Ever made yourself look a complete prat??

[StevieTerrier]

I was at some sort of wedding anniversary party for the parents of a friend of my partner. We four youngsters and lots of old people. We got paired off with Uncle Harry and his wife for drinks because "he's interested in helicopters". Uncle Harry was obviously retired, a totally non-descripit "Senior Citizen" complete with grey suit, tie and nice clean black shoes. Now I am usually extremely tolerant and courteous when people ask the same old questions about helicopters,but...for some reason that day I had my Intolerant Head on.

The conversation went something like..

H : So you are a helicopter pilot?
ST: Mmmm.
H: You must enjoy it?
ST:Mmmm.
H:What sort of helicopter do you fly
ST: (to his eternal shame) A little red, white and blue one
H: Sorry, a what?
ST: Just a small one
H: Oh, what sort?
ST:(Looking round for the bar) Its called a Bell Jetranger
H: What sort of an engine does it have?
ST: (Thinks : this will get me out of this conversation) An Alison 250 C20. Thats a small gas turbine engine.
H: Ah yes, Alison. Aren't they owned by Rolls Royce now?
ST: (Silence while I think about this)
ST: Yes they are. How do you know?
H: I used to work for Rolls Royce
ST: (prepared to curl up and die) and what did you do there, Harry?
H: Design and Development Engineer, Aero engines Division

Oh b@gger. I'll get my coat.

[Bladestrike]

Working in an isolated Northern hunting camp with some cartographers mapping a hydro project, when a GPS receiver was the size of a suitcase and required a tripod, dish and at least three hours to collect enough data to be any use, after you told it where it was. These guys were all engineers. They were having one of their nightly computer issues trying to make sense of the days data, when the camp caretaker, an old guy in tattered clothes with a white beard to his bellybutton, the guy I just asked for another cord of wood, offered to help. Ammused they told him sure. To our amazement his fingers danced across the keyboard and he had everything sorted in a few minutes. Turned out he was a former professor at Cal-Tec, and helped design the ICBM guidance systems at Linton.

Also, strutting out of the can at the FBO in my flight suit after another heroric medevac (gas pains I think), my shiny 222 out on the ramp, I see this tiny airplane parked next to us. Piping up, "whose is that tiny thing?"

An larger, older fellow steps up beside me, claims it's his "tiny thing". Turns out he's a CEO of a major corp. and flew F14's for the US Navy, out on a fishing trip with a buddy.

Stay tuned, I'm sure to stick my foot in my mouth again shortly, its been awhile.

[vaqueroaero]

This didn't actually happen to me, but to a friend. He works for a fixed wing tour operator operating 'barn storming adventures'. Anyway, upon the return of a flight a young girl and her father get out of the plane. The young girl has her coat slung around her shoulders. "Was it so cold that your arm froze off?" He asks. Girl and father laugh half heartedly. "Did you stick your arm out of the cockpit and the wind pulled it off?" Girl and father laugh half heartedly. Much to the alarm of his colleagues he continues down this thread for a while enjoying making the kind folks laugh with his great gags until he eventually realises that, yes, she is an amputee.
Personally, well I had to take a very nervous passenger out in one of our 300's. After lots of assurances from everyone that yes, he's a good pilot and yes, he knows what he's doing and yes, it's very safe, we get in. With all the family (I mean ALL the family) watching I then proceed to flood the engine completley, making for the worst sounding start in history and then as I start to engage the rotor (manually with the switch), I'm too slow to place the switch in hold and stall the engine. End of flight. Needless to say that is the only time I have ever stalled the engine during rotor engagement.

[EI_Sparks]

I would post the stories of how I've managed to do the whole "teaching your grandmother to suck eggs" routine, but sadly, pprune won't allow posts with more than 12,000 characters, so I'd need to post about 40 or 50 messages to finish :( :p :)

[Lu Zuckerman]

I don’t know if I came off as a prat but I was most certainly embarrassed.

