aviation jokes

A BA 747 pilot had waited for take off clearance for 45 minutes. A German 737 was cleared immediately. The BA pilot asked the tower why the German aircraft had been given clearance at once. Before the tower could reply, the German pilot came back with "Because I got up very early in the morning and put a towel on the runway!".

My son, when learning to fly proudly announced that he had landing taped except the last 30 feet!

A pilot has engine trouble and lands in a field. As he walks around the plane to check out the problem, he hears a voice behind him say, "You have a clogged fuel line." Looking around, he sees no one, except a cow. Startled out of his wits, he runs across the field to the farmer's house and pounds on the door. When the farmer appears at the door, the out-of-breath pilot stammers that his cow has just talked--and even tried to explain what was wrong with the airplane.

The farmer drawled, "Was it a brown cow?" "Yes." "Did it have a white patch on its forehead?" "Yes, yes, that's the one." "OK, that's Flossie. Don't pay no attention to her. She doesn't know nothin' about aeroplanes."

David E Pullmann

During the barnstorming era, a pilot is giving rides at the county fair in his open-cockpit airplane. A farmer and his wife stroll up to ask how much he charges. "That's outrageous!" exclaims the farmer, "Do you have any idea how much feed I can buy for five dollars?" When the farmer rants on about government regulation, taxes, bad weather, cost of repairs, and low crop yields, the pilot finally says, "I'll tell you what. I'll take you and your wife both for a ride if you can sit through the entire flight without saying a word. But if I hear even one sound from you, you'll pay double." The farmer agrees.

So the pilot stuffs them both into the rear seat and takes off.

After a couple of barrel rolls and loops, the pilot doesn't hear anything, so he starts into some serious aerobatics. But even after a few snap rolls, hammerheads, split S manoeuvres, and sustained inverted flight, the farmer doesn't talk, yell or cry out. When they returned to the field and landed, the pilot turned around to the farmer and said, "Well, I've got to hand it to you. I didn't think you could do it, but you got your free flight." The farmer replied, "I know, but for a minute I thought you had me there when my wife fell out."

David E Pullmann

The scene is a newspaper office. The editor says to one of his reporters: There's a fire raging out of control west of town and I want you to get out there fast. And above all, get some good shots. If that means you have to hire an airplane, just do it. Don't worry about the expense.

So, the reporter calls the local FBO and orders a plane. He rushes out to the airport, spots a small aircraft with a young pilot in it, pulls open the door, jumps in and says to the pilot: Let's go, take off. As directed, the pilot takes off, gets up to altitude, and the reporter then tells him, "See that fire raging to the west? I want you to fly over that and get down as close as you can."

Incredulous, the pilot says, "You want me to fly over that fire?"

"Sure," the reporter says, "I am a photojournalist and that's why I am here--to take dramatic shots of the fire!"

The pilot looks over with a quizzical look on his face and says, "You're not the flight instructor?"

"Renting airplanes is like renting sex: It's difficult to arrange on short notice on Saturday, the fun things always cost more, and someone's always looking at their watch."


One day, the pilot of a Cherokee 180 was told by the tower to hold short of the runway while a DC-8 landed. The DC-8 landed, rolled out, turned around, and taxied back past the Cherokee.

Some quick-witted comedian in the DC-8 crew got on the radio and said:

"What a cute little plane. Did you make it yourself?"

Our hero the Cherokee pilot, not about to let the insult go by, came back with a real zinger: "I made it out of DC-8 parts. Another landing like that and I'll have enough parts for another one."


 Q: What do pilots use for birth control?

A: Their personality.

ENGINEER: I don't quite know what to say about your aircraft Sir. Let's just put it this way.... If it was a horse, you would have to shoot it. 
 

Susan: So what did your husband say about you giving his GPS to the jumble by mistake?

Mary: Shall I leave out the four-letter words?

Susan: Please do.

Mary: In that case he didn't say a word.

Apparently the controllers were getting really annoyed with the Air Canada pilots who regularly flew into Winnipeg. It would seem that the source of the irritation was the tone of voice that these guys were using. They would come on the frequency with the deepest voices you could imagine, saying things like 'This is Air Canada 345 heavy by the Whiskey for runway 18'.

One of the controllers finally had had enough of this sort of affectation and decided to get even one day. He went out and bought a bunch of helium filled balloons… Sure enough, the first Air Canada flight to arrive in the airspace checked in with the big deep pilot voice. The controller took a huge honk of the helium and cleared the flight to land in a voice akin to Donald Duck wearing very tight shorts!

