While taxiing at London Gatwick, the crew of a US Air flight departing for Ft. Lauderdale made a wrong turn and came nose to nose with a United 727. An irate female ground controller lashed out at the US Air crew, screaming, "US Air 2771, where the hеll are you going! I told you to turn right onto Charlie taxiway! You turned right on Delta! Stop right there. I know it's difficult for you to tell the difference between 'C' and 'D', but get it right!"
Continuing her rage to the embarrassed crew, she was now shouting hysterically, "God! Now you've sсrеwеd everything up! It'll take forever to sort this out! You stay right there and don't move till I tell you to! You can expect progressive taxi instructions in about half an hour, and I want you to go exactly where I tell you, when I tell you, and how I tell you! You got that, US Air 2771?"
"Yes ma'am," the humbled crew responded. Naturally, the ground control communications frequency fell terribly silent after the verbal bashing of US Air 2771. Nobody wanted to chance engaging the irate ground controller in her current state of mind. Tension in every cockpit out in Gatwick was definitely running high. Just then an unknown pilot broke the silence and keyed his microphone, asking, "Wasn't I married to you once?"
Jack was sitting in an airplane when another guy took the seat beside him. The new guy was an absolute wreck, pale, hands shaking, biting his nails and moaning in fear.
"Hey, pal, what's the matter?" Jack asked
"Oh man... I've been transferred to California," the other guy answered, "there's crazy people in California and they have shootings, gangs, race riots, drugs, the highest сriме rate..."
"Hold on," Jack interrupted, "I've lived in California all my life, and it is not as bad as the media says. Find a nice home, go to work, mind your own business, enroll your kids in a good school and it's as safe as anywhere in the world."
The other passenger relaxed and stopped shaking for a moment and said,
"Oh, thank you. I've been worried to death, but if you live there and say it's OK, I'll take your word for it. What do you do for a living?"
"Me?" said Jack, "I'm a tail gunner on a bread truck."
An Airbus 380 is on its way across the Atlantic. It flies consistently at 800 km/h at 30,000 feet, when suddenly an Eurofighter with a Tempo Mach 2 appears.
The pilot of the fighter jet slows down, flies alongside the Airbus and greets the pilot of the passenger plane by radio: "Airbus, boring flight isn’t it? Now have a look here!"
He rolls his jet on its back, accelerates, breaks through the sound barrier, rises rapidly to a dizzying height, and then swoops down almost to sea level in a breathtaking dive. He loops back next to the Airbus and asks: "Well, how was that?"
The Airbus pilot answers: "Very impressive, but watch this!"
The jet pilot watches the Airbus, but nothing happens. It continues to fly straight, at the same speed. After 15 minutes, the Airbus pilot radios, "Well, how was that?
Confused, the jet pilot asks, "What did you do?"
The Airbus pilot laughs and says: "I got up, stretched my legs, walked to the back of the aircraft to use the washroom, then got a cup of coffee and a chocolate fudge pastry."
I was inspecting a communications facilities in Alaska. Since I had little experience in flying in small planes, I was nervous when we approached a landing sтriр in a snow-covered area. The pilot descended to just a couple hundred feet, then gunned both engines, climbed, and circled back. While my heart pounded, the passenger beside me seemed calm.
"I wonder why he didn't land," I said.
"He was checking to see if the landing sтriр was plowed," the man said.
As we made a second approach, I glanced out the window. "It looks plowed to me," I commented.
"No," my seat mate said. "It hasn't been cleared for some time."
"How can you tell?" I asked.
"Because," the man informed me, "I'm the guy who drives the plow."