When I was working as a Field Rep on the Atlas missile our pads were to be going on EWO (Emergency War Orders) where our birds would be fitted with Hydrogen bombs. In order to get EWO status all personnel had to undergo an interrogation much like the verbal dissertations made by a PHD candidate. Many of the guys that went before me didn’t fair too well. I was afraid I would meet the same end.

I was brought into the room and sat down in a chair facing an empty table. However, sitting behind me were the President of Convair, the director of product support, the director of field service and my immediate supervisor and several other individuals. Then a door opened and in walked a group of senior officers (Colonels, Lt. Colonels and Majors including one Senior Master Sergeant. As one, they all shouted “hey, it’s Lu Zuckerman. I had previously been an instructor in San Diego and all of these people had been my students. At that time It was around Christmas and my wife had made a slew of Bourbon balls. They were packed full in two shoeboxes and I split them between my morning and afternoon classes. There was a lot of humor injected between technical points so all went well while the students were quietly getting loaded.

The officers and the sergeant harkened back to those days and the senior Colonel stated “ Hell, Lu knows his systems”. “Lu if you can tell three jokes that we have never heard we will pass you”.

So I sat there checking my memory banks and came up with the required three jokes and all of this with the people behind me wondering what the hell was going on. The military personnel all laughed but there wasn’t a murmur from the group behind me. I was certificated but needless to say I did a lot of bookwork to fully understand the systems I was responsible for.


:D

[t'aint natural]

In a previous life I was a newspaper executive in Fleet Street. We had uniformed messengers, almost all of them long past retirement age and filling in time with humdrum tasks - going to the library for cuttings, fetching the tea and so forth. One old chap, rather small and wizened, was especially obliging. He expressed interest when he found out I was a helicopter pilot, but you know how it is, busy busy busy, never get time to chat. I found out at his leaving do that he'd been Willie Tait's bomb aimer and had hit the Tirpitz.

[spiral tap]

Coming back one day from a charter flight, I was told to take an older couple and their daughter from out of town up on a local sightseeing flight. I figured they thought I looked real smart as I escorted them across the ramp, leading the way in my crisp charter uniform. The helicopter was parked on its dolly and, as I arrived at the aircraft, I took an energetic leap to get up onto the platform. When I did, my foot slipped off the side and I fell flat on my face, half on the dolly and half on the concrete. Looking around, clutching my jaw, I saw my stunned passengers slow down, hesitate, unsure if they still wanted to get into the air with a pilot so lacking in motor skills.

[john du'pruyting]

Err, I once wore white socks with a blue suit.....

[Nick Lappos]

I was scrambled on a mission in the Great Two Way Rifle Range, having tossed my flight suit and boots to the sound of the alert bell while running toward the Cobra I flew. We worked all night, refuelling and rearming several times, with the whole Troop alerted to build up rockets from the ammo dump to help turn us around quickly.

Things quieted down just at dawn, when the bad guys melted back into the jungle. I landed back on the ramp, shut down and handed my helmet to the crew chief, who looked up with obvious admiration at this Combat Aviator back from a difficult night.

As I dismounted from the Snake, I had to swing my outboard leg onto the tiny little step along the right side (Cobra pilots will follow this easily, it becomes muscle memory) then swing the inboard leg out, do a quick hop to switch feet on the 3 inch wide step, and reach the right foot to the skid. As I did this, I realized that I'd never tied my boots, so the laces were now trapped under the other boot on that step. One brief session of Three Stooges arm windmilling, followed by a complete header down to the hard ramp, head first. Out cold, I was awakened by that same crew chief, who now fully understood that the Combat Aviator was also a gawky 20 year old kid.

[Moneyshot]

I once descended to a 40 foot hover over a sea state six at night. I'll never forget it!!

[Lu Zuckerman]

While working on the V-22 program I got into a conversation with a design manager. The subject of the conversation hit on various points including small helicopters. I spouted off on the problems with the B-206 and then got on the subject of the Enstrom line. I told the manager that I had considered the Enstrom Shark a piece of crap. That is until I actually got close to one and then I realized that it was put together quite well and that the rotorhead design and finish really impressed me. I found out a bit later that the manager’s father designed the Enstrom Helicopters and that he (the manager) used to work with his father during his summer vacations from his University.

