Aviation Funnies

[Bev Lawton]

I have no problem with the links using either Firefox or IE  so you did it correctly Lee!

 The "English" link for the ATC YouTube is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyO-bWGxWBU&feature=related

[Lee Burke]

Its a great recording, isn't it.  How do those guys cope? 

What I meant when I said i couldn't make the link work was that I couldn't get the link to the airport diagram to work on this forum's "link maker gizmo", that's why I had to paste that URL.  Maybe it was  becuase its to a Pdf file and not an HTML. 

[Don9f]

Pete Russell who used to write his column "Straight & Level" in RCM&E some years ago, had a saying.....

"A superior pilot was one who used his superior knowledge to avoid having to use his superor skill"

Another was "There are old pilots and bold pilots but no old, bold pilots".

He used to live in Worksop, does anyone know if he's still around?

[Doug Ireland]

While I was serving at RAF Leuchars (43 sqdn) we had a Phantom delivered to us from Major Service which was then taken up for its acceptance air test. This was done by the Squadron Commander and a very experienced navigator. About two hours later the aircraft returned and the pilot reported that the kite would yaw to the right every time the auto-pilot was engaged.

The aircraft was taken into the hanger and put up on jacks (quite a sight to see a phantom on jacks with its wheels up) for all sorts of tests. Firstly, the airframe guys stripped and checked all the hydraulics and called it cured only to have the same fault reported on the subsequent flight test. So, back in the hanger!

Next, the flight systems guys had a go but ended up with the same problem on the next flight test. This went on for weeks and must have cost a fortune but was finally resolved by a young SAC Airframe Mechanic looking at the aircraft while it was back up on jacks. This time there was a shortage of space in the hanger so the kite was parked "nose in". He went to the stores and got a ball of string and attached one end of it to one wingtip and the other to the top of the fin. Checking from the other wingtip he worked out that the fin was about 3 degrees off vertical! Once this was sorked out the aircraft flew normally!

The pilot didn't notice it as he was unknowingly correcting the yaw while flying without the auto-pilot engaged.

Just goes to show, sometimes the younger eyes have it!

[David Ashby - Moderator]

Nice one Doug - I'm just off to check my models....

[Paul C]

My favorite story is of when I worked in an area producing parts for missiles and ordnance.

As one of the 3 apprentices on that section, we all got the long wait and left-handed screwdriver treatment as well as getting shot at randomly with a device that fed 8BA nuts into a pipe connected to a 200psi air line.

Revenge was agreed upon so over a week or so, when the senior guys went to the pub for lunch leaving the 'rookies' guarding the workshop, we wired up all the machines and work stations with very fine bore plastic pipe.

A spell of lunchtime testing showed us that water just misted when shot through the tube, normal oil didn't run fast enough and anything alcohol based was too dangerous to shoot at guys working on and near grinding and cutting machines.

Eventually, while raiding stores, we found a gallon of 'fireproof' fine oil used in some of the things we built - perfect !

So one fine and sunny day it was time - we carefully hooked the final pipes up to a tank and the 200psi air line and as 10 o'clock struck we opened the air cock.

Nothing happened for what felt like an age, then from the workshop an ever increasing wall of shouts and swearing.... We took a swift exit out the back soon followed by a large number of angry oppos, all with neat wet stains at crutch level, it looked like a day out for the 'bladder control challenged', we did laugh (while running for our lives).. Until the boss appeared.

Once back in the workshop, the network of pipes and the tank were discovered with the (now empty) gallon of oil and we were duly taken off to "The Office for a chat"

The top man, while trying not to laugh too loudly asked us why and how.

After an explanation of the 8BA nut gun and long wait, left handed screw drivers etc etc we described our tests and how we set it up.

His replies were..
- Stupid workshop jokes are traditional - live with it for you one day will be the "Senior Guys"....
- £800/gallon, military grade, light silicon damper oil is not to be used for anything other than what it was intended for.
- As a punishment, you 3 will clean all the machines every night this week.
- And, excellent work lads, showed good planning, teamwork and execution.. but don't do it again..

A while later a memo came round..

"Apprentices are not, under any circumstances, to be shot.."

We had the last laugh though, light silicon oil doesn't wash out of heavy grade cotton overalls or jeans !

[Dave Towell]

Excellent!!!!!

[Peter Miller]

It isn't just apprentices who get caught out.

One rather dim airframe mechanic was sent round the station looking for the jacks to do a retraction test on a Chipmunk. He actually fell for that even though we had had the Cipmunk on the unti for a couple of weeks.