No one seemed sure how the pilots reacted, but it gave the controllers one heck of a high!

(Contributed by Michael Dyck)
 

On a flight with EasyJet back in 1997 the pilot made what can only be describes as an extremely heavy landing at Luton. It was very early in the morning and a number of passengers around me looked quite alarmed as, apart from the noise, a number of overhead lockers dropped open and several items of carry-on luggage were launched down the aisle.

After slowing up, the aircraft turned off the runway and turned towards the stand and over the PA came "Good morning ladies gentlemen, this is Captain Smith, welcome to Luton...and if any of you were asleep...I bet you're not now!"
 

Instrument Flying..

Most people wish to fly on the old gauges at one time or another but are prevented by the high cost of the instruments necessary for this form of flight. The following is a more or less known and extremely simple method which may be used by all.

Place a live cat on the cockpit floor, because a cat always remains upright, he or she can be used in lieu of a needle and ball instrument. Merely watch to see which way he leans to determine if a wing is low and if so, which one. This will enable you to your aircraft level in route with complete accuracy and confidence.

A duck is used for final instrument approach and landing, because of the fact that any sensible old duck will refuse to fly under instrument conditions, it is only necessary to hurl your duck out of the cockpit window and follow her to the ground.

There are some limitations on the cat and duck method, but by rigidly adhering to the following check list a degree of success will be achieved which will not only startle you, but will astonish your passengers as well, and may have an occasional tower operator with an open mouth.

· Get a wide-awake cat, most cats do not want to stand up all the time, so it may be necessary to carry a fierce dog along to keep the cat at attention.

· Make sure your cat is clean, dirty cats will spend all the time washing. Trying to follow a washing cat usually results in a slow roll followed by an inverted spin. You will see that this is most unprofessional.

· Old cats are the best, young cats have nine lives, but an old used up cat with only one life left has just as much to loose and will be more dependable.

· Avoid stray cats. Try to get one with good character because you may want to spend time with her.

· Beware of cowardly ducks, if the duck discovers that you are using the cat to stay upright, she will refuse to leave the aeroplane without the cat. Ducks are no better on instruments than you are.

· Get a duck with good eyes. Near sighted ducks sometimes fail to recognise that they are on the old gauges and will go flogging into the nearest hill. Very near sighted ducks will not realise that they have been thrown out and will descend to the ground in a sitting position. This is a most difficult manoeuvre to follow in an airplane.

· Choose your duck carefully, it is easy to confuse ducks with geese. Many large birds look alike. While they are very competent instrument flyers, geese seldom want to go in the same direction that you do. If your duck seems to be taking a heading to Ireland or Sweden, you may be safe in assuming that someone has given you a goose.

From the files of the CAA (S.A)
 

The following letter turned up in the CAA file of a certain pilot during a recent Investigation. The identities of the people and organisations concerned have been withheld for obvious reasons....

Dear Sirs

I have been asked to make a written statement concerning certain events that occurred yesterday.

First of all, I would like to thank that very nice CAA man who took my student pilot license and told me I wouldn't need it anymore. I presume that means that you're going to give me my full PPL. You should watch that fellow though; after I told him this story he seemed quite nervous and his hand was shaking. Anyway, here is what happened.

The weather had been pretty bad since last week, when I soloed. But yesterday I wasn't going to let low ceilings and pouring rain deter me from another exciting experience at the controls of an aeroplane. I was proud of my accomplishment, and I had invited my neighbour to go with me since I planned to fly to Sun City, where I knew of an excellent restaurant that served steaks and draught Windhoek beer. On the way to Lanseria my neighbour was a little concerned about the weather but I reassured him and told him about the steaks and beer that were waiting for us and he seemed much happier.

When we arrived at the airport the pouring rain had stopped, as I already knew it would from my meteorology classes. There were only a few small hailstones around.

I checked the weather and I was assured it was solid IFR. I was delighted. But when I talked to the flying club, I found that my regular aeroplane, a Piper J4 Cub was down for repairs. You can imagine my disappointment.

Just then a friendly, intelligent hangar assistant suggested that I take another aeroplane, which I immediately saw was very sleek and looked much easier to fly. I think they called it an Aztec C, also made by Piper. It didn't have a tailwheel, but I didn't say anything because I was in a hurry. Oh yes, it had a spare engine for some reason.

