In flight pranks

[Lead Sled]

[font=ARIAL, Helvetica, Geneva]Does anyone remember the story about the (AA?) crew that involved a sleeve from a gorilla costume, a banana and the cockpit panel camera? I heard about it probably 20 years ago, but it is still one of the classics.[/font]

[font=ARIAL, Helvetica, Geneva]At the time there were camera in the cockpit that showed the panel and windscreen for the passengers. One of the pilots was wearing the gorilla costume sleeve. The cabin monitors showed this hairy arm pushing the power levers up for takeoff. At some point after the takeoff, the gorilla put his hand out and the other pilot put a banana in it. Funny stuff, but of course, some of the passengers were upset and the airline was embarrassed by it. It was in all of the newspapers and made network news.[/font]

[font=ARIAL, Helvetica, Geneva]'Sled


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[WizardPilot]

Thats a good one lead. Damn those flying monkeys...

 

[BD King]

There's quite a few of these type stories in THE LEFT SEAT by Bob Serling. One of my favorites was rolling old rusty nuts and bolts down the 3's isle on climb out.

www.bdkingpress.com

 

[EuroWheenie]

Mate of mine flies MD80s for SAS and told this story. They were on a testflight with a MD87 with an engineer onboard in the jumpseat. The MD87 in SAS disguise only have a lavatory in the back.

Anyway, they depart out of CPH and head south for Germany. Having completed the tests, and heading back North, the engineer gets up and says he needs to take a leak. He leaves the cockpit, and the FO starts the timer. X seconds later they reckon he should be in the lav. Another X seconds, and they reckon he should be doing the deed and then, A/P disconnect and a sporty 45 degree bank! Engineer returns to cockpit, all wet down one side of his pants

 

[91100 100 set]

I got into a little bit of an argument with one guy over the old stick shaker test a few years back. The first time he did it to me it was funny. The second and third times, it gets old.

The powered coffee creamer stuff in a closed eyeball vent works well, but it's probably not too good for the airplane.

I used to work with a guy in flight school who got his hands on the little reed device that Cessna uses for the stall warning horn. Doing airwork with his students, he'd casually look out the right side and blow on it during steep turns, slow flight, and such. I guess it really freaked them out sometimes, and probably not a bad lesson on actually feeling the symptoms of a stall and not just hearing them.

 

[hydroflyer]

I liked to have fun with CFI level students in the Piper training aircraft with the pitot/static drains in the cockpit. With the seat all the way back, I was able to take my right heal, and press on the pitot drain in flight. Depending on how hard I pressed, I could control the airspeed indication from 0 to the speed we were doing. It was always fun to see how long we would fly with the airspeed at 0 before they would say something. On one flight, I was playing with the indicator so much, that the student was going to write up the plane for a faulty airspeed indicator. I had one student believe I could control the speed by voice, if I said "60", the indicator would suddenly drop to 60.

 

[TDTURBO]

I liked to have fun with CFI level students in the Piper training aircraft with the pitot/static drains in the cockpit. With the seat all the way back, I was able to take my right heal, and press on the pitot drain in flight. Depending on how hard I pressed, I could control the airspeed indication from 0 to the speed we were doing. It was always fun to see how long we would fly with the airspeed at 0 before they would say something. On one flight, I was playing with the indicator so much, that the student was going to write up the plane for a faulty airspeed indicator. I had one student believe I could control the speed by voice, if I said "60", the indicator would suddenly drop to 60.

I fly Cessnas now but have a few hundred hrs in all types of pipers, where is this hole you plug up, on the floor in the SIC seat? I never heard of this one but sounds fun.

 

[MVSW]

I can see your chief pilot doing this at Pinnacle in the near future...

"TRAFFIC"....push her over at 410 dude....haha kidding....

..

real dorky man, real dorky...

I agree with the above, your "chief pilot" is an ass.

Thats not right

 

[FN FAL]

That's the nice thing about flying single pilot, I never have to worry about being rudely woken up by some prankster...which probably has saved me the trouble of having to use a pen or some other improvisement to create an open airway after dealing out a ridge hand across the clown's esophagus.

 

[PHX767]

I fly Cessnas now but have a few hundred hrs in all types of pipers, where is this hole you plug up, on the floor in the SIC seat?

SIC Seat???

Would that be on the Pipers that require a crew of two pilots, like the PA28?? Or maybe the PA44 Heavy??