Aviation Funnies

[Doug Ireland]

Not exactly a funny but it was a memorable moment!

Back in '77 when I was on 43 sqdn at Leuchars we (the ground crew) had just finished dragging all the toys out to the flight-line and finishing off the BF's for the first flights of the day. All the power sets were off and I was the only one left outside and could hear a large piston engine in the distance. Looking out over a misty airfield I watched in awe as a Spitfire at full bore (black smoke from the exhaust, so he must have had the over-boost lever pulled on the supercharger) and about 10' off the deck, came haring over the airfield and pulled into a barrel roll over the hanger.!

Don't know where he came from or where he was going but it made my day! (And convinced me to learn how to fly)

[Peter Miller]

Similar story fro, '63

I was on 41 sqdn at Wattisham. We had Grovellins. The other squadrons had Lightnings. One afternoon there was this very distinctive sound of Merlins. All the hangars emptied as the sound brought eveyrone out to watch as one of the Mosquitos that had been filming 633 Squadron landed.

Interestingly, two of the dummy machineguns on the nose had fallen off. They were just stuck on.

[Keiran Arnold]

Can trump that !many years ago flying at RAF Honington when Atc asked us to stop because of some "traffic was going to do some overshoots 5 min later 4 B17s fly over and one does rollers for 10 mins (A/C were being used for Menphis Bell Filming) also had them flying over the house whilst being attacked by "BF" 109s during the following week>

[Peter Miller]

Did you know that that film was so awful that the original crew of Memphis Belle refused to allow the film makers to use their real names?

Also, the French crews never bothered to hand turn the engines to clear the lower cylinders of oil before starting. They blew several cylinders off over East Anglia during filming.

My scource was Roger Freeman who was historical advisor  on the film. He just about gave up in disgust when they kept ignoring his input.

[Doug Ireland]

OK pull up a sandbag, here comes another one!

I got this from one of our pilots on 43 sqdn during the after-exercise (Northern Wedding) p*** up. This was a joint Air Force / Navy thing that happened once a year and was very hard on both the aircraft and crew as some of the sorties could last up to 6 hours, refueling several times. During the exercise we used to have the Victor Tankers stationed at Leuchars and were parked on the ORP next to the runway (downwind take-off on occasion).

Anyway, one of the tankers was scrambled and was seen blatting off down the runway when the co-pilot saked the pilot if he was taking off? To which he replied "yes, why?", the reply was a shouted "the flying controls aren't switched on!". So with the overshoot rapidly approaching the pilot frantically flipped a row of switches along the bottom of the panel and hauled the kite off the ground!

[Doug Ireland]

UPS isn't an airline, its a freight forwarder.

By the way, what was that link in aid of?

[Peter Miller]

Seen that lot before,

Doug, talking of excercises.

When I was on 220 squadron, Shackletons at St Mawgan, the Navy at Plymouth developed a bad habit of phoning up and asking for an excercise to find one of their destroyers. The problem was that they would do this on a Friday and so an aircraft would have to be  laid with aircrew and ground crew over the weekend

Needless to say this did not go down well. After the third such request the CO got a bit peeved. He had an aircraft airborne and when the Friday afternoon request came in  the Shackelton flew over the destroyer as it left  Plymouth.

The pilot radioed the destroyer. "OK, We found you, excercise over."

The destrioyer radioed back. "Can we start again."

The answer was a very short and sharp. "No"

The Navy got the message and we didn't have any more weekends messed up by them

[Doug Ireland]

Did those Shackletons have the big "Spark Plug" on the top?

[Peter Miller]

No, this was back in 57

[Doug Ireland]

Sitting comfortably? Here comes another one!

Late '78 (November I think) the weather had been so bad  for a couple of weeks that the airfield (Leuchars) was taken off the Master Diversion list and all squadron aircraft were grounded. Every day we would drag everything out of the hanger only to put it all away again  a couple of hours later when flying was cancelled. This had a bad effect on the aircraft (Phantoms) as they would spring fuel / hydraulic leaks due to the temperature change taking them outside; even had the bullet-proof screen one one of them crack while it was sitting on the flight-line!

One morning after getting all the aircraft ready and watching the snow-blowers (two Whittle Engines on the front of a bowser) do their thing it was decided we would fly come what may!

The first aircraft (OC "A" Flights' kite) piloted by a young Flt Lt with a very experienced Sqdn Ldr in the rear taxied out to the far end runway, Leuchars has a bit of a hump in the middle of the runway so the far end is out of sight from the flight-line.  All seemed ok as I could hear the pilot go to full power then heard the engine note change as the burners are lit. Shortly after that I heard two bangs and saw a couple of parachutes appear in the sky along with a cloud of snow!

