porsche, a Mercedes and Dr. Brown's new El Dorado.

When he bounced off the El Dorado the engine roared to life and he got her flying. Came around toward the runway and set her down -- once on the overrun, once on the runway and once in the grass beside the runway. He taxied into the ramp -- shut her down -- and ordered 3 more gallons of gas. Said it was for safety's sake.

Then he asked where the phone booth was as he had to call his student and tell him he was going to be a little bit late.

Scene:  Student and instructor are on a dual, night cross country.

Instructor:	Turns down the panel lights, "OK, you've just lost your
		lights, what are you going to do?"

		Student pulls out a flashlight.

Student:	"I get out my flashlight."

		Instructor grabs flashlight.

Instructor:	"The batteries are dead, now what are you going to do?"

		Student pulls out another flashlight.

Student:	"I get out my other flashlight."

		Instructor grabs next flashlight.

Instructor:	"The bulb is burned out on this one, now what?"

		Student pulls out yet a third flashlight.

Student:	"I use this flashlight."

		Instructor grabs this one too.

Instructor:	"ALL your flashlights are dead.  Now what?"

Student:	"I use this glow stick."

Instructor:	"Sighhhhhh, just fly the plane without any lights, OK?"

After a particularly lousy landing by the co-pilot of an Australian commercial airline, that co-pilot heard the Captain announce "Ladies and Gentlemen, XXX airlines wishes to apologise for that rough landing provided today by our first officer".

Some months later the same crew were together and, you guessed it, the Captain did an even worse one. The First Officer immediately jumped on the intercom announcing "Ladies and Gentlemen, XXX airlines wishes to apologise for that rough landing provided today by our Captain".

The Captain immediately responded angrily, "What did you say that for?".

The First Officer replied "Remember a couple of months back? I owed it to you!".

"But I never keyed the mike!", responded the Captain.

Q. Why did Santa Claus ask Rudolf to lead his sleigh team?

A. Rudolf was the only one who was IFR current.

Federal Aviation Agency,

Washington 25, D.C.

Gentlemen:

I was asked to make a written statement concerning certain events that occurred yesterday. First of all, I would like to thank that very nice FAA man who took my student pilot's license and told me I wouldn't need it any more. I guess that means that you're giving me my full-fledged pilot's license. You should watch that fellow though, after I told him all of this he seemed quite nervous and his hand was shaking. Anyway, here is what happened.

The weather had been kind of bad since last week, when I soloed. but on the day in question I was not about to let low ceilings and visibility, and a slight freezing drizzle, deter me from another exciting experience at the controls of an airplane. I was pretty proud of my accomplishment, and I had invited my neighbor to go with me since I planned to fly to a town about two hundred miles away where I knew of an excellent restaurant that served absolutely wonderful charcoaled steaks and the greatest martinis.

On the way to the airport my neighbor was a little concerned about the weather but I assured him once again about the steaks and martinis that we would soon be enjoying and he seemed much happier.

When we arrived at the airport the freezing drizzle had stopped, as I already knew from my ground school meteorology it would. There were only a few snow flakes. I checked the weather and I was assured that it was solid IFR. I was delighted. But when I talked to the local operator I found out that my regular airplane, a Piper J-4 Cub, was down for repairs. You could imagine my disappointment. Just then a friendly, intelligent line boy suggested that I take another airplane, which I immediately saw was very sleek and looked much easier to fly. I think that he called it a Aztec C, also made by Piper. I didn't have a tail wheel, but I didn't say anything because I was in a hurry. Oh yes, it had a spare engine for some reason.

We climbed in and I began looking for an ignition switch. Now, I don't want to get anyone in trouble, but it shouldn't be necessary to get the airplane manual just to find out how to start an airplane. That's rediculous. I never saw sow many dials and needles and knobs, handles and switches. As we both know, confidentially, they have simplified this in the J-4 Cub. I forgot to mention that I did file a flight plan, and those people were so nice. When I told them I was flying an Aztec they said it was all right to go direct via Victor-435, a local superhighway, all the way. These fellows deserve a lot credit. They told me a lot of other things too, but everybody has problems with red tape.

The take-off was one of my best and I carefully left the pattern just the way the book style says it should be done. The tower operator told me to contact Department Control Radar but that seemed kind of silly since I knew where I was going. There must have been some kind of emergency because, all of a sudden, a lot of airline pilots began yelling at the same time and made such a racket htat I just turned off the radio. You'd think that those professionals would be better trained. Anyway, I climbed up into a few little flat clouds, cumulus type, at three hundred feet, but Highway 435 was right under me and, since I knew it was straight east to the town where we were going to have drinks and dinner, I just went on up into the solid overcast. After all, it was snowing so hard by now that it was a waste of time to watch the ground. This was a bad thing to do, I realized. My neighbor undoubtedly wanted to see the scenery, especially the mountains all around us, but everybody has to be disappointed sometime and we pilots have to make the best of it, don't we?

