An oldie but a goody:
"One fine hot summer's afternoon saw a Cessna 150 flying in the pattern at a quiet country airfield. The instructor, bothered with the student's inability to maintain altitude in the thermals, was getting impatient at sometimes having to take over the controls. Just then he saw a twin-engine Cessna 5,000 feet above him and thought, Another 1,000 hours of this and I qualify for the twin charter job! Aaahh, to be a real pilot, going somewhere!
"The Cessna 402 was already late, and the boss had told the pilot that this charter was for one of the company's premier clients. He'd already set maximum continuous thrust and the cylinders didn't like it in the summer day's heat. He was at 6,000 feet with a 20-knot headwind. Today was the sixth day straight and he was pretty tired of fighting these engines. Maybe if he got 10,000 feet out of them the headwind might die off-geez, those cylinder temps! He looked out momentarily and saw a Boeing 737 leaving a contrail at 33,000 feet in the serene blue sky. Oh, man, he thought, my interview is next month. I just hope I don't blow it! A nice jet job, above the weather, no snotty passengers to wait for....aaahh.
"The 737 bucked and weaved in the heavy clear air turbulence at Flight Level 330 and air traffic control advised that lower levels were not available because of traffic. The captain, who was only recently advised that his destination was below runway visual range minimums, had slowed to long-range cruise to try and hold off a possible in-flight diversion, hoping the later arrival would ensure that the fog had lifted to Category II approach minimums. The company negotiations broke down yesterday and it looked as if everyone was going to take a pay cut. The first officers would be particularly hard-hit as their pay wasn't anything to speak of anyway. Finally deciding on a speed compromise between long-range cruise and turbulence penetration speed, the captain looked up and saw a Concorde at Mach 2-plus. Tapping his first officer's shoulder as the 737 took another bashing, he said, 'Now that's what we should be on. Huge pay, super fast, not too many routes, not too many legs, above the turbulence. Yes, that's the life.'
"Flight Level 590 was not what the Concorde pilot wanted anyway and he considered FL570. Already the total air temperature was creeping up again and they would have to either descend or slow down. That rear fuel transfer pump was becoming unreliable and the flight engineer had said moments ago that the radiation meter was not reading numbers that he'd like to see. The Concorde descended to FL570, but the radiation was still quite high, even though the notam indicated good conditions below FL610. Evening turned into night as they passed over the Atlantic. Looking up, the first officer could see a tiny white dot moving against the backdrop of myriad stars. 'Hey, Captain,' he called as he pointed, 'must be the space shuttle.' The captain thought about how a shuttle mission must be the be-all and end-all in aviation. Above the gunk, no radiation problems, no fuel transfer problems...aaahh.
"Discovery was into its twenty-seventh orbit, and perigee was 200 feet out from nominated rendezvous altitude with the communications satellite. The robot arm was virtually unusable and a walk may become necessary. The 200-foot predicted error would necessitate a corrective burn, and Discovery needed that fuel if a walk was to be required. Houston continually asked what the commander wanted to do, but the advice they proffered wasn't much help. The commander had already been 12 hours on station sorting out the problem and just wanted 10 minutes to himself. Just then a mission specialist, who had tilted the telescope down to the surface for a minute or two, called the commander to the scope. 'Have a look at this, sir-isn't this the kind of flying you said you wanted to do after you finish up with NASA?' The commander peered through the telescope and cried, 'Aaahh, yes. Now that’s flying! I'd give anything just to be doing that down there!'
"The shuttle commander was looking at a Cessna 150 in the pattern at a quiet country airfield on a nice, bright sunny afternoon."
I believe many of us on here can vouch for just how accurate this is.