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Friday Thread - Favorite Pilot Bloopers

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

BTW~ You owe me a :beer: .
 

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