Later when he had to change a main wheel on the Chipmunk he asked where the jacks were and didn't believe it when he was told to get two other men to lift the wing on their backs and put a tool box under the end of the undercarraige leg.

Another equally dim engine mechnaic was sent round the station to get a tim of propeller pitch.

I was sent round the stores for a long wait. I knew that one, so I went and read the paper and  had a couple of fags in the crew room instead. They had the long wait for me to come back.

[001]

There is the very old and probably ficticious story about a group of servicemen who were told to be in a lecture hall for a talk on Keats.

The officer in charge shouted at them "I bet none of you ignorant lot know what a Keat is!"

[Paul C]

I got sent to the stores (about the same time as my story above) for a 'double bladed hack saw'.

I point blank refused to go and almost ended up in a fight with the guy about it until he took me to the stores and ordered it himself - they used it for cutting the correct size slots in the top of screws and bolts to fit a standard screw driver..  - guess what i did for the rest of the day...

Paul

[Mr Sam]

The bottom of air is hard, so stay away from it.

[Peter Miller]

On the same theme, I often qoute the great Neil Williams.

"The most useless comodity in aerobatics is the amount of sky above you"

[Lee Burke]

Wow, difficult to say who is more reckless, the pilot or the crowd watching.  Great dodge, though, certainly saved the plane

[Ken Garner]

Tales from the RAF.

We are in Malaya on a six month detachment and the Canberra's are just returning after dropping 1,000 pounders on the terrs.  I signalled mine to turn onto the pan, shut down engines and open bomb doors with an armourer standing bu in case of hang ups.  No hang ups, oh no, something worse.  As the bomb doors opened a thousand pounder slid through the gap and crunched onto the tarmac.  It sat there glaring at us, the ground crew didn't know which way to run or how fast and then we realised, it hadn't fallen far enough to arm.  The air crew must have wondered why the ground crew were standing in little groups, counting their worry beads!  Fun over for the day.

Ken.

I've quite a few of these true to life anecdotes, - interested?

[Myron Beaumont]

Yep

[Ken Garner]

Myron say's yep!  Here's another.

Deep clean, use kerosene!       One of our Canberra's developes a strange fault.  Both engines lose 20% power after twenty minutes flying.  After two day's of testing, the fitters are still none the wiser.  Rolls Royce are contacted and duly, a 'Boffin' arrives, one of those types with a constant sneer on their face.  The engines are run up  by grumble guts and afterwards is pushed back into the hangar.  The next day our Sgt' told me someone at the dispersal thought one of the fuel pumps sounded noisy and if faulty, could be changed while the a/c was grounded,  I went over to the a/c and couldn't see anyone around, so went to the cockpit, switched on the power and turned the suspect pump on,  There was a shout that sounded like 'YAROOH ROTTER' followed by a few expletives!  Then, this 'apparition' appeared at the cockpit door, it was the 'boffin' covered from head to feet with kerosene!  He gurgled something that souinded like 'Bubble belch gurgle Flt Sergeant !  and squelched away.  He came back and in between belches and gurgles, he managed to tell me the Fl Sergeant wanted me and I was 'for it'.  I went to the office and when a rather stern voice bade me enter, squelchy left.  I went in and after I shut the door, a broad smile split his face, he said.  "Good show, he's been a b....y nuisance, when he gets on the starboard engine, do it again!   I've just told the CO and he's strill laughing.

Ken   

[Dave Towell]

I like things like that I think they call it KARMA !!!

[Ken Garner]

 Row out the dinghy!

There's a brand new electrician at the dispersal and I have the job of showing him round the Lincoln.  Its a cold day  and the NAAFI wagon had just called, so we took our coffee and wads into the nose of the Lincoln and I carried on telling him pro's and cons of the plane.  We had finished break and before I could stop him, the new lad threw his dregs down what looked like a drain in the floor.  There was a bang and a thud and a twelve man dinghy popped out of the wing root.  The look alike drain was the flotation switch for the dinghy in case of a ditching at sea!!!  I had to put him on a technical charge.  He got seven days confined to camp and had to pay £5 towards the cost of putting the dinghy back.  Well it did look like a drain!!!

Ken

[John Bunting]

A faintly amusing true story from my early working life in the Met. Office.

The time: 1949, plus or minus a year or so.

The place: the Met. Office at RAF Lyneham.

