Thought for the day...

Today's topic is SITUATIONAL AWARENESS!

If today you were preflighting your helicopter in the dark, and an orangutan was sitting silently on top of the mast...

HOW LONG WOULD IT BE BEFORE YOU NOTICED???

Don't forget to do a walk-around.  They don't cost much.  

Peace, Errwolf

Thought for the day

You can train a monkey to fly an ILS, but you can't train a monkey to pull a phase.  

One day on approach to Singapore

News item: Texting Pilot Forgets to Lower Gear

Note to haters and lawyers: this is a joke, not the actual transcript.  Thank you.  Joke continues.  

CVR transcript of Jetstar 320

PF = Pilot Flying, or in this case Pilot Forgetting

PM = Pilot Monitoring, or in this case Pilot: Moron

ATC = duh, ATC

ATC: Jetstar 320, cross MORON intersection at 2000 feet, contact tower MORON inbound.

PM: Mmmmmm.

PF: You need to push the PTT button.

PM: (click) Uhhhhhhh, roger, MORON inbound uhhhhhh (freq change)

PM: Signapore tower, Jetstar 320 MORON inbound for the visual RWY12R.

(stone cold silence)

PM: Ooops, tuned the NAV radio. No wonder I couldn’t get the whole freq in. Stand by.

(fiddle fiddle fiddle)

PM: Signapore tower, likeiwuzsayin, Jetstar 320 MORON inbound for the visual RWY12R.

ATC: Jetstar 320, runway 30L is in use.

PM: Yeah that’s what I meant. 30R.

ATC: 30L.

PM: Sure.

ATC: Jetstar 320, do you have the airport in sight?

PM: The Singapore Airport?

ATC: Yes.

PM: Why yes I do.

ATC: Good. Make straight in for RWY 30L, check wheels down, follow a Spruce Goose on a 2 mile final.

PM: Searching.

PF: Before landing check.

PM: Speaking of landing, what you want to eat here, they have that pizza place right by the gate.

PF: Should I get my own flaps or what?

PM: No, I was going to get the supreme, I hadn’t got the flaps before.

PF: BIRDS!

PM: Huh?

WHAPWHAPWHAPSCHMACKTHUMPTHUD (yaw) (compressor stall)

PF: We should write that up.

PM: Screw that, one more leg and I’m going home. Maintenance can figure it out.

ATC: Jetstar 320, previously issued traffic is clearing at taxiway C, cleared to land RWY 30L, where are you parking?

PM: We’ll be parking at the terminal.

ATC: ??????

BAM BAM BAM BAM

PM: Whose banging on the cockpit door now?

PF: Oh, we have a non-rev Jet Blue captain deadheading in first class.

(sounds of screams, religious ranting, flight attendants kung fu fighting)

PF: Did you ever get that before landing checklist?

PM: What? I got a text.

PF: Dang, we’re hot on this approach. Flaps 90.

PM: Maybe it’ll make up for that time we lost after we left the gear down on climb out for fifty miles.

PF: Yeah, we’ll never do that again.

(gear warning horn silenced by PM)

PF: Are we cleared to land?

PM: Lemme ask, I turned the volume down.

PF: You turned tower down? Arm speed brakes, we got a tailwind or something.

ATC: (slow fade up to normal volume) JETSTAR 320, do you require assistance?

PM (texting) We got it, we’re a little busy here.

ATC: Roger, rolling crash.

PM: 10-4.

PM: Oh. Hey, Singapore tower, did you text me a minute ago?

ATC: YES I SAID CHECK GEAR DOWN YOUR GEAR IS UP AGGGGGGH.

PM: Oh. Well I guess we’ll go around, as the article stated, at 720 feet we are too low to extend the landing gear. Got the high skid package on this one.

ATC: Jetstar 320 GO AROUND GO AROUND GO AROUND.

PF: Going around.

PM: Tower, do you know that it costs our airline $2000 every time we go around?

