Pilots Love Practical Jokes

[kimberlyanne546]

OK, so another thread today reminded me of something REALLY STUPID I did recently (I know, I know, surprise, surprise).

This month, I flew my very first XC far enough away that full tanks left me hoping I'd have an hour or more of fuel remaining when I landed (my personal minimums). According to the POH etc. I could do this easily with either no wind or a tail wind.

When I landed, I was WAY EARLY (more than 20 minutes early) so I knew I was most likely OK but that depended on my leaning, RPM's etc.

So I decided before the FBO put some fuel in the 150, I should stick the tanks.... just to be sure I was safe upon landing there, and not risking our lives due to fuel starvation.... and me not wanting to spend the extra Hobbs time making a mid-way fuel stop.

I remembered that for a 150 there are FOUR GALLONS of unusable fuel (unlike the 152, which only has 1.5 gallons). So remembering this, I put the dipstick in each tank. My total was roughly 7 gallons remaining in the plane.

Now, 7 gallons is MORE than an hour of flying in a 150 but if you subtract 4 from 7 you get 3 gallons. That is LESS than an hour and I got scared.

I texted the plane owner something like this:

(Him) "How was your flight?"

(Me) "Perfect. Dumb question, though - if there was physically 7 gallons in the tanks - do I subtract the 4 unusable from that? Meaning - did I land with 7 gallons to spare - or - gasp - with only three?"

(Him) "You tank the total fuel, subtract the total weight of the aircraft and add the last three numbers of the N-Numbers of the aircraft and then divide it by the date not using the year"


Yes - these are our actual text messages on my phone. Yes, he is that awesome.

When I finally got home 4 days later he came out to my plane and asked me to show him the dipstick. There, in huge bold letters, next to the lines and numbers, it says: "Total Gallons of USEABLE Fuel".

Gosh I felt dumb.

Before I left on that same XC, he even said he hid 5 items on my preflight (lying) to be sure I did a safe and thorough preflight. One of them was a huge "caution" tape on my door handle. I cracked up, laughing hard.

Another flight he pushed on the tail to make me think I'd gotten my CG wrong. It felt funny to almost wheelie a plane.

Do all pilots love playing jokes on each other? What pilot practical jokes are you guilty of?

 

[Geico266]

I put an Obama campaign poster in front of a buddies hangar. He is a rep. Does that count?

How about the time I stole another pilot's car and put it in my hangar and shut the door.

Or how about the time we "gently" wrapped a buddies plane with crime scene tape?

A FSDO inspector used to hangar at my airport (use to ) He dubbed our area "Bandit Row". The name stuck and now there is a name plate with that on the end of our hangar.

Na, I would never do practice jokes.

 

[kimberlyanne546]

I put an Obama campaign poster in front of a buddies hangar. He is a rep. Does that count?

How about the time I stole another pilot's car and put it in my hangar and shut the door.

Or how about the time we "gently" wrapped a buddies plane with crime scene tape?

Na, I would never do practice jokes.

Awesome. Just like the caution tape placed on my airplane.

 

[kimberlyanne546]

Oh and I just remembered - he stole my flight bag and hid it in his truck, then said he saw it fly off the back of the pick up truck I was riding in. I ran to the back, the bag was gone, and I ran off to find where it had "fallen" out of the back of the vehicle. I had my iPad in there so I was mad..... then I saw his face and knew he was messing with us (there were three pilots).

 

[bigblockz8]

Not sure if it's a practical or funny joke but here it goes:
My CFI left his phone on the fbo counter. He panicked in flight and then remembered where it was. Flight ended, I said bye. Next weekend I go flying. He tells me what the other CFI's did. One took a picture of his..."manhood" and sent it to all contacts on my CFI's phone. I cracked up laughing until I thought about it...he knows a lot of pilots, a lot of PROFESSIONAL pilots...Not funny anymore. Long story short the one that did it got a beating (or so I hear) and I think he was fired from the school, haven't seen him since.

 

[Captain]

Not sure if it's a practical or funny joke but here it goes:
My CFI left his phone on the fbo counter. He panicked in flight and then remembered where it was. Flight ended, I said bye. Next weekend I go flying. He tells me what the other CFI's did. One took a picture of his..."manhood" and sent it to all contacts on my CFI's phone. I cracked up laughing until I thought about it...he knows a lot of pilots, a lot of PROFESSIONAL pilots...Not funny anymore. Long story short the one that did it got a beating (or so I hear) and I think he was fired from the school, haven't seen him since.

Picture of the 'manhood' would have been funny if he made it the home screen. Emailing it to the entire contact list (or even some unless close mutual friends) is WAY over the line.

When I upgraded and our class of Captains were issued our Blackberrys I got ahold of a friend of mines. I changed his signature to read:

John Doe, SUPER PILOT


He went on from class and I forgot about it. A few months later I ran into him on the line. He asked if I messed with his phone and I had to think about it. Then I remembered and smiled and he knew I had. He said he was in HQ and everybody kept saying, "Hey John...super pilot!", and "Hey! It's SUPER PILOT!!"