It was pretty smooth flying and, except for the ice that seemed to be forming here and there, especially on the windshield, there wasn't much to see. I will say that I handled the controls quite easily for a pilot with only six hours. My computer and pencils fell out of my shirt pocket once in a while but these phenomenon sometime occur I am told. I don't expect you to believe this, but my pocket watch was standing straight up on its chain. That was pretty funny and asked my neighbor to look but he just kept staring ahead wigh sort of a glassy look in his eyes and I figured that he was afraid of height like all non-pilots are. By the way, something was wrong with the altimeter, it kept winding and unwinding all the time.

Finally, I decided we had flown about long enough to be where we were going, since I had worked it out on the computor. I am a whiz at that computor, but something must have gone wrong with it since when I came down to look for the airport there wasn't anything there except mountains. These weather people sure had been wrong, too. It was real marginal conditions with a ceiling of about one hundred feet. You just can't trust anybody in this business except yourseelf, right? Why, there were even thunderstorms going on with occasional bolt of lightning. I dedided that my neighbor should see how beautiful it was and the way it semed to turn that fog all yellow, but I guess he was asleep, having gotten over his fear of height, and I didn't want to wake him up. Anyway, just then an emergency occured because the engine quit. It really didn't worry me since I had just read the manual and I knew right where the other ignition switch was. I just fired up the other engine and we kept right on going. This business of having two engines is really a safety factor. If one quits the other is right there ready to go. Maybe all airplanes should have two engines. You might look into this.

As pilot in command, I take my responsibilities very seriously. It was apparent that I would have to go down lower and keep a sharp eye in such bad weather. I was glad my neighbor was asleep because it was pretty dark under the clouds and if it hadn't been for the lightning flashes it would have been hard to navigate. Also, it was hard to read road signs through the ice on the windshield. Several cars ran off the road when we passed and you can sure see what they mean about flying being a lot safer than driving.

To make a long story short, I finally spotted an airport that I knew right away was pretty close to town and, since we were already late for cocktails and dinner, I decided to land there. It was an Air Force Base so I knew it had plenty of runway and I could already see a lot of colored lights flashing in the control tower so I knew that we were welcome. Somebody had told me that you could always talk to these military people on the international emergency frequency so I tried it but you wouldn't believe the language that I heard. These people ought to be straightened out by somebody and I would like to complain, as a taxpayer. Evidently there were expecting somebody to come in and land because they kept talkig about some god damn stupid son-of-a-***** up in that fog. I wanted to be helpful so I landed on the ramp to be out of the way in case that other fellow needed the runway. A lot of people came running out waving at us. It was pretty evident that they had never seen an Aztec C before. One fellow, some General with a pretty nasty temper, was real mad about something. I tried to explain to him in a reasonable manner that I didn't think the tower operator should be swearing at that guy up there, but his face was so red that I think he must have a drinking problem.

Well, that's about all. I caught a bus back home because the weather really got bad, but my neighbor stayed at the hospital there. He can't make a statement yet because he's still not awake. Poor fellow, he must have the flu, or something.

Let me know if you need anything else, and please send my new license airmail, special delivery.

Very, truly yours,

Two hunters hired a bush pilot to fly them to a remote lake in Alaska. As he dropped them off, the pilot said, "Now, you can legally shoot one moose apiece, but don't do it. We can't possibly get out of here with two moose strapped onto the pontoons." The hunters promised, but temptation was too great, and they shot two. When the pilot returned to pick them up he screamed and hollered, but finally they strapped a moose to each pontoon. Went to the downwind end of the lake, firewalled it, finally lifted off just at the far shore. The plane struggled to climb, but the terrain rose faster. They went into the trees. When the noise quieted down the pilot said, "I told you SOB's we couldn't get out of this lake with two moose aboard!" One hunter replied, Well, we got about a half a mile farther than we did last year!"

(This one really happened - the FE was suspended:)

On some air carrier operations, a video camera was installed in the cockpit so that passengers could watch the pilot land the plane. On one flight, the FE decided to have some fun with the passengers and purchased part of a gorilla costume; more specifically, just the left arm. When the plane came in to land, the camera was turned on, and the FE had his gorilla arm on. Since from the position of the camera all you could see of the FE was his left arm, whenever he went to reach up and flip (a) switch(es), all the video showed was a hairy arm! So the passengers were given the illusion that a monkey (or whatever their imagination wished to conjure) was operating some of the controls!!!

Controller sitting next to me is trying to change Mooney 45Q to my freq, but gets no response. Thinking that the Mooney may have already switched to my freq accidentally, since he's a local pilot who knew it was coming, he asks me to check.

Pilot: "Mooney 45Q, are you on this frequency?"

45Q: "Negative. But I should be any time now."

