Friday Thread - Favorite Pilot Bloopers

[LegacyDriver]

Well it's friday again.......so in honor of the non-tradition of stupid friday threads... What is the DUMBEST pilot blooper you've witnessed?

I have two.

The first... A buddy of mine was/is a Citation X driver. While preparing his airplane for departure another jet pulled in with a female Captain who was so good looking she broke the scale. He was doing the walkaround when she stepped off her airplane and I watched him staring in disbelief as he walked himself right into the side of the X. No damage to the airplane or pilot was caused and he was so mesmerized by her that he didn't feel a thing!


The second... While flying ERJs one of our fine British Captains was walking down the jetway to board the airplane. The door of the ERJ is a few inches shorter than he was and he ducked to go through the hatch... but not quite enough as the brim of his uniform hat obscured his view. I heard a loud THUD and a thickly accented, "SONOFAB*TCH!" I turned to see my intrepid leader holding his head as a thin trail of blood ran down his forehead.

Apparently the little screwpost on the backside of the hat emblem was driven into his forehead. He walked around for two weeks with a small hole right in the middle of said forehead.

In self-defense I snipped the excess post off of my hat emblem with some wire cutters I borrowed from MX and filed the thing smooth. I have been known to walk into a door a time or two myself...

 

[TransMach]

Pilot Bloopers

Ok, here's two that I was personally involved in .... KLAX has an affinity for foul ups ....

ONE -- As a new hire F/O for Golden West Airlines in the DHC-6 Twin Otter, circa late 70s, my captain and I were instructed to reposition an airplane from the commuter terminal (now replaced by LAX's International Terminal just west of Terminal 3) to Hanger 1. We proceeded to do so. When holding short of RWY 25R at Taxiway 47 (later re-named with alfa characters), South Ground instructed us "Goldy XXX, and POWER CART, cross runway 25 left and right, taxi to the barn ... good luck with Abe, there boys!" (Abe August was the Chief Pilot at the time) ...

TWO --- Years later, as a new hire F/O at Continental Airlines (post strike I must tell you) we had pushed off the gate and were holding in the alley. There was a Delta flight who had also pushed and we were both read to taxi. Again, LAX South Ground had a bit of comedy in his voice when he instructed us "Continental XXX, the Delta jet will wait for you, taxi 25 right via the inner to 27, transition to the outer". Before our flight responded, the Delta jet interrupted with "Yeah, sure ... I'm always waiting for a Continental crew to get their stuff together and get outta the way". Before I could hit the mic switch the captain beat me to it saying, in his best Houston drawl; "Ground, Continental XXX roger. You might let those fine airmen from Atlanta know that they won't have to wait quite so long if they remove their gear pins". I arched over my sholder to see the streamers still flapping from the Delta jet's gear sticks ...

Happy Friday ...

TransMach

 

[FL000]

I'm a member of the Diamond Forehead Club, Council C-172, and I've witnessed several other pledges join up also.

 

[KSUPILOT]

how about forgetting the nose wheel stering pin on the hawker. There are those who have and those who will!

 

[empenage]

How about not closing the O2 door on the Challenger 604. You know after takeoff it sounds just like the RAT is deployed, not that "I've" ever done it.

 

[Shamus]

I've never seen it happen but I've heard the stories, and as a Lear driver I can see it happening.

A new FO goes to open the door for the first and as the bottom half swings open, the FO goes down with it head over heels.

 

[Brett Hull]

Learjet Shuffle

I've never seen it happen either, but I've heard of a semi-experienced Learjet captain doing it one day in Hamilton, Ontario while trying to hold his head out the door to get a decent cell signal while waiting for customs. :blush:

I'm not sure who it was, though. :redface:

 

[TransMach]

Pilot Bloopers

Well, thinking about Learjets, here's one of my favorites ...

The Learjet 35A we were flying had the forward potty, just behind the co-pilot's seat. It also had a set of rigid sliding doors that separated the cockpit from the lav area. There was a rigid bi-fold door aft of the refreshment center that separated the foyer/lav area from the rest of the cabin.

One fine day were were westbound at FL430 on a charter taking a fella and his girl friend to LAS. The lady liked beer so she visited the lav several times. Once, later in the flight she came forward and said "It's time guys" and closed the sliders. Quite a bit of time went by, like :25 minutes when the first officer said "She's done" and quickly pulled the sliding doors open. I glanced over my right sholder, O2 mask on due to the altitude, only to find our guest, shall we say, "helping herself" when the doors slammed shut! I guess her boyfriend hasn't been getting all the VIAGRA spam mail we all get.

TransMach

-- P.S. Man, I hope I don't get banned. This could be a fun thread --

 

[ClubORD]

We were waiting in BNA trying to get back to ORD a couple of summers ago. Sitting in the box with us was a Eagle ERJ, SWA 737, and us, ACA CRJ all waiting for the ground stops to be lifted at ORD and MDW so we could leave.

Tulsa Tower: Southwest 222 Congratulations you've been released let me know when you're ready.

Southwest 222: We'll get them both started now, please give us a minute.

-About 10 seconds pass-

Southwest 222: Tower, we are ready to go now.

Tulsa Tower: Wow, that was a quick minute! Taxi to Runway XX.

Southwest 222: That's what my wife says.

 

[LegacyDriver]

HA HA HA HA! Keep them coming boys.

Transmach probably needs to write a book!

 

[TransMach]

Pilot Bloopers

OK, LegacyDriver, here ya go ...