Apparently the pilot in his haste to get airborne lit up the engines while he was not quite straight on the runway. As a result the tail swung on the still frozen undershoot and started fish-tailing up the runway. It was then that the Navigator looked up from what he was doing and thinking something was seriously wrong with the aircraft decided to "pull the handle". This in turn panicked the pilot who promptly followed suit... this left an unmanned Phantom with both engines still in full AB to go about it own business!

Surprisingly, the undercarriage stayed in one piece as the aircraft hared off across the grass until enough of the airfield was swallowed by the engines causing them to stop somewhat rapidly.

We didn't fly anymore that day! Took months to that one airworthy again!

[Peter Miller]

Like it!

The Winter of 63 at Wattisham there was no flying for months. That snow blower system just melted the snow and ice which promptly refroze behind it.

Night shift was great. For four night as a week we came in at 4.30, the day shift knocked off at 5 and the night shift knocked off at 5.05. Off for a longer than normal weekend.

Another Javelin story.

The Winco flying was going off in one when one leg collapsed on take of. The aircraft slewed to a stop on the side of the runway. The Winco and his navigator climbed out and casually walked away. Then one looked over their shoulder and saw that the fully armed aircraft was burning. They ran like hell.

All the ground crew came out of the line hut and were yelling "Burn you B******!".

All the was left was one wing and a cold air unit and a couple of engines. No flying for the rest of that day because of the exploding ammo that had littered the runway with debis.

[Ian Jones]

AirHead,

re:Is it me? Or do computers hate you too? I write a longish "funny" but when I come to post it, the computer says "No! Too many characters. Try to keep it below 3899 characters." Well I did; I typed it in MS Word, which told me I had typed 3526 including spaces, but this site wasn't having any of it .

Have you tried doing a copy & paste of your text from Word into Notepad, then copying from Notepad into the forum editor?

When you copy into notepad all the hidden characters that Word didn't count for you (and therefore some formating) are removed so the second copy & paste from Notepad will contain the expected number of characters and more acceptable to the forum text editor.

If this works for you then of course you could always cut out he middle man & prepare your text in Notepad in the first place.

Just a thought you could try.

[George Worley - 4-Max]

Only aeromodellers worry about getting it back down 

[Roger T]

I used to do some work with Boscombe Down where they have a serious radio interference test rig (important to make sure nothing prelaunches in high electro-magnetic fields, like the aircraft missiles did on the US warship back in the ?70's). The rig is a very large expanse of tarmac at the far end of the airfield, surrounded by high pwered wires and antennae, and effectively operates as aconcentrated energy open air microwave oven, trying to see if anything fails in the high EMF.

I was told of an outside electronics company that asked if they could do a 'piggyback' test of a new probe on an airframe, as a favour when there was next an aircraft on the rig. This was subsequently done.

Unfortunately......

The probe was about 9 inches long and was temporarily taped to the side of the nose of the aircraft, with a connecting wire to monitor its operation and performance during the test. Ever tried putting a spoon in a microwave and allowing it to earth to the chassis? The probe & cable made a very effective antenna and concentrated the EMF energy during the test. How effective? How about a neat 9" electro-etched slot in the side of the fuselage!

Oops!

RT

[Ken Garner]

When 617 squadron received their first Canberra's, there were'nt the modern automatic seats as they are now.  Oh no!  It was almost a long drawn out procedure compared with the latest system.  The three ground trades that might have to air test equipment, electricians, engines and airframes, were also given a preview.   After the shock of finding that things are not good, the pilot, nav and bomb aimer, put up two switches, this fires the explosive bolts in the canopy and rear hatch.  The pilot, before he can 'go' has to pull up a lever on his left, which fires an explosive collar round the elevator control tube and a spring pulls the control column forward,  It is not usual for pilots to carry a spare pair of knee caps in their back pocket!  Then a blind is pulled down sharply over the face, the seat accelerates and after rapidly rising about three feet, a plastic membrane melts and  an even bigger cartridge fires.  The seat clears the cockpit and (parachute? no not yet sir) has to clear the fin, at the same time the seat is still fastened to the floor of the cockpit by a steel lanyard in a spool.  When the line pulls tight, the seat is clear of the fin and a pin is pulled from the top of the seat and a drogue chute deploys, stabilising the seat and the pilot releases himself from the seat, when clear of the seat he can pull his rip cord.  The modern seats look after the crew and even if they are at high altitude, a special barostat operates at 15,000 feet, throws the crew man out of the seat and deploys his parachute.  This still has its funny side!

Ken

[Peter Miller]

Still, It is a bit better than the Canberra BI8. We picked one up in Germany that had gone in vertically from 1000 feet while on approach to Gutersloh.

Now on the BI-8 the pilot has an ejection seat but the navigator/bombaimer has to swing his seat round, hook his parachute on, open the door and bail out in the old fashioned way.

The pilot of the aircraft in question ejected successfully but could never remember anything about the cause of the crash.