RBL UA /OV RBL- RDD 360030/TM 1950/FLOTP/TP HXB/SK 018 OVC 115/RM SOLID UNDERCAST N RDD/UNVFR. "DECIDED I`M TOO YOUNG TO GO OTP THIS" N BND TO SIY

Pilot coming in with his buddy who had never flown before:

Pilot: This is 1234 Delta five miles north for landing with Mike.

The tower clears him and he lands. When they shut down, the passenger, whose name is Mike, says, "Why'd you have to tell them that I was with you?"

Seems that Tom was working local with a nervous FPL watching over his shoulder. He had one air carrier jet just touching down and another on a mile final, with a commuter holding short for departure release.

"I'm going to get that commuter out between those two jets," said Tom aloud. The FPL could see that there might just *barely* enough time to make it work if nobody screwed up. But like any good instructor, the FPL wanted to let Tom make his own mistakes since that's the only way for a guy to learn. Still, the FPL couldn't help but mumble in Tom's ear "if this works, Tom, it'll be a miracle!"

Tom keys his transmitter. He intends to say "Commuter 123, taxi into position and hold, be ready for immediate." What actually comes out of his mouth (in one of the great Freudian slips of all time IMHO) is:

"Commuter 123, taxi into position and hold, be ready for a miracle."

There's a pause on frequency, and the then commuter pilot says "Tower, I think under the circumstances we better just hold short. I don't feel quite that lucky."

The tower was having some difficulty working a student pilot in the pattern and it finally came down to this;

TOWER - 95 Delta, do you read the tower?

95D - 675, sir

TOWER - 95 Delta, Say Again

95D - I think it is 675.

TOWER - 95 Delta, What do you mean by 675?

95D - I mean I think I read "Elevation 675 feet" on the tower as I taxied by for takeoff, but I am too far away to read it now.

TOWER - 95 Delta, you are cleared to land. Please give the tower a call ON THE TELEPHONE after you have tied down.

This CFI and his Student are holding on the runway for departing cross traffic when suddenly a deer runs out of the nearby woods, stops in the middle of the runway, and just stands there looking at them.

Tower: Cessna 96593 cleared for take-off.

Std: "What should I do? What should I do?"

Inst: "What do you think you should do?"

(think-think-think)

Std: "Maybe if I taxi toward him it'll scare him away."

Inst: "That's a good idea."

(Taxi toward deer, but deer is macho, and holds position.)

Tower: Cessna 593 cleared for take-off, runway 29.

Std: "What should I do? What should I do?"

Inst: "What do you think you should do?"

(think-think-think)

Std: "Maybe I should tell the tower."

Inst: "That's a good idea."

Std: Cessna 593, uh, there's a deer down here on the runway.

(long pause)

Tower: Roger 593, hold your position. Deer on runawy 29 cleared for immediate departure.

(Two seconds, and then -- I presume by coincidence -- the deer bolts from the runway, and runs back into the woods.)

Tower: Cessna 593 cleared for departure, runway 29. Caution wake turbulence, departing deer.

A new-sounding student calls up, inbound for a landing, with his instructor sitting next to him, shouting prompts in the background over the engine noise....

N23B: (Lawrence tower) UHHH LAWRENCE TOWER (Cessna 5123B) CESSNA 5123B (7 miles east) 7 MILES EAST (inbound for landing) INBOUND FOR LANDING (with) WITH (.....hotel) HOTEL!

Well, the guys in the tower didn't miss a beat!

LWM: [Supervisor yelling to the Tower position from background] (Cessna 23B)

[Tower] CESSNA 23B

(report a 2 mile right base) REPORT A TWO MILE RIGHT BASE

(runway 32) RUNWAY 32

N23B: [instructor, now on the mike] YEAH, HA, HA, HA, VERY FUNNY, REPORT A 2 MILE RIGHT BASE FOR 32, CESSNA 23B

Overheard:

LNS tower: "Cessna 1234X, report three mile final."

Cessna 1234X: "Unable, we're negative DME."

My favorite ATC story involves an old-timer who would get rather excited when it got busy. It seemed as if he would think up zingers at home and use 'em at some convenient moment. Anyway, he's working USA553 westbound and is about to turn him over to Cleveland...

Controller: USA353 (sic) contact Cleveland Center 135.6.

Controller: USA353 contact Cleveland Center 135.6!

Controller: USA353 you're just like my wife -- you never listen!

Pilot: Center, this is USA553, maybe if you called her by the right name you'd get a better response!

Conducting fuel-consumption tests on a new twin-engine plane, we were en route from Pennsylvania to Florida. Just north of Richmond, Va., I called the air-traffic controller to make a position report on our plane, whose designation was 5000Y. The controller, in a Southern drawl, replied, "Oh, no, not again!" I was puzzled by the response until I realized what I had said: "We are 5000 Yankee, 25 miles north of Richmond." -- Joe Diblin

The Most Dangerous Thing In Aviation Is...

...a pilot with a toolbox.

...a politician with a good idea.