We climbed in and I began looking for an ignition switch. Now I don't want to get anyone into trouble, but it shouldn't be necessary to get the manual out just to find out how to start an aeroplane. That's ridiculous, I never saw so many dials, needles, knobs, handles and switches. As we all know, they have simplified this in the J4 Cub. Forgot to mention that I did file a flight plan, and those people were so nice. When I told them I was flying an Aztec, they told me it was all right to go direct via the airway, which I understand is a sort of local superhighway. These fellows deserve a lot of credit. They told me a lot of other things too, but everybody has problems with red tape.

The take-off was one of my best and I carefully left the pattern just the way the book says it should be done. The controller at Lanseria told me to contact Johannesburg Radar but that seemed silly since I knew where I was and I knew where I was going. There must have been an emergency of some sort because all of a sudden a lot of airline pilots began yelling at the same time and made such a racket that I just turned off the radio. You'd think all those professionals would be better trained.

Anyway I climbed up into a few little, fat clouds, cumulus type, at three hundred feet, but the highway was right under me, and since I knew it was due north to Sun City, where we were going to have drinks and dinner, I just went up into the solid overcast. After all,it was raining so hard by now, that it was a waste of time trying to watch the ground. This was a bad thing to do, l realised. My neighbour undoubtedly wanted to see the scenery, specially the Magaliesburg but everybody has to be disappointed sometimes and we pilots have to make the best of it, don't we?

It was pretty smooth flying and except for the ice that seemed to be forming here and there, especially on the windscreen, there wasn't much to see. I will say that I handled the controls quite easily for a pilot with only ten hours. My computer and pencils fell out of my shirt pocket once in a while, but these phenomena sometimes occur, I am told. I don't expect you to believe this, but I thought it was really funny and I asked my neighbour to look but he just kept staring ahead with a glassy look in his eyes. I guessed he was afraid of heights, like all non-pilots are.

By the way, something was wrong with the altimeter - it kept on winding and unwinding all the time. Finally I decided we had flown long enough, since I had worked it out on the computer. I am a whiz at the computer but something must have gone wrong with it, since when we came down to look for the Pilanesburg Airport, there wasn't anything there except mountains. These weather people had got it wrong too. It was real marginal conditions with a ceiling of about a hundred feet. You just can't trust anybody in this business except yourself, right? Why, there were even thunderstorms going on with occasional bolts of lightning.

I decided that my neighbour should see how beautiful it was and the way the lightning seemed to turn that fog all yellow but I think he was asleep, having overcome his fear of heights, and I didn't want to wake him up.

Anyway, just then an emergency occurred because the engine quit. It really didn't worry me since I had read the manual and I knew where the other ignition switch was. I just fired up the other engine and we kept on going. This business of having two engines is a real safety factor - if one quits the other is right there ready to go. Maybe all aeroplanes should have two engines. You might want to look into this.

As pilot in command I take my responsibilities very seriously. It was apparent that I would have to go down lower and keep a sharp eye in such bad weather. I was glad my neighbour was asleep because it was pretty dark under the clouds and if it hadn't been for the lightning flashes it would have been hard to navigate. Also it was hard to read road signs through the ice on the windscreen. Several cars ran off the road when we passed and I see what they mean about flying being safer than driving.

To cut a long story short, l finally spotted an airport and, since we were already late for dinner, I decided to land there. It was an air force base so I knew it had plenty of runway and, judging by all the coloured lights flashing in the control tower, we were going to be made to feel welcome. Somebody had told me that you could always talk to these military people on the international emergency frequency, so I tried it, but you wouldn't believe the language that I heard. These people ought to be straightened out, and as a taxpayer, I would like to register a complaint.

Evidently they were expecting somebody to come in and land, because they kept asking about some "goddamn stupid ?/**!% up in that fog." I wanted to be helpful so I landed on the taxiway to be out of the way in case that other fellow needed the runway.

A lot of people came running out waving at us. It was pretty evident that they had never seen an Aztec C before. One fellow, some General with a pretty nasty temper, was real mad about something. I tried to explain to him in a reasonable manner that I didn't think the ATC should be swearing at the guy up there, but his face was so red I think he must have a drinking problem. I then heard that we had ended up at Hoedspruit Air Force base - what a stroke of luck!

Well, that's about all. I hired a car and drove home from Hoedspruit because the weather really got bad, but my neighbour stayed at the hospital there. He can't make a statement yet because he's still not awake. Poor fellow, he must have the 'flu, or something.

Let me know if you need anything else, and please send my new license by registered mail.

Yours faithfully.....................