Comebacks...

[Windy Pants]

I'm currently doing 6 months of ground school training and I'm the only rotary wing student and have to share a classroom with 15 other fixed wing brothers:ugh: . As you can guess helicopters get quite a bit of stick from our plank flying brethren.
I now think I've run out of my stock of comebacks to their jibes so I'm looking for some of your all time favourite comebacks to plank flyers who don't quite understand helicopters.:)

[g-mady]

I know just how you feel, just had a similar thing for ATPL ground studies. However there where about 3 out of 20 Heli pilots so we didn't need too many comebacks.

One guy introduced himself by say "right, plank jokies to one side, fuel to noise converters to the other :eek: "

[Stringfellow Dork]

Think about it - they're obviously jealous!

A silent and pitying look of self-satisfaction that you had more originality and were of a more interesting bent than to choose fixed-wing should more than suffice as a come back.

Aeroplanes? Unless they're small fast jets - meh!

[Windy Pants]

just tell them your expected earnings/working conditions as a professional helicopter pilot.

I don't want to give them any more reasons to take the mick!!:}
We were watching a R22 coming in on a full auto and they were all going "cor he's coming in a bit fast and steep" I then had to explain to them that he was performing an autorotation; they were gobsmacked, I think they thought that helis just drop out of the sky if their engines fail, they were quietly all surprised at just how controlled and auto can be. I felt quite smug at their self exposed ignorance.
A silent and pitying look of self-satisfaction that you had more originality and were of a more interesting bent than to choose fixed-wing should more than suffice as a come back.
I've tried that but they're like a dog with a bone, same old tired jokes over and over again.
One day a few nice Eurocopters came in, my future Heli instructor came to find me to see if I wanted to look around them (I think he knew how dull ground school can be). He extended the offer to the other plank fliers, and they were out there like flies around sh!t. No, they're not interested in helcopters are they?! Two faced gits :*

[332mistress]

"just tell them your expected earnings/working conditions as a professional helicopter pilot. "

Equal time roster working 182 days a year.
Home every night
No take offs earlier than 0645
Few landings after 2000 (after having the morning off)
Most week ends off (work on average 1 in 6)
Shorter duty days than a lo-cost crew

Oh and paid more than a lo- cost 737 Capt:ok:

332M

[ShyTorque]

Just tell 'em you fly helicopters because you were never rejected onto plank wings.

Wings are meant to go round. Building aircraft with stopped wings makes 'em dangerous. Ask 'em why, if wings weren't meant to go round, how come plank wings spin, taking the rest of the aircraft with them?

If you get the chance, show 'em a night approach to the average small, unlit helipad - that'll shut 'em up.

[Stringfellow Dork]

I've tried that but they're like a dog with a bone, same old tired jokes over and over again.

So what are the same old tired jokes? Let's hear 'em!

[SASless]

Perhaps allowing one of them to try a few minutes doing spot turns around the tail rotor in a bit of wind....that quickly parts a helicopter pilot from the rest of the crowd.:E

[Hughesy]

Last summer, while working in the South Island of NZ doing tourist flights. I was in the office after buying the girls a coffee.
This guy walks in and looks me up and down and with a bit of a smirk say's "Are you THE pilot?" I casually replied "I'm one of them".
He went on to say that he is also a pilot, so how about a discount on the cost of the scenics? He didnt even acknowledge my mates behind the desk who do all the selling, so I said I cant offer you one, and to talk to one of the girls.
He didn't even look at them.
Again he said "come on, how about a discount?!"
Then he said "so...how many hours do you have?" another wise smirk on his face. " Enough" I said.
" Well I have 22000 hrs! Do you want some of those?" Wise smirk growing, and some serious wank factor developing here from this fulla.
" Not really" I said as I sipped my coffee before asking him "so what exactly do you fly?"
"Oh, I'm a 737 Captain!!!"
I looked him in the eye and said...."So, your a systems administrator then?"
He went all quiet and said "yes, you could say that."
No more mention of a discount after that! :} :ok:
Hughesy

[Lord Mount]

The difference between a plank flier and a helicopter pilot?

The plankie will land then try like crazy to stop before the end of the runway.:eek:
The helicopter pilot will stop, then when he is good and ready, he will land.:cool:

LM

[Chukkablade]

Good dit Hughesy, enjoyed that:O

Oh, and Windy, let them have their digs . So what. The way I see it, Jet Plank Pilots see the world, but Helicopter Pilots, we see the world. With me?

To me, the difference is everything.

[SASless]

I know a bunch of plank drivers that have looked up to me.......and smiled the whole time.....as they rode the winch wire up from the oggin or jungle!

Fixed wing operators do not hire based upon looks!

What's the difference between an airplane and a goat.....on the goat the a-hole is in the rear.

How do you know there is a plank driver at a beer up.....just listen he will tell you... repeatedly.

What's the difference between a Plank Driver and his airplane.....after landing the airplane quits whining.

[SASless]

Hughesy,

When they brag of "hours".....merely ask them how many of those was George or the other pilot handling the machine for them. That whittles the tally quite handsomely.

[Flying Bull]

Hey folks,

its quite easy, take a piece of paper, fold it and let it fly.
"As you can see - no pilot required for a fixed wing!"

:ok:

[Lama Bear]

Had a fixed wing pilot tell me he had never seen a bird that flapped it's wings above it's head. I responded that I had never seen a bird that needed a runway. The conversation deteriorated from there.

What I said was actually a fib as I had spent considerable time on Midway Island watching the Gooney Birds trying to be come airborne on a calm day.

An airplane pilot is a person that really likes to fly but has never had a chance to do it.

To fly is fine... to hover is devine.

[havoc]

The wide runway is for the hovering impaired.