We recond the navigator did pretty well, he got half way through the door before the aircraft hit. I suggest you don't ask how we worked that out.

The crater was a neat front view of a Canberra but bigger than the original.

[Keiran Arnold]

Following the return from Germany, One of the JPs on 3(F) Sqn was flying his harrier alongside the CFI up when a Tucano "appeared " in front of him. Quick reactions avoided the collision but to quote our young aviator "..the picture out of the canopy was going green blue green blue so I waited until it was green and pulled the handle..." a perfect ejection followed and he was flying again several weeks later

[Ken Garner]

My first air test after some extensive electrical work still makes me smile when I think about  it over half a century later.  I was strapping myself in when the pilot said. "If I say eject eject, don't say 'what',  you will be talking to your self".

Ken

[Peter Miller]

Another crash recovery in Germany, actually this one was over the border in Holland.

The Canberra hit flat and was almost in one piece even though the crew had departed. It landed on a Dutch farm.

The recovery crew took our big wrecker, a huge mobile crane that could just about lift a complete Canberra. The team was commanded by a young and inexperienced officer who thought he knew what he was doing.(Experienced officers knew enough to accept advice from others.)

On arrival at the scene the wrecker driver asked for the sectional road to be laid down.This was a mass of sections of steel that could be linked together to make up a road. A tiring and time consuming job.

Our young officer jumped up and down on the surface of the field and  insisted that that it would take the weight of the wrecker. Under protest the driver took it onto the field and it promptly  sank up to the axles.

The officer instructed the crew to put a railway sleeper under the truck and jack it up. Well, to cut a long story short they jacked at least five sleepers into the ground, one on top of the other, before the truck lifted.

When the job was over the officer insisted that they recover all the sleepers. When his back was turned they removed the top one and left the rest.

[Steve Hargreaves - Moderator]

This has been doing the rounds for a bit but here goes......

 The brand spanking new Airbus 340-600, sat in its hangar in Toulouse, France without a single hour of airtime. Enter the Arab flight crew of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT)to conduct pre-delivery tests on the ground, such as engine runups, prior to delivery to Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi. 

The ADAT crew taxied the A340-600 to the run-up area. Then they took all four engines to takeoff power with a virtually empty aircraft.  Not having read the run-up manuals, they had no clue just how light an empty A340-600 really is.  

The takeoff warning horn was blaring away in the cockpit becausethey had all 4 engines at full power. The aircraft computers thoughtthey were trying to takeoff but it had not been configured properly(flaps/slats , etc.) Then one of the ADAT crew decided to pull thecircuit breaker on the Ground Proximity Sensor to silence the alarm. 

This fools the aircraft into thinking it is in the air. 

The computers automatically released all the brakes and set theaircraft rocketing forward. The ADAT crew had no idea that this is asafety feature so that pilots can't land with the brakes on.  Not one member of the seven-man Arab crew was smart enough to throttle back the engines from their max power setting, so the $200million brand-new aircraft crashed into a blast barrier, totaling it.    

The extent of injuries to the crew is unknown, for there has been anews blackout in the major media in France and elsewhere. Coverage of the story was deemed insulting to Moslem Arabs.

Gotta love it!!!

[Peter Miller]

This story came direct from the architect  involved.

In 1961 in Aden there was a new shopping centre being built. IT had a concrete overhang to shade the shoppers. This was built on pillars with a counter weight to be built on the rear. The foreman was instructed to wait for 7 days after castuing, build on the counterweight and then remove the shuttering and supports.

The foreman knocked on the concrete after abiout three days, decided that it was hard engine and removed the supports, forgeeting to build the counter weight.

The whole thing collapsed driving three of the workers into the ground like nails.

[Roger T]

Back a bit closer to the toy aeroplane theme.....

 Thermal soarers do it with a crick in their neck

Slope soarers do it with altitude.

You can always tell a slope soarer by the suntanned tops of their thumb, the big smile and  the squashed bugs on the teeth and gums

BTW, you don't have to put electrickery in a FunJet to release the fun part of it....

Roger T

[Terence Lynock]

LESSON FOR TODAY.........

IF YOU CAN STILL SEE THE TIP OF THE FIN ABOVE GROUND LEVEL IT WASNT A HEAVY LANDING.............

REGARDS.

[Ken Garner]

This isn't funny, if you havn't a lump in your throat! this is aviation!!!

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter silvered wings.

Sunward i've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun split clouds and done a hundred things,

you have not dreamed of.

Wheeled and soared and swung.  High in the sunlit silence, hov'ring there,

I've chased the shouting wind along and flung my eager craft thru footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delerious burning blue, I've topped the wind swept heights with easy grace

where never lark or even eagle flew and while with silent lifting mind I've trod.

The high untrespassed sancity of space.

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Originally thought to have been written by Richard Hillary, but written by John Magee, a Canadian in the Royal Air Force

Ken  

[Doug Ireland]

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