Finally someone told him the reason was every single one of his emails he sent was signed "super pilot".


We had a good laugh over some beers that night. Ahhhh....memories.

 

[Henning]

Do all pilots love playing jokes on each other? What pilot practical jokes are you guilty of?

There's only one way you learn another pilot's practical jokes.

 

[N801BH]

OK, so another thread today reminded me of something REALLY STUPID I did recently (I know, I know, surprise, surprise).


(Him) "You tank the total fuel, subtract the total weight of the aircraft and add the last three numbers of the N-Numbers of the aircraft and then divide it by the date not using the year"


QUOTE]


Life is too short not to joke around and have as much fun as you can... That guy sounds like a blast to hang around with..

 

[Geico266]

We have a piece of "art" left over from someone using a hangar as storage for household goods. We use to pass it around if a guy would leave his hangar open when they went flying. It was real ugly. I then told everyone I took a picture of it and sent it to an art historian who verified it às a $50,000 lost masterpiece.

Haven't seen it since!

 

[AggieMike88]

(Him) "You tank the total fuel, subtract the total weight of the aircraft and add the last three numbers of the N-Numbers of the aircraft and then divide it by the date not using the year"

Sounds like a guy who's always a winner at Fizbin. Rules Video

 

[ateamer]

Sounds like a guy who's always a winner at Fizbin. Rules Video

Or Three Cornered Pitney.

 

[Swampfox201]

Put a bumper sticker on my pilot friends car that said "Proud to be Gay".

Didn't know it at the time but he was taking courses to become a pastor.

 

[spiderweb]

(Him) "You tank the total fuel, subtract the total weight of the aircraft and add the last three numbers of the N-Numbers of the aircraft and then divide it by the date not using the year"

What is the joke here? Am I not understanding something? Seriously--this is basically a quote from your POH. Please, Kimberly, be more careful next time!

 

[BillTIZ]

Great pranks all, except the manjunk.

Back to the original post. After you dipped the tanks and came up with 7 gal., then fill the tanks. Total what you put in, plus the 7 gal. It should be 4 gal below the total you can carry.

Also determine your average fuel burn over time and remember your engine settings for future cross country flights.

I was able to determine that the T-41B fuel flow meter was off (high) by almost 1gph.

 

[Fearless Tower]

I might have posted this before, but this is quite possibly the worst pilot practical joke I have heard of:

October 08, 1947
American Airlines Flt 311
Near El Paso, TX

http://planecrashinfo.com/1947/1947-57.htm

While cruising at 8,000 ft. in clear weather, the aircraft went into steep dive which the co-pilot was able to pull out of at 350 feet from the ground. As a prank, a captain riding in the jump seat, engaged the gust lock in flight. The command pilot, not knowing the gust lock was engaged, rolled the elevator trim tab with no response. When the jump seat captain disengaged the gust lock,the aircraft went into a steep dive, executed part of an outside roll and become inverted. Neither the command nor jump seat captain had seat belts on and they accidentally feathered No. 1, 2 and 4 engines when they hit the controls with their heads. No one realized it at the time but the feathering reduced power and allowed the co-pilot, who was strapped in, to pull out of the dive.

 

[denverpilot]

Holy crap.

 

[upstateny]

Don't remember where I read it, but it's a good one.

The captain had a habit of napping during cruise. The FO took a thread and ran it from the end of the captain's tie up to an overhead switch guard and raised the tie. He then pushed the yoke forward and watched the captain wake up thinking the plane was in a negative g dive.

 

[Anthony]

A fellow pilot friend of mine called me saying he was from the FAA, and that my license was being suspended. He disguised his voice, so had me going for a few minutes, then I figured it out.

This was the same guy that dressed up as an airline pilot for Halloween, then went to the local Class B, sat in a bar in full uniform, and proceeded to get hammered, telling people he was flying to LA (as the PIC) in a short while.

This was well before 9/11. He was eventually "asked" to leave.

Another time, he (same guy) sent a close friend's wife a "nighty", you know the sexy, lingerie type, in the mail with a forged note from the hotel manager (on hotel letterhead where he recently stayed) saying, "Dear Mrs. So and So, you forgot your nightie, so we wanted to send it back to you"........

The wife, a very jealous type, was NOT amused.

 

[Matthew]

I prevented a practical joke a couple weeks ago, unintentionally. I landed in Topeka for lunch, just before Rick Santorum's jet taxied in behind me. The ramp guy just finished asking me if I needed fuel, then said, "Dang, I don't have time to get my Obama mask." Then he had to go marshall the jet. I went into the terminal, and there, on the desk, was the Obama mask the guy was going to wear.

--

The only time I pranked someone: I had reserved 172 #1, but it went down for maintenace, so the FBO put me in 172 #2 instead. I was preflighting, and a CFI friend was getting ready to climb into 172 #3. I chatted with CFI friend for a few minutes, then we both took off in our respective airplanes. After my flight, as I was parking, I saw another CFI on the ramp looking closely at me, with a confused look on his face. I got out, and he started looking around inside the airplane. Then he finally asked, "Where is the CFI?" I said, "I got tired of listeneing to her, so I pushed her out." and I headed back toward the FBO. He stood there, staring at me, at the airplane, and back at me, until I told him that the CFI he was looking for was in the other 172.

