Humor......best cure for a stressful day. Read on.......

[B777ER 2,484]

An airline stewardess was giving the standard safety briefing to the passengers. She had just finished saying 'In the event of a water landing, your seat cushion may be used as a flotation device,' when a man remarked, "Hey! If the plane can't fly, why should I believe the seat can float?"--------------------------------------------------------------------Passengers on a small commuter plane are waiting for the flight to leave. They're getting a little impatient, but the airport staff has assured them that the pilots will be there soon, and the flight can take offimmediately after that.The entrance opens, and two men walk up the aisle, dressed in pilots' uniforms both are wearing dark glasses, one is using a seeing eye dog, and the other is tapping his way up the aisle with a cane. Nervous laughter spreads through the cabin; but the men enter the cockpit, the door closes, and the engines start up. The passengers begin glancing nervously around, searching for some sign that this is just a little practical joke. None is forthcoming. The plane moves faster and faster down the runway, and people at the windows realize that they're headed straight for the water at the edge of the airport. As it begins to look as though the plane will never take off, that it will plow into the water, panicked screams fill the cabin but at that moment, the plane lifts smoothly into the air. The passengers relax and laugh a little sheepishly, and soon they have all retreated into their magazines, secure in the knowledge that the plane is in good hands. Up in the cockpit, the copilot turns to the pilot and says, "Youknow, Bob, one of these days, they're going to scream too late, and we're all gonna die!"--------------------------------------------------------------------The pilot of an airliner requested a clearance from 25,000 feet to cruise altitude of 31,000 feet. The conversation went something like this: United 402: "United 402 requesting climb to flight level 310" ATC: "United 402 maintain flight level 250 for noise abatement". United 402: "What do you mean maintain 250 'for noise abatement'?". ATC: "If you climb and hit the traffic at 270, there will be a big noise.".---------------------------------------------------------------------A student became lost during a solo cross-country flight. While attempting to locate the aircraft on radar, ATC asked, "What was your last known position?"Student: "When I was number one for takeoff".--------------------------------------------------------------------Cessna: "Jones tower, Cessna 12345, student pilot, I am out of fuel." Tower: "Roger Cessna 12345, reduce airspeed to best glide!! Do you have the airfield in sight?!?!!" Cessna: "Uh...tower, I am on the south ramp; I just want to know where the fuel truck is."--------------------------------------------------------------------This is a rather classic conversation overheard on the radio at an airport just prior to a very short landing in a high performance aircraft. The location and the pilot involved shall remain unnamed to protect the guilty! :-) Tower: "xxxx, clear to land" XXXX: "roger" Tower: "xxxx, I can not see any landing gear. Is your gear down?" XXXX: "Say again, I can't hear you because there a some darn horn blaring in my ear!" Tower: "Your landing gear is NOT DOWN" XXXX: "Say what, I can't understand you" Tower: "Your landing gear is ..... aw ####."--------------------------------------------------------------------"This is McCarren International departure information Delta. 2100 zulu, [weather, approach information, notams, etc., etc.] Arriving aircraft contact approach at 118... [silence] You lousy machine, why do you always do this to me?"--------------------------------------------------------------------Typical British understatement...Supposedly Heard On The Air (said with a slow, Eton type accent)... BOAC: Heathrow Centre, British Airways Speedbird Flight 723 HC: British Airways Speedbird Flight 723, Heathrow Centre, go ahead BOAC: Heathrow Centre, British Airways Speedbird Flight 723 has a message for you HC: British Airways Speedbird Flight 723, Heathrow Centre is ready to copy message BOAC: Heathrow Centre, British Airways Speedbird Flight 723, message is as follows: Mayday, Mayday, Mayday ....--------------------------------------------------------------------Lots of commercial aircraft are stacked up waiting for approach to O'Hare Int'l, ATC has inflicted numerous delays, and some planes are already 1-2 hours late. The WX is good, it's just that there is a traffic bottleneck somewhere. Pilots, passengers, crew are all getting quite frustrated and angry. ATC: "All aircraft holding, expect 20 minutes additional delay." Unknown A/C: "Ahhh . . . bullsh*t!" ATC: "Aircraft making last transmission, identify yourself." (silence) ATC: "Aircraft making last transmission, identify yourself immediately!" (silence) ATC: "Aircraft using '####' in last transmission, identify yourself.American 411, was that you?" American 411: "Approach, American 411: negative on the '####,' sir." NW 202: "Approach, NW 202: negative on the '####.'" Delta 55: "Approach, Delta 55: negative on the '####.'" NW 33: "Approach, NW 33: we have a negative on that '####.'". . . and so on, right through the entire pattern.