[Whirlygig]

...whereas our runways can be several thousand feet wide; just not very long!

Cheers

Whirls

[havoc]

http://www.skygod.com/quotes/piloting.html

The thing is, helicopters are different from planes. An airplane by it's 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 generality, airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed, buoyant extroverts and helicopter pilots are brooding introspective anticipators of trouble. They know if something bad has not happened it is about to.
— Harry Reasoner, 1971

[andyhelo]

I know exactly what you are going through, i was the only guy out of 11 in my ATPL full time course as a rotary guy. The best way i found to shup up the plank guys, was go out on a night and tell them that women prefer heli pilots to fixed wing guys, inevitably they would all say thats rubbish!!
So the convo goes something like this;
'hey, excuse me, my friend and i just wanted to ask u a hyperthetical question, if you were interested in twins, and one flew helis and the other planes, which would you go for?'
Every time and i mean every time, each and every one replied;
'Oh, the helicopter one!'
And there you have it, tried and tested method!

[Whirlygig]

I concur! :} :D :ok:

Doesn't work the other way round but :(

Cheers

Whirls

[DBChopper]

Doesn't work the other way round but


'Course it does Whirls! You just drink in the wrong places ;)

[Whirlygig]

By "wrong places", I suppose you mean "Norfolk"! :}

Cheers

Whirls

[DBChopper]

Yes! :ok:

And sadly enough, she :} looks very familiar... :hmm:

[Windy Pants]

Ahh. how refreshing to hear some anti-plank comebacks, I will commit some of these to mind, especially the "Systems Administrator" one, ironically that's what I did before taking up flying! So my response is now going to be...

"Why on earth would I want to fly fixed wing, I don't want to go back to being a systems adminstrator, want to be a pilot!"

Thanks for the replies guys, made me chuckle!

[Impress to inflate]

Been there, went to OAT some years ago and had a good poking from plank heads. Out of approx 200 students, only 2-3 of us were REAL pilots. After the first fifty hours all they did was fly in straight lines for 28 mins then take up a heading of 020 degs for another 18 mins at 2500'. They did that for a year gearing up for there IR. Mean while I was hoofing around a "! feet for a hour at a time chasing foxes and rabbits and hiding behind hedges etc having a fecking ball. Believe me, after a couple of months they were all green with jealousy and they were bored witless. As 332 says, I now earn the same as top end jet pilots but only work half the year, I'm tucked up in my own pit every night and fly fairly social hours and if I want to travel, the opportunity is also there. True, we fly for most of the time in straight lines with George taking up the slack but there is allot more hands on the controls flying.

By the way, two of the plank pilots from oat when I was there are now Capts in offshore ops and have NEVER looked back at there dark days as fixed wing idiots. Keep your chin high and shoulders back

p.s ask them to hover when they are on short finals.

[Hilife]

I was fortunate enough to attend the Sergei Sikorsky Handley Page lecture at the RAeS in London the other week and he came out with the following when talking about the differences between helicopters and fixed wing aircraft.

“In a plane you have to land before you can stop. In a helicopter you can stop before you land” or something to that effect but it did make me smile.:}

[rotors88]

If it has wings than spin; it flys! If the wings are fixed; it only tries!

[Arm out the window]

When the RAAF still had helicopters, half the fixed wing dicks wanted to fly them but didn't get posted there.
We had a great non-politically-correct song that went through most of the types in service and basically said if you couldn't hover, you were a poof.
(I did about half my time on planks so I guess I'm also bagging myself here in part, but it's all in the name of good-natured ribbing, so no offence to anyone, particularly gays, except those fixed-wing plonkers of course).

It was to the tune of 'The Road to Gundagai' and had numerous verses along the lines of "Then there's the trashies, they are rather camp, but we know where they take it - they take it up the ramp!" or
"Then there's the triple ones with their moving wing, but we know where they take it 'cause they don't complete the swing!" etc. etc, leading to a rousing chorus of "If your wings don't rotate then you take it up the date, we are the (insert squadron name here) ... "

Seriously though, the main line of defence is that most fixed wing drivers would love to have a go at flying a helicopter, we know it and they know it, and unless they're doing low level aerobatics or something, then they're just drilling along from A to B pulling their puds.
Caution - fighting words!

[brame]

1. Fixed wing pilots are only half trained. Rotary wing pilots for FULLY trained.
2. Fixed wings are lazy. They just sit there do no work - a helicopter wing (rotor blade) does heaps of work, just watch it....

[Brian Abraham]

We were all military trained and so all had started on fixed wing. One guys comment was always "Well we started on fixed wing, but then graduated to helicopters."

[212man]

I've spent the last 6 years converting pilots on to types that use an FMS. When faced with students nervous at the prospect of using this new fangled gadget, I've tried to reassure them by saying "don't worry, it can't be that difficult to use: it was designed for FW pilots!" :ok:

[Ascend Charlie]

As AOTW said, the RAAF had a lot of re-treads, with helo pilots going off to stuck-wing, and vice versa.

One chopper-pilot-turned-knucklehead said,

"Flying a helicopter is like m@sturbating - it is a heck of a lot of fun, but we prefer to do it when none of our fighter mates are watching, and we never admit to liking it!":ooh:

[Brian Abraham]

Even the Wright brothers saw that they were not made of the right stuff to be messing with helicopters.

Like all novices (in our childhood), we began with the helicopter but soon saw it had no future and dropped it.
Wilbur Wright

[Overt Auk]

Along with the Stop then Land Vs Land then Stop argument is the other end of the flight. What idiot would want to hurtle along the tarmac at 120 kts and then pull up into the sky without being certain that the flying controls were fully servicable. Wise men check them out in a low hover.