Enter the station CO, to speak to the senior Met Officer about the forecast for an impending York flight to Gibraltar. In the course of conversation, the CO asks, "What time does it get dark in Gibraltar?  "Hm, not sure, sir" says the Met officer. "Just a moment, I'll ask Maurice". Presses switch on Tannoy 'squawk box', communicating with Air Traffic Control on the floor above. "Maurice, what time does it get dark in Gibraltar?"  Maurice, a somewhat irreverent F/Lt., replies, "Haw, dunno; when the bloody sun goes down, I suppose". 

[Keiran Arnold]

A true story of a simple case of misidentifying the blow down bottle and the canopy seal bottle in the 80s.

A newly arrived engine mechanic on the Tornado weapons OCU is sent to top up the emergency U/C blow down bottle (this should be at  200 Bar) the young airman opens the wrong panel and see the canopy seal inflation bottle (this should be about 10 - 12 Psi) Our illustrious LAC now attemps to put 200 bar in the canopy seal bottle at about 100bar the bottle fails with an almighty bang that can be heard in the line office 200 yrds away.  A stunned LAC now stans around as all and sundry come to inspect the damage-fortunatly very little although the a/c still has a 4" dent in the equipmnet shelf (still flying today as a GR4A)

[Peter Miller]

Left, right, left, right. Mind your fingers! CLANG!

I would have thought that that would have been an airframe man's job.

[Airhead]

I was told this was true, but doubt it. Either way, I like it…

A commercial airliner makes a pretty ropey landing, shaking the fillings of all the passengers. The pilot follows company rules and stands by the door saying goodbye to the passengers and thanking them for flying with that airline. He thinks he’s got away with it as most of the passengers are off the plane, when a little old lady hobbles past with her walking stick.

“Goodbye and thank you for flying with us today.” He says.

“Goodbye Dear.” She says, but turns round on the top step. “Tell me one thing though before I go.” she says, “Did we crash, or were we shot down?”

This IS true. I know; I was there…

I used to work at BAe on the F1-11s (for the USAF). When you were given a job, you were “clocked onto it” and you clocked in and out each morning and evening using that card until the job was finished or you were "clocked onto" your next job.

One Monday, a chap with whom I worked, (the laziest man in the world, I reckon) was told to watch a fuelled-up plane for leaks (the tanks had been desealed, resealed and were checked with a fuel load which was pressurised to a few psi). The foreman then went off on a few days leave.

Any leaks were marked, then investigated and fixed when the fuel was pumped off again. He was given his new clock card by the clocking office and, happy as anything, sat down to watch for dripping jet fuel, basically paraffin, which will find the tiniest of leaks. The guy sat there until the end of his working day, clocked out and went home, returned the next morning, clocked back in and sat down again.

When the foreman returned from his sojourn on the Friday, this guy was sat in a chair by the plane and, when asked what he was doing, told the foreman about being clocked on to ‘drip-watch’.

“But the plane was de-fuelled by Monday’s nightshift!”

“No-one told me…!” says our hero.

But he did know. He knew all week that he was watching an empty plane; he just didn’t want to do any work!

Just sitting there all week like that would have driven a lesser man bonkers.

[Airhead]

Also whilst at BAe, I heard about another workmate that was asked, in his interview for the job, about previous experience – well, you don’t want just anyone fiddling with fighter-bombers. He explained that he’d had loads of experience, he’d worked for years on the 125s…

He was given an ‘A rate’ position (skilled man), but it was later discovered that he was indeed great on the 125s, sadly not BAe125s, but Intercity 125 "High-speed" trains!

It may have been him that was given the job of removing the wheels from a F1-11, my memory doesn’t recall who it was, exactly. The plane was up on jacks and he was left to get on with the job, so, selecting a socket wrench, he started to remove the row of nuts round the rim of one wheel. Luckily someone with more knowledge that him spotted him working and took a closer look…

“Whoa!” came the shout, “STOP!”

He was actually removing the nuts that held the two-part wheels together, not the one huge nut, hidden behind a hub cap, that actually held the wheel onto its splined hub. Had he carried on, he’d have got to the point where the remaining studs would have sheared off due to the force exerted by the massive pressure to which F1-11 tyres were inflated! If that had happened, he’d have been not much more than a red smear across the hangar floor that would have extended up to, and through, the wheel-shaped hole in the wall!

The moral? - Read the T.O.s!!! (Technical Orders – basically a Haynes manual for the plane.)

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 .

Hence the two posts...Hope you enjoyed them.

Airhead

[David Ashby - Moderator]

Yes I did thanks Airhead - reminds me of a quote I once heard from someone who'd heard the Duke of Edinburgh remark to a pilot after a very hard landing something along the lines of ...." if you want to know where your plane is you'll find it stuffed up my.........."   and you can fill in the blank........

[Lee Burke]

Groan