--------------------------------------------------------------------Scene 1: it's night over Las Vegas, information Hotel is current and mooney 33W is unfamiliar with procedure and talking to approach control... Approach: 33W confirm you have hotel. 33W: Uhhhmm, we're flying into McCarren International. Uhhhmm, we don't have a hotel room yet. approach control was laughing too hard to respond. The next several calls went like this: Approach: United 5, descend to FL220. United 5: United 5 down to FL220; we don't have a hotel room either.---------------------------------------------------------------------How to make people feel at ease... A friend of a friend, who is an airline copilot, told the following stories about a captain with whom he often flew. This guy was an excellent pilot, but not real good at making passengers feel at ease. For example, one time the airplane in front of him blew a tire on landing, scattering chunks of rubber all over the runway. He was asked to hold while the trucks came out and cleaned up. His announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm afraid there will be a short delay before our arrival. They've closed the airport while they clean up what's left of the last airplane that landed there." Then there was the time they were flying through turbulence. Some of the passengers became alarmed at how much the wings were bending in the rough air and one of the flight attendants relayed that message to the captain. His announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen, I've been informed that some of you have noticed our wings bending in the turbulence. In fact, the flight attendant told me that the wing tips are bending as much as ten feet in the bumps. Well, that's perfectly normal; there's nothing to worry about. Our wings are designed to bend as much as thirteen feet at the tips and, as you can see, we're nowhere near that yet."---------------------------------------------------------------------Cows might fly.. Crew members of a Russian cargo plane steal a cow to supplement their wages. They put the cow in their freighter and fly off home over the sea of Japan. The cow objects to lack of bovine class on Vodkaprop Airways and lashes out. The quick-thinking crew, sensing danger to the aircraft, open the rear door and kick the cow out. Down at sea-level, Japanese authorities imprison rescued crew of a sunken fishing trawler, unable to believe story that boat has been bombed out of the water by a flying cow... Original story seen in Flight International--------------------------------------------------------------------A "Shorts" Story An Eagle crew came up with a novel idea to play a trick on a new-hire flight attendant. In order to understand this story you need to know a few things about the Shorts 360:1) It has two doors to the cockpit, one on each side, for the captain and the first officer.2) There is ground escape hatch right above the FO's head.3) The Shorts is slow and unpressurized so quite frequently crews will fly with the captains (quite large) window open.4) There is room to hide a small person behind and underneath the FO's seat. The jumpseat is behind the captain's.5) At any time the Flight Attendant can pick up the interphone and here what the pilots are saying (and also ATC). On a rainy, icy, IMC evening flight from JFK to Providence, the crew decided to play a trick. The FO hid behind his seat and the captain called the FA. "Hey I need your help. First of all, please stay calm." "Why? What's Wrong?!?!" "Please come up to the cockpit and on your way please look out the window and see if you see the First Officer anywhere." "What? He's outside?" said the startled FA. "Yes. I sent him out to do a routine ice inspection on the wings and he hasn't returned. It's been about five minutes and he's usually back by now. See if you can spot him. Maybe he's stuck somewhere." Well of course she was unbelieving so she ran up to the cockpit and opened the captain's door. Peering over him she saw that the seat was empty and the handle for the escape hatch was turned a quarter turn. "Is that safe?" she asked, pointing to the escape hatch. "Well he has to be able to get back in!" replied the captain. Convinced now that the FO may actually be outside the plane she proceeded to go back to her seat while peering out the windows, drawing some strange looks from the passengers. Reaching her seat she got on the phone. Meanwhile the FO was back in his seat ready to imitate the company dispatcher on the