I inhale autobiographical books where pilots share their career paths with flying adventures and misadventures as well as technical stuff about different aircraft they've flown. Seems so many go off into stories of how they outwitted a check pilot or an arrogant Captain or even company management.  I just keep in mind I'm reading from the vantage point of the writer and there are two sides to every story. So many of these stories go into tales of what seems juvenile if not dangerous pranks on novice flight attendants or fellow cockpit crew. Examples like calling attendant to bring a pitcher of water to the cockpit of a CV440.  Cap then opens his side window and pours the water into the slip stream, then tells her the engine is still running hot so keep the water coming. She wises up after about three trips and "accidentally" spills on the Caps lap giving him a wet crotch to exit the plane with. Another, on arrival FO exits the side window with the escape rope, climbs into the lavatory through the cargo hold (I donno how, it's the CV440) and comes out after last passenger deplanes and ask the attendant angerly "why didn't you come get me before we landed."  One of my favorites among many is calling a novice attendant to the front and telling her we have a serious situation. Crew scheduling screwed up and we just realized we are both take off pilots and we don't have a landing pilot on board. Neither of us are trained in landing this thing but we'll do our best to figure it out. Try not to alarm the passengers but stay alert. 

       OK , boys will be boys and a good laugh is good for morale. Suppose this gal had spilled water on the radio panel or the Cap had lost the pitcher in the slip stream and it was thrown into the engine or prop.  I'm reminded of a Delta 727 at KDFW some years back that was in a long line to depart. The flight attendant comes into the cockpit and they have a little fun flirting with her until their time to take the runway. They fail to set TO flaps so crew and paying passengers pay the ultimate price.

   Then there's friendly intercompany fun such as challenging an American 727 departing to the same location (ORD) a few minutes ahead to a race to destination. Delta wins by requesting a lower altitude then the AAL opponent thus blocking his decent before Delta starts down. Manageable but not helpful for the controller in Chicago who has a tough job on a good day. Another ATC story that gob smacked me as a former controller; Delta had a well known Captain who went by the nickname  "Bird Dog" based in Atlanta. Bird Dog was so well known the story is told that even the Atlanta controllers would use Bird Dog instead of his official call sign such as Delta456 as example. I always assumed a good pilot would try to keep a mental traffic picture around his aircraft and I could imagine one wondering what the heck is a Bird Dog. An Army L19? If Bird Dog had been involved in an accident/incident and the tapes were pulled; well gee shucks, everybody knows who Bird Dog is/was. 

   Then there's the stories of good times had on lay overs. Personally I haven't imbibed on the products of fermentation for many decades but I do remember how even as a fit young feller you cannot go to bed knee walking drunk or even pleasantly buzzed  and wake up eight hours later bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to operate in a complex environment trusted with blood and much treasure. 

    One more tale I thought was interesting. When Delta and NE merged Delta acquired their first 737s. Not having sims they sent their crew to the Boeing plant for sim training. A Delta Cap was in the captains role and a NE Captain was playing flight engineer. The Captain pushes the throttles up and calls "take off power". The FE then pulls the throttles back explaining that at NE take off power means reduce thrust whereas set take off thrust is the proper call. They reset the scenario, Delta says "take off power" the FE starts to retard the throttles when the Delta guy brings his fist down on the poor guys hand breaking a couple of bones in his hand. When the incident was reported Delta stood by their man claiming he was in the right. 

    I greatly enjoy reading these stories especially the parts about the nuances  of different aircraft I have on my sim. I guess I have always held a naïve pedestal image of these guys as being the height of professionalism. Oh well. Real world. Nothing is as it seems so the line goes.   

Colours in the Sky has lots of anecdotes from Court Line. The flight crew had quite a bit of private fun at the expense of passengers--in the form of cartoons and bad poetry. But when you read how one had to fish a passenger's false teeth from the toilet, you realize it's probably really hard to keep a smile on your face while dealing with weird situations. Blowing off steam is inevitable. I love those inside stories, especially from the early days of commercial jet travel.

Or the one about the lady who gets her buttocks sealed to the toilet seat by the flush motor and of course the junior crew member gets the loathsome task of prying her loose.

Edited September 21, 20214 yr by Patco Lch