Later in my Continental Airlines days, we were inbound to LAX (yes again, as if you hadn't guessed). We were flying the ILS RWY 25L procedure from the profile descent (they changed those also) and were about 25NM from the runway when arrivals instructed us "Continental XXXX, reduce to 160 knots, you will follow traffic at 10 oclock, 4 miles, northbound to join the localizer". "Continental XXXX, Roger ... Wilco" we responded. Sometime later, after the preeceding traffic had been processed to the north complex (USAir for Terminal 1) approach asked; "Continental XXXX can you guys give me 210 knots to Lima?"

Yes, Lima has been renamed as well as Roman.

My captain responds "OK, we'll do it, two one oh, here we go, Continental XXXX" and I accellerate the airplane to 210 +/- my ability to fly it.

As we cross the Lima OM, we contacted South Tower; "L.A. Tower, Continental XXXX, Lima inbound". "Continental XXXX, Tower, REDUCE TO YOUR MINIMUM APPROACH SPEED YOU ARE THREE MILES IN TRAIL OF SO'N SO". "Hey, a deal's a deal, my captain retorts, we can't slow down now!" "Don't you have SPEED BRAKES?" LA asks? "Yea, but those are for our short commings, not yours!" he answers.

"ALL AIRCRAFT THIS FREQUENCY, THIS IS LOS ANGELES SIMULTANEOUS MONITOR ... ALL AIRCRAFT EXECUTE MISSED APPROACH ... ALL AIRCRAFT FLY RUNWAY HEADING 255 ... ALL AIRCRAFT CLIMB AND MAINTAIN 2,000 FEET ... BREAK XXXX XXXXX TURN LEFT HEADING 210 ... BREAK XXXX XXXXX FLY RUNWAY HEADING .... BREAK XXXX XXXXX TURN LEFT HEADING 210, ETC., ETC.,"

"Well", my captain said ... "I guess those guys just can't take a joke" ...

TransMach

 

[LegacyDriver]

HA HA HA HA HA HA! Hysterical!

All of these are great stories.

Keep them coming.

I heard one about a Citation X driver who impaled himself on a static wick...

OUCH.

 

[User546]

I heard one about a Citation X driver who impaled himself on a static wick...

Wasnt' a X, but a Citation none the less.

You can find info on the incident, including the guys personal account, on the below thread:
http://forums.flightinfo.com/showthread.php?t=28429
http://www.bartnet.net/~jmt/static_wick.zip

 

[Groundpounder]

Today, a single pilot Citation was getting ready to go, sitting there with the engines running, pax loaded, and started to roll forward while the pilot had his head down. He cut the engines and applied the brakes about 15 feet from running into our building. We had to push him back so he could restart his engines and try it again. Guess a co-pilot might come in handy.........

 

[English]

HA! I've seen that with two pilot crews, too. I think absent-mindedness is not isolated to single pilot operations.

 

[bigD]

I've always enjoyed watching a Cessna pivot around a forgotten tie down rope when attempting to taxi out of parking. I've seen this happen twice.

 

[flyer172r]

A few years ago in IND (not exactly a hard airport to navigate), a United 737 was trying to taxi to the gate when the controller called and said, "United 314...where are you going?" The pilot answered, "Uh, we don't know."

If they get lost in IND, I'd hate to see them try ORD

 

[Illini Pilot]

although i will sound like a flight team dork, back a few years ago at the national meet during one of the practice days:

they have a bunch of VFR checkpoints set up so everyone can flight a set route into MQY...a plane (callsign COWBOY ONE...you can guess the school) calls up and is totally confused. finally, the tower asks if they are on the left downwind for 18 and they respond "uh...Cowboy One is right downwind...looks like runway 20R." MQY tower immediately calls "COWBOY ONE YOU ARE OVER NASHVILLE...contact XXX.XX immediately!!!" Needless to say, when they got sorted out and sent back over to MQY tower for landing they were pretty sheepish sounding on the radio.

 

[RampFreeze]

In the days right after the 747 first came into service, (well before the 747-400) the USAF's C-5 Galaxy had a slight edge in max takeoff weight, wingspan, etc. over the 747-100. One day while a C-5 was taxiing out of the Hickam AFB ramp at Honolulu, the following conversation ensued as the C-5 and a 747 were converging on the same taxi route and ground control had not advised either of the airplanes to give way yet:

MAC XXX (the C-5): "Honolulu Ground, MAC XXX will give way to the little guy"

Airline XXX (the 747): "Thanks MAC, we'll continue taxiing"

MAC XXX: (in a smug voice as the "smaller" airplane passed by) "How much do you guys gross out at anyway?"

Airline XXX: "Well into the six figures per year, how about you?"

MAC XXX: (silence)
(as he looked at his pay statement detailing his gov't salary totaling 1/4 of the airline pilot's salary)

 

[Flying Illini]

U-I Pilot and I were loading up at MDW to return to CMI to complete a X/C requirement of his. We board and buckle up...or at least *I* buckled up. After an appropriate amount of time I looked to my left wondering why he hasn't started going through the checklist to get the plane started only to see that he still hasn't buckled up and is fussing with the seat belt. Turns out he spent what seemed like an eternity trying to put the "male" end of the seat belt latch into the rear end (absolutely no entry) of the "female" end of the latch. Of course he blamed me for this and he still holds a grudge to this day.
In his defense, it *was* dark outside...yet I managed to do just fine.

BTW~ You owe me a :beer: .