radio. "Did you see him?" "No! He wasn't anywhere!" "OK well I guess I better call Dispatch and see what's up" (sounds of dispatch being rung up using the keypad on the mic). FO: "Eagle calling Dispatch go ahead" CA: "Dispatch this is Eagle 555 and we have a problem. I sent the FO out to do a routine ice check per special memo 42-1 and he hasn't returned in over 10 minutes. Any idea how I should proceed?" FO: "Stand by" The FO and Captain took off their headsets and discussed their plan! FO: "Eagle 555 has your Flight Attendant had wing walking training?" (sound of gasp from the FA) CA: "Ah no she's a new-hire, I doubt she's had that yet." FO: "Stand by" More laughter as they take off their headsets again. FO: "Eagle 555 do you think she could keep the plane flying while you take a look?" (a startled "No WAY!" from the FA) CA: "Ah no I don't think that'd work either" FO: "Stand by" One more conference on the final blow. FO: "Eagle 555, we'll have a new FO ready for you in Providence, have to assume we lost one. In the meantime you better get the FA up there so she can learn how to land that thing while you handle the radios." CA: "OK Dispatch, wilco. I'll get her up here. See ya" FO: "Good Luck Captain" So the captain says over the interphone, "You heard that?" She replies very shakily, "Yeeeaaaah, I'm on my way up there..." At this point the captain throws open his window (making a LOT of noise) and says, "Oh wait! Here he is! Come on up and see!" The FO hurriedly dons his coat and poors his entire water bottle over his hair. She makes it to the door and stares at him. "Sorry I took so long, I had to chip some ice off the tail!" The best part of the story is that they never told the poor girl what happened. The author found out about this story for the first time while sitting in the crew lounge in Hartford, hearing the girl complaining that she didn't think she was cut out for this job, 'We almost lost our FO the other night!". You can imagine the rest! The author got the rest of the story from the captain who thought this up, who for obvious reasons wants to remain anonymous!--------------------------------------------------------------------As a young co-pilot, I used to enjoy getting traffic advisories by center that involved Fokker Jets . I just got a kick out of saying; "I've got that Fokker visual" or "BUFF-21 has the Fokker in sight" because it sounded very similar to another word I tend to use too often ;). Any other aircraft and I said "traffic in sight". On one sortie after I made my "Fokker visual" call, my A/C flipped out believing I had said the profanity and not Fokker. In his anger he pressed DOWN on the interphone/radio switch and broadcast on the UHF radio instead of UP on the interphone and said; "you didn't just say F***er on the radio did you ?". Before I could respond Ft.Worth center came back with a; "no but you just did". I was in tears laughing for the rest of the sortie.---------------------------------------------------------------------China in the eighties. A DC-3 (or similar?) loaded with tourist passengers starts up and is about to taxi. Then the engines are shut down again. The captain leaves the cockpit and adresses the passengers: "This plane ill! We take other plane!"They all walk over to a DC-3 parked across the ramp. Engines started, and shut down again. Captain adresses passengers again: "This plane more ill! We take first plane!"--------------------------------------------------------------------It seems that our hero, Tom, was working the local air traffic control sector with a nervous FPL (Full Performance Level controller i.e.fully qualified) watching over his shoulder. He had one air carrier jet just touching down and another on a one-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 be 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, as long as it didn't endanger anyone, since that's the best way to learn. Still, the FPL couldn't help but mumble to Tom, "If this works, Tom, it'll be a miracle!"Tom keyed his transmitter. He intended to say, "Commuter 123, taxi into position and hold. Be ready for immediate." *What actually came out of his mouth (in one of the great Freudian slips of all time) was, "Commuter 123, taxi into position and hold. Be ready for a miracle."There was a pregnant pause on the frequency, and the then commuter pilot said "Tower, I think under the circumstances, we'd better just hold short. I don't feel quite that lucky."( * Which means "taxi onto takeoff position on the runway and hold there, then be ready for immediate takeoff the moment you're cleared.")-------------------------------------------------------------------DFW Tower: "Lonestar 189, clear to land 18R, wind calm."Lonestar: "Roger, cleared to land 18R."Lonestar (a few moments later): "Tower, we hit something."DFW Tower: "You did WHAT?!!"Lonestar: "We hit a small animal or something on the runway. You know, some sort of road kill or something."DFW Tower: "UPS 31 Heavy, be advised that traffic that just landed ahead of you on runway 18R reports hitting some sort of roadkill."UPS 31: "That's allright, we'll flatten it out a little bit for ya!"