Turns out, when I got bumped out of the plane I reserved, they put me into a plane THAT CFI had reserved and bumped him. He had seen me and the other CFI talking, and thought that we had been flying together and wanted to find out how he had been bumped. But that look on his face when I came in alone was pretty funny.

 

[kimberlyanne546]

A fellow pilot friend of mine called me saying he was from the FAA, and that my license was being suspended. He disguised his voice, so had me going for a few minutes, then I figured it out.

This was the same guy that dressed up as an airline pilot for Halloween, then went to the local Class B, sat in a bar in full uniform, and proceeded to get hammered, telling people he was flying to LA (as the PIC) in a short while.

This was well before 9/11. He was eventually "asked" to leave.

Another time, he (same guy) sent a close friend's wife a "nighty", you know the sexy, lingerie type, in the mail with a forged note from the hotel manager (on hotel letterhead where he recently stayed) saying, "Dear Mrs. So and So, you forgot your nightie, so we wanted to send it back to you"........

The wife, a very jealous type, was NOT amused.

A person (sort of kind of one of my "clients" let's call him) at work - who I have never met - used to be an ATC controller. He is now in KY and is very friendly over the phone whenever he has a request for me. He really wants to take flying lessons and always asks me how my flying is going. After I got my cert, one day, when I hadn't talked to him over the phone in months, he called me up at work and pretended to be the FAA saying I'd busted class Bravo. It was scary at first but then awesome when I realized what was going on.

 

[Kelvin]

I prevented a practical joke a couple weeks ago, unintentionally. I landed in Topeka for lunch, just before Rick Santorum's jet taxied in behind me. The ramp guy just finished asking me if I needed fuel, then said, "Dang, I don't have time to get my Obama mask." Then he had to go marshall the jet. I went into the terminal, and there, on the desk, was the Obama mask the guy was going to wear.

That would have been funny.

 

[gkainz]

Standard practical joke for initiating the nugget aircrew in the Hawkeye...

The relief tube for the back-end crew was in an aft equipment compartment, which is about the size of an old phone booth (except only about 5" tall). When the rookie announced he was "leaving his seat to step aft", pilot/co-pilot would wait roughly 10 seconds or so, and then pull/push thru a couple of negative g's, whereas said nugget would usually emerge "madder than a wet hen" (emphasis on 'wet') ...

Since I had friends coming back thru transition training and got a heads up on this initiation, I got the inside gouge on it. The elevator cables and bell-cranks are accessible in the aft equipment compartment, and slipping a rolled up pocket checklist in the bell-crank gave one enough time to finish up without bouncing around like a leaking water balloon.

Of course, then you had to deal with the panic that ensued up front from the perceived (real?) CONTROLS JAMMED emergency...

Another famous antic was on the double-cycle dawn patrol, where the front office was thoroughly bored to tears by a couple of hours of droning thru the sky in racetrack patterns at 30,000', with the bright warm sun shining in the cockpit windows, absolutely nothing going on with the radios, and a couple of sleepy nodding heads up front.

The elevator controls exit into the main equipment compartment right behind the cockpit bulkhead, were a bored Flight Tech can peer thru the cockpit door window and observe the nodding heads. A little wing rock wiggle usually causes both heads to pop upright, one set of hands grabbing the yoke, and another set of hands reaching for George (autopilot). As things settle down with no further control deviations, pretty soon the heads start to nod again ...

Lather, rinse, repeat until you - uh - "someone" gives themself away by the laughter - or one of them catches on and looks back over their shoulder...


On a serious note, there was an E-2 lost with full crew back in the 90s with an elevator disconnect, so I suspect that these pranks may not have continued...

 

[Anthony]

Greg,

Those are priceless!

 

[jpower]

My CFI told me about the fun they used to have at Ridgley, MD (KRJD) with new jump pilots. On a new pilot's first flight with jumpers, a jump instructor would be the last one out of the plane. Just before he jumped, he would reach up front, turn off the engine, and take the key with him. Pretty mean trick if you ask me.

 

[saracelica]

I have a bunch of male pilot friends. Some of them are CFI's but others are IFR. Anywho, those friends now know to NEVER leave their phones unattended. From what I understand when a phone was left unattended one of them would enter an item on their calendar for days/weeks in advance. Some of them funny. Evidentally once someones calendar had "*Pleasure self* in airplane". Coincidentally the day it was on was the same day the guy was about to go flying. (Sure hope I don't get banned for mature language)

 

[Sac Arrow]

I have a bunch of male pilot friends. Some of them are CFI's but others are IFR. Anywho, those friends now know to NEVER leave their phones unattended. From what I understand when a phone was left unattended one of them would enter an item on their calendar for days/weeks in advance. Some of them funny. Evidentally once someones calendar had "*Pleasure self* in airplane". Coincidentally the day it was on was the same day the guy was about to go flying. (Sure hope I don't get banned for mature language)

If I can avoid ban-ment for that, anyone can!