Once upon a time at the College of Knowledge (before it went graduate) a certain instructor enjoyed doing the early morning weather check flight (the Dawn Patrol). This gave him a chance to fly for an hour sans student and also gave him a chance to "wire" the control tower while nobody was looking (all the senior officers being in the early morning met. briefing). This weather check aircraft was supposed to check the local area weather and then radio its report to the control tower. The control tower then relayed this local weather report by telephone to the met. briefing room for the use of the assembled station senior officers, instructors and students.
You have to understand that the weather check aircraft got airborne during the beginning of the met. briefing. If the said instructor was flying you could then clearly hear the aircraft return to the airfield for what was euphemistically called a "down wind visibility check". This was actually a very low run past the tower at as much speed as you could get out of a Mk.5. The sound of the aircraft was quite clear as it passed the tower flat out but the noise was tactfully ignored by all present at the briefing even though everybody knew what was going on.
One day the Dawn Patrol was heard to get airborne and then came the expected "whoosh" over the airfield. Shortly thereafter the telephone rang as normal but the message relayed by the answering student was not the expected weather report. "Woods has had a birdstrike Sir. He is returning to the field for an emergency landing."
Then came one of those unfortunate moments when someone says something out loud during a n unexpected silence. As the room fell silent one of the students was heard clearly to say "Bloody bird must have stood up".
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