--------------------------------------------------------------------You all know about the Darwin Award - It's an annual honor given to the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing himself in the most extraordinarily stupid way. The 1995 winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine that toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it. In 1996 the winner was an air force sergeant who attached a JATO unit to his car and crashed into a cliff several hundred feet above the roadbed.And now, the 1997 winner: Larry Waters of Los Angeles -- one of the few Darwin winners to survive his award-winning accomplishment. Larry's boyhood dream was to fly. When he graduated from high school, he joined the Air Force in hopes of becoming a pilot. Unfortunately, poor eyesight disqualified him. When he was finally discharged, he had to satisfy himself with watching jets fly over his backyard.One day, Larry, had a bright idea. He decided to fly. He went to the local Army-Navy surplus store and purchased 45 weather balloons and several tanks of helium. The weather balloons, when fully inflated, would measure more than four feet across. Back home, Larry securely strapped the balloons to his sturdy lawn chair. He anchored the chair to the bumper of his jeep and inflated the balloons with the helium. He climbed on for a test while it was still only a few feet above the ground.Satisfied that it would work, Larry packed several sandwiches and a six-pack of Miller Lite, loaded his pellet gun-- figuring he could pop a few balloons when it was time to descend-- and went back to the floating lawn chair. He tied himself in, along with his pellet gun and provisions. Larry's plan was to lazily float up to a height of about 30 feet above his back yard after cutting the anchor line and then come back down a few hours later.Things didn't quite work out that way. When he cut the cord anchoring the lawn chair to his jeep, he didn't float lazily up to 30 or so feet. Instead, he streaked into the LA sky as if shot from a cannon. He didn't level of at 30 feet, nor did he level off at 100 feet. After climbing and climbing, he leveled off at 11,000 feet. At that height, he couldn't risk shooting any of the balloons, lest he unbalance the load and really find himself in trouble. So he stayed there, drifting, cold, and frightened, for more than 14 hours.Then he really got in trouble. He found himself drifting into the the primary approach corridor of Los Angeles International Airport. A United pilot first spotted Larry. He radioed the tower and described passing a guy in a lawn chair with a gun. Radar confirmed the existence of an object floating 11,000 feet above the airport. LAX emergency procedures swung into full alert and a helicopter was dispatched to investigate. LAX is right on the ocean. Night was falling and the offshore breeze began to flow. It carried Larry out to sea, with the helicopter in hot pursuit.Several miles out, the helicopter caught up with Larry. Once the crew determined that Larry was not dangerous, they attempted to close in for a rescue but the draft from the blades would push Larry away whenever they came near. Finally, the helicopter climbed to a position several hundred feet above Larry and lowered a rescue line. Larry snagged the line and was hauled back to shore. The difficult maneuver was flawlessly executed by the helicopter crew.As soon as Larry was hauled to earth, he was arrested by waiting members of the LAPD for violating LAX airspace. As Larry was led away in handcuffs, a reporter dispatched to cover the daring rescue asked why he had done it. Larry stopped, turned and replied nonchalantly, "A man can't just sit around."Let's hear it for Larry Waters, the 1997 Darwin Award Winner!---------------------------------------------------------------------Seems that a year ago, some Boeing employees on the field decided to steala life raft from one of the 747s. They were successful in getting it outof the plane and home. When they took it for a float on the river, theywere quite surprised by a Coast Guard helicopter coming towards them. Itturned out that the chopper was homing in on theemergency locator that is activated when the raft is inflated. They arereportedly no longer employed there.--------------------------------------------------------------------Last summer I heard this conversation."Arctic Radio Virgin 23 position 63.30 north 70 west flight level 350.one min. later....."Arctic Radio..Speedbird 723 position 63.30 north 70 west flight level 310requesting flight level 350"Arctic Radio " copy your position but I don't think Centre will approve FL350 as there is a Virgin on top of you"

