Accounts of exchanges: airline pilots and control towers around the world! (TOO FUNNY!)

Private Email | DECEMBER 10, 2004 | Unknown

[Question_Assumptions]

I was sitting on a plane in Newark (NJ) during a long delay and the pilot put the cockpit radio on one of the channels in the passenger compartment and I decided to listen to it. A line of thunderstorms had appeared from Canada to Tennessee so nothing was having much luck going West (the plane I was on never actually took off -- they were itchy to leave because they were close to FAA time limits and didn't make it).

In any event, at one point, one of the other pilots asked for clearance to Route 78 to just drive the plane West because it would be faster. The tower responded, "He knows where he's going."

[Polybius]

You could tell that the British pilot was getting a little nervous with this Mig flying a few miles directly behind him and finally asked the controller what he should do. Before the controller could say anything, the Pan Am pilot, who must have been from Texas, came on the frequency and said "Ya'll oughta just go back and flush your toilets!"

"I was a rear gunner for British Airways."

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

My father was a career pilot in the Air Force. He told me about an Alaskan bush pilot who was asked, "What do you do if you are IFR (instruments in clouds) at night over the Alaskan mountains and your engine quits?"

The response was, "Check your position on your chart and begin a controlled descent. Determine the elevation of the terrain beneath your position. When you reach an altitude approximately 100 feet above the terrain, turn your landing light on. If you don't like what you see, turn it off."

[Alien Gunfighter]

Oh, yeah. Gotta mark this one.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Very funny stuff ;-)

[Americanwolf]

Yup... Us navy boys couldn't read gauges very well.. :)

[Poohbah]

A Pan Am 727 flight 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 in English."

Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany. Why must I speak English?"

Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent): "Because you lost the bloody war."

A "that said it all" ping (c8

[Poohbah]

I was hoping someone would explain that one to the rest of us nonaviators...

B-52s have eight engines. One shutting down isn't exactly a life-threatening crisis.

[oldtimer]

Three months after I got my Private Pilate, 'Mommy' (my flight instructor) who was an American Airlines dispatcher left us at the Mobile Ala airport in my C182 to deadhead home.

We are going to fly from there a short hop to Edwards in Gulf Shores.

I am serious nervous.

My wife hops in the right seat with our Golden Retriever almost out of his sedative in the back.

I successfully call for taxi clearance, successfully call for take off clearance, and about three minutes into the flight:

I decided maybe I ought to contact clearance...with more than impatience, he said "Did you try to contact me?". "Yes sir, I must have some radio problems".

"You stay at this altitude!".

The moral of the story is that Pilots learn to tell fibs when they screw up.

Finally, when I got back home and told 'Mommy", I got serious training on clearances flying through Class B air space as in DFW Airport.

[RVN Airplane Driver]

Brought back memories...used to fly that corridor all the time in the 70's and those MIGS loved using us for target practice and frankly scary the bejesus out of us. You folks would give us traffic as we humped along at about 250 knots and then a MIG would fill the windscreen as they went vertical...I remember they had a back course ILS as you entered the corridors from West Germany and if you got off centerline we promptly got a call from you folks. Great job..Thanks

[Tribune7]

ping

[politicalmerc]

ping

[Robe]

A few jewels from my flying days.....

A Female Voice..."Charlotte Approch, United 324 is with you for 18 Right"
Unknown Male Voice....."There goes another empty Kitchen"

---

Departure Control .."Freighter 808, Traffic your 2 o'clock passing to your 9, a thousand below, He's a Shorts 300
Freighter 808 ...."Yeah we got your Shorts out here"

---

[ops33]

I loved being an air traffic controller but without a doubt, working traffic in Berlin was the hardest, most complicated, and difficult place I ever worked. Where else could a Master Sergeant screw up and have it land on the desk of the Secretary of State the next morning!!

[Poohbah]

Sign in the ready room, Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 314: "ALL NEAR MISSES ARE TO REPORTED IMMEDIATELY."

Penciled in underneath: "After you change your underwear, of course."

[xone]

bttt

[nmh]

Thanks!

I had a couple good laughs.

[knews_hound]

BTTT

[Americanwolf]

LOL :)

I am famillar with the pilot fib to cover up errors.... I dealt with fighter jocks...

We had one that it was his first "fleet 2v2 training with our sister squadron. He took of got airborne and was engaged with the "enemy" but could not get his AIM-9 to lock up or work properly.

needless to say he landed proceed directly into the ordanence shop with the maintiance slip demanding that we investigate and fix what we screwed up (or so he thought we screwed up.)

Needless to say I went out check the missile over and the weapons system.. ran diagnostics and found nothing wrong.

The pilot continued to sit in our work center and berate us. At that point I turned around and call the other pilots involved in the flight and asked if they had expirence and issues with their weapons systems. (or work center took great pride in being able to keep our weapons system alway working. 95% up rate.) The other pilots including the CO stated that they had not. They were in the debrief at that time.
The CO asked me to come up and speak with him real quick.
I figured it would be another chew out for messing something up, but the I could hear laughter in the back ground. So went up to see the CO, he hands me fuming pilots flight video and tells me to put it in the VCR. I do hit play and about 3 minutes into the engagment. I see the pilot looking frantically around the cockpit, and the calling out no joy, and asking to break the engagment off because he cannot get his weapons system to work.

I have to give the pilot credit, If i had not seen the video and realized what had happened.. We would have been troubleshooting the weapons system all night.

The pilot almost got it right. He had selected his air to air weapons, and even got to the point of selecting the AIM-9.. the correct weapon. His frantic search was for the Switch that cuts the coolent to the head so that it can seek freely.

Needless to say after spliting my side laughing. I headed back down to the work center handed the work request and tape to the pilot. with it signed off that seeker head on aim-9 cannot work if you don't uncage and let it seek freely.(The infamous switch will not work in OFF position.)

The pilot always made sure after that to let us know what steps he took if he reported a problem from there on out.

I still love to hear stuff like that... It is human nature at its best. :)