ATC: Roger, give me $5000 worth - direct MORON and hold.

For the record I would like to state that all these conversations are fictitious and I would never do anything like this.  

Another old pilot joke...

Three old, old pilots are walking together on the flightline.  


"Sure is windy today" says the first.


"Naw, its Thursday" says the second.  


"Me too, let's go get a beer" says the third.  

Pilot Joke

One day a long, long time ago, there was a pilot who WASN'T full of it.

But that was only one pilot, and just for one day.

And that was a long, long time ago.

Old procurement joke...

A good plan with funding is a DREAM.  


A good plan without funding is a HALLUCINATION.  


Funding without a good plan is a NIGHTMARE.  

Another pilot joke...

What's the difference between a pizza and a copilot?


The pizza can feed a family of four.  

The One Moose Airplane

A cautionary tale in aircraft overloading and customer pressure. 


Not a true story, but it happens every day...


Once there was an Alaskan Bush Pilot who flew hunters in his floatplane on contract to remote locations.  He was hired by two hunters who he flew to a remote lake and agreed to return in three days to pick them up.  The pilot warned the hunters in no uncertain terms that he only had a ONE MOOSE AIRCRAFT, and no matter how many moose they bagged on their hunting trip, they could only load ONE MOOSE aboard the aircraft for the return trip.  


As scheduled, three days later, the bush pilot returned to the lake and was chagrined to find that the hunters had bagged TWO moose, and were adamant about wanting to take both of them on the airplane.  


The pilot explained that it was a one moose aircraft, and one moose was all it could carry.  


The hunters countered that both moose were field dressed, and kind of scrawny, and therefore added up to maybe 1.25 moose at best.  


The pilot didn't buy it, and launched into a long boring diatribe about aircraft weight and balance, Federal Aviation Regulations, risking his license and livelihood, etc. etc.  


The hunters mentioned that one of them knew a pilot once who had a completely different interpretation of federal law as it applied to moose carriage, and that the game wardens really didn't care anyway, so what was the big deal?  


Growing increasingly irritated as this stalemate was delaying his already packed charter schedule, the pilot stated that if they wanted to go out, they were going with one moose, and no more than one moose, end of discussion.  


The hunters began to openly speculate on the condition of the aircraft, the payment arrangement for the flight, the reasons that the pilot was still single, and moreover, stated that the previous year, on the same lake, with the same type aircraft, another pilot had flown out with two moose on their previous trip, and what exactly was his problem anyway?  


Gritting his teeth, the pilot agreed to carry the two moose, as the sun was beginning to go down and it was pointless to argue any longer.  As the moose were loaded, the floatplane nearly swamped its floats from the weight of the two moose.  


Configuring the floatplane for a maximum performance takeoff, the pilot water taxied to the far end of the lake and performed the best takeoff he could muster with all the power the airplane had.  Performance was weaker than expected and at the far end of the lake, he was forced to bank around trees as he squeezed every ounce of performance out of the floatplane that he could.  Engine straining and wings bending, it appeared that they might make it, but the two moose were too much.  The airplane settled into the trees, chopping off first the tops of trees, then small branches, then larger branches, then finally somersaulting into the undergrowth in an ugly wreck.  


It was a horrific scene.  Moose meat hung from low branches, the smell of jet fuel mixed with the smell of fresh cut pine and fresh cut aluminum.  Mercifully, the pilot and hunters were knocked unconscious but not killed.  


Half an hour later, one hunter, waking up from his stupor, yelled out to the other hunter "where are we?"


The second hunter, looking around to gain his bearings, said "I think we're about a hundred yards from where we ended up last year".  

Pilot Joke

A young boy approaches an airline pilot at the terminal and says "Mister, when I grow up, I want to be an airline pilot too".  


Taking the young boy aside, the airline pilot says to him "Son, you can't do both of those, eventually you will have to choose one or the other".