[Guest enave]

ha! Those are great!I heard a joke once about an SR-71 that requested FL700. The controllers, still laughing, replied "sure, climb and maintain FL700 - if you can." The SR-71's reply was "roger, descending to FL700"

[Guest RiddlePilot]

The teacher of my ATC class used to work Patric RAPCON in Florida. He told us a story when he was working one day and received a mayday call from an Air Force pilot. He began squawking the 7700 emergency code, and was identified 40 NM off shore, due east of Patrick AFB. He was issued vectors direct to the field, but he didn't like that idea. Our teacher snapped back with "State the nature of your emergency, souls on board, and fuel remaining". The reply, "Engine out, 1 on board, doesn't matter cause the engine's not using any of it". Our teacher, now out of things to do to help him, asks him what he can do to help. The pilot then requests flight following to some field in South Carolina. Our teacher, in shock, asks the pilot what type of aircraft he's flying and at what altitude. "We're at FL600, and we can't tell you what we're flying".Turns out, it was a U2 spyplane returning from recon and had a flameout. He glided from 40 NM due east of Patrick AFB, all the way to central South Carolina.

[MarkRey 16]

:-xxrotflmao - by the time I got to Larry Lawnchair's excursion into KLAX airspace I was in pain!regards,Mark

[Guest tgabriel]

Larry is my kind of guy. Lawn chair, weather balloons, a six pack and a pellet gun. What more could a guy want? :-lol :-lol :-lol :-lol :-lol :-lol :-lol :-lol

[Jeff Nielsen 1,385]

Lets see if I can remember the PAX brief we came up with at United Express, back in the day. For those commuter flights without flight attendants (flights on EMB110's, BAe-Junkstream 31's..lol). "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome aboard flight 565 with non-stop service to LAX...Approx flying time will be 55 minutes..Todays in-flight movie will be Airplane...it will be playing out your left and right window..part of todays flight does take us over water, so should you feel the need to go swimming, please take your seat cushion as it does double as a floatation device...We'd like to remind everyone that FAA regulations prohibit smoking on board the aircraft..so if you see someone smoking, please don't hesitate to use the fire extibguisher located at the front of the cabin door....just pull the pin, aim at the base of the fire, and pull. We'd like to invite everyone to sit back and enjoy the flight...."

[Guest RTC]

That is some seriously funny stuff.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/36121.jpgAthlon 3000512Mb PC3200 DDR RAM (400MHz)256MB nVIDIA GeForce FX 5600seFS9, running fine :-)

[Guest TOMCAT]

Thanks,really loved those and had a lot of laughing. Larry Waters violating KLAX airspace and then walking off the scene sayin': "A man can't just sit around", is absolutely great. As is the "Shorts" story...CU Thomas :-wave

[RobertVA 0]

Reports of the number of weather balloons truck driver Larry Walters used vary from 41 to 45. With assistance Larry launched his construction of beige surplus store weather balloons and Sears lawn chair from San Pedro California. He carried aboard his makeshift craft a large bottle of soda, a parachute (I wonder how reliable it was), a camera, a CB radio, gallon water jugs for ballast and a small firearm to shoot the balloons out for descent. Reports about the firearm vary as to it firing a pellets or bbs. His flight in the craft he called Inspiration I took place July 2, 1982. The balloon drifted inland reaching approximately 16.000 ft altitude before descending and getting entangled in power lines serving a neighborhood northwest of Long Beach airport.Larry was subsequently fined $1500 by the FAA for flying an

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Thanks for publishing the link... I was living in California back during the lawnchair flight, and I remember it well. I was scratching my head at the way the story evolved in this thread :) Never a mention of a helicopter rescue when the real event happened, but I guess someone modified the story along the way so it could have its share of villians and heroes...I was sad to hear of his death...didn't learn about it until early this year, some ten years after the fact. Various cites of the Darwin awards always add a bit of fiction, like the JATO car event which never happened. But overall, I was laughing alot at the post... Events don't have to be real to be funny..... -John

[Guest Stompy]

Thanks guys! I can never get enough of these, and I really needed a couple today!