FUNNY STUFF!!!!!
This is going to be a new
column where we try to bring a little humor into the day. Over the years I have
collected a number of funny things pertinent to flying which I’d like to share
with you. I have no idea where many of these came from
nor do I know how to appropriately credit those who came up with this stuff. I
can only say “THANKS” for your brilliant and comic minds. Should anyone out there
recognize anything that is theirs, please let me know and I’ll give the proper
credits.
Again, thanks and enjoy!!!!
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Although
flying a helicopter may seem very difficult, the truth is that if you can drive
a car, you can, with just a few minutes of instruction, take the controls of
one of these amazing machines. Of course, you would immediately crash and die.
This is
why you need to remember:
RULE ONE OF
HELICOPTER PILOTING:
Always
have somebody sitting right next to you who actually knows
how to fly the helicopter and can snatch the controls away from you because the
truth is that helicopters are nothing at all like cars.
Cars
work because of basic scientific principles that everybody understands, such as
internal combustion, and parallel parking. Whereas scientists still have no
idea what holds helicopters up.
"Whatever it is, it could stop at any moment," is their current
feeling.
This leads us to:
RULE TWO OF
HELICOPTER PILOTING:
Maybe
you should forget the entire thing.
This is
what I was thinking recently as I stood outside a small airport in
traffic problems.
I began having severe doubts when I saw Pam's helicopter.
This was a small helicopter. It looked like it should have a little slot where
you insert quarters to make it go up and down. I knew that if we got airborne
in a helicopter this size in
Also, this helicopter had no doors. As a Frequent Flyer, I know for a fact that
all your leading
"Don't we need a larger helicopter?" I asked Pam, "with
doors?"
"Get in," said Pam.
Now we're in the helicopter and Pam is explaining the controls to me over the
headset. But there's static and the engine is making a lot of noise.
"........your throttle [something]," she is saying. "This is
your cyclic and [something] your collective".
"What?" I say.
"[something] give you the controls when we reach 130 metres,"
Pam says.
"WHAT?", I say.
But Pam is not listening. She is moving a control thing and WHOOAA we are off
the ground, hovering, and now, WHOOOOOAAAA, we are shooting up in the air, and
there are still no doors on this particular helicopter.
Now Pam is giving me the main control thing.
RULE THREE OF
HELICOPTER PILOTING:
If anyone tries to
give you the main control thing, refuse to take it!
Pam
says: "You don't need hardly any pressure to ........"
AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
"Now that was too much pressure," Pam says.
Now I am flying the helicopter. “I AM FLYING THE HELICOPTER”!
I am
flying it by not moving a single body part for fear of jiggling the control
thing.
I look like the Lincoln Memorial Statue of Abraham Lincoln, only more rigid.
"Make a right turn," Pam is saying.
I gingerly move the control thing one zillionth
of an inch to the right and the helicopter LEANS OVER TOWARDS MY SIDE AND THERE
IS STILL NO DOOR HERE!!!!!!!
I instantly move the thing one zillionth of an inch back.
"I'm not turning right," I inform Pam.
"What?" she says.
"Only left turns," I tell her. “When you've been flying helicopters
as long as I have, you know your limits”.
After a
while it becomes clear to Pam that if she continues to allow the “Lincoln
Statue” to pilot the helicopter, we are going to wind up flying in a straight
line until we run out of fuel, possibly over
That is
the good news. The bad news is she is now saying something about demonstrating
an "emergency procedure".
"It's for when your engine dies," says Pam
"It's called auto-rotation”. Do you like amusement park rides?
I say, "No, I DOOOOOOO............."
RULE
FOUR OF HELICOPTER PILOTING:
Auto-rotation means
"coming down out of the sky at about the same speed and aerodynamic
stability as that of a forklift dropped from a bomber."
Now we're close to the ground (although my stomach is still at 130 meters) and
Pam is completing my training by having me hover the
helicopter.
RULE FIVE OF
HELICOPTER PILOTING:
You can't hover the
helicopter.
The idea
is to hang over one spot on the ground. I am hovering over an area about the
size of
If I were trying to rescue a person from the roof of a 100 story burning
building, the person would realize that it would be safer to simply jump. At
times I think I am hovering upside down. Even Pam looks nervous.
So I am very happy when we finally get back on the ground. Pam tells me I did
great and she'd be glad to take me up again. I tell her that sounds like a fun
idea.
RULE SIX OF
HELICOPTER PILOTING:
Sometimes
you have to lie!!!!!!!!!!!
******************************************************
"HELICOPTER PILOTS ARE
DIFFERENT"
By Harry Reasoner
The thing is helicopters are different from planes.
An airplane by its nature wants to fly, and if not interfered with
too strongly by unusual events or by a deliberately incompetent pilot, it will
fly.
A helicopter does not want to fly.
It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls
working in opposition to each other, and if there is any disturbance in this
delicate balance the helicopter stops flying immediately and disastrously.
There is no such thing as a gliding helicopter.
This is why being a helicopter pilot is so different from being an
airplane pilot, and why, in general, airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed,
buoyant extroverts, and helicopter pilots are brooders, introspective
anticipators of trouble.
They know that if something bad has not happened, it is about to.
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YOU MIGHT BE AN
AIRCRAFT MECHANIC IF:
1. You've ever slept on the concrete under a wing.
2. You've ever said "Oh yes sir, its
supposed to look like that"
3. You know what JP4/JP8 (Jet A) tastes like.
4. You've ever used a black grease pencil to fix an over worn
tire.
5. You have a better bench-stock in the pockets of your coveralls
then the supply
system.
6. You've ever used a piece of safety wire as a toothpick.
7. You've ever been told to go get "some prop wash and a yard
of flightline."
8. You've ever worked a 14 hour shift on a
aircraft that isn't flying the next day.
9. (My favorite) You can sleep anywhere,
anytime, but as soon as the engines shut
down
you are wide awake.
10. You've ever stood on wheel chocks to keep your feet dry.
11. Used “dikes” to trim fingernails.
12. Wiped leaks immediately prior to crew show.
13. Wondered where they keep finding the
idiots that keep making up stupid rules.
14. You've ever had to defuel an
aircraft an hour after refueling it.
15. You've used a wheel chock as a hammer.
16. You know more about your coworkers than your own family.
17. You ever wished the pilot would say "great
airplane."
18. You've ever wondered why it takes a college degree to break an
airplane but only
a high school diploma
to fix one.
*****************************************************
HOPE
YOU HAD A FEW LAUGHS!!
‘TIL
NEXT TIME,
PAUL
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