The story got better; as I landed my fanged companion woke up and had a look around, I pulled both HP cocks and as the rotors coasted to a stop I left via the P1 emergency exit (big window next to the seat) As I left I yelled down the back "you have control Geoff!"
The evacuation of the cabin looked like one of those Cranfield emergency egress trials. As we all stood in a snake induced funk on the now blocked runway the snake appeared at the airstair door, slithered down the steps and hissed off, Geoff was right it was a biggie, about 7 ft.
The interview with the Chief Pilot took an awkward hour, and for the next month the engineers kept planting rubber snakes and spiders all around the aircraft, the joke went wrong the day the same P2 and myself found a banded krait in the forward hold while doing the walkround, we thought it was a fake until it moved, luckily it didn't move as fast as we did