:rolleyes:

[trimpot]

While breifing nurses and doctors in frount of a shiny new 412 on the pad at the Royal Darwin hospital, I told them that we had a, "full compliment of cervical collars on board". Of course I pronunced it as "sir-ve-cal" not "sir-vi-ee-cal". This not only caused a great deal of laughter but also produced a great deal of questioning as to how they were fitted.:(

[Ascend Charlie]

We were in Mt Hagen in 1976 for the Queen's tour of PNG. All the Chimbus and other jungle bunnies had come out of the bush to see "Missis Kwin bilong all" and were in their greatest finery - head-dresses of feathers and leaves, their best fresh arse-grass, and a bone through the nose. If you were REALLY cool, you had a yellow Bic biro instead of a bone. These natives, known as Branch Managers, were intrigued by our group of Iroquois parked on the field.
One of the pilots, eager to show his competence in Pidgin, approached a finely-dressed native and said, "Dispela i kam i plaim balus bilong Jesus Krist i kam wok along top." (This fellow came, flying a helicopter, he came from the sky - or thereabouts, Ted wasn't making too much sense to me either.)

The native looked at him for a moment, then in a rather plummy accent said, "Oh, you're a helicopter pilot, are you?"

[ShyTorque]

One cold Monday morning (when still masquerading as one of Her Majesty's finest) I cycled the half mile to work dressed as a ruffy-tuffy support helicopter pilot, wearing a freshly laundered and tumble dried green nomex flying suit, cold weather jacket, worst SD hat etc as usual.

I couldn't understand why everyone suddenly seemed so pleased to see me - everyone was smiling broadly and waving to me as I cycled by.

One airman snapped up a mighty salute as I passed, then called across with a grin "Had a good weekend then, Sir?"

As I came out of Met brief everyone seemed to want to talk to me and there was much laughing and joking from the groundcrew as I walked across the hangar.

As I turned for the door after outbriefing to go flying, I noticed something alongside me out of the corner of my eye. I turned again and noticed a pair of my wife's tights stuck on the velcro on the back of my flying suit.

Hey, thanks guys, for not telling me! :eek:

A fine macho sight I must have been, tights trailing merrily behind me in the breeze as I cycled along....:D :D

[Bertie Thruster]

Somewhere in middle England, at a police air support unit, a local business man is visiting. He has come to let the 'lads in blue' know that he is going to fly in his own helicopter to a small engineering company, situated alongside the police air base.

Steely eyed, professional (of course), highly experienced, air support pilot (me)......................

"So what is it you fly, an R22 ?"

Business man (suddenly looking very uninterested)

" It's an Agusta 109 actually"

[Flying Lawyer]

Only a tenuous link to helicopters, but embarrassing nonetheless.
Some years ago, I was invited by friends living in Monaco to spend the Grand Prix weekend with them. Whilst on their balcony waiting for the race to start, my host said 'You must meet X, he flies helicopters' and I was introduced to a long-retired, but still famous, cricketer. After the usual heli small talk, I thought I ought to say something about cricket if only as a matter of courtesy. Problem: I know nothing about cricket, and have even less interest than knowledge. My few suitably complimentary comments about cricket in 'his day' having gone down well, I became more abitious - helped no doubt by the champagne that was flowing freely.
"What I don't understand is, England never seems to do very well, yet we drop an outstanding cricketer like David Gower just because he went off in a Tiger Moth and dropped some flour bombs during practice. It was only a bit of fun. Sometimes we Brits are far too stuffy."
I noticed our group went rather quiet, before the famous cricketer replied, "I'm not sure whether you're saying that to the right man. Or maybe you are?" before going on to give a very different point of view.
Well, how was I to know Ted Dexter was the Chairman of the selectors who dropped Gower!! :oh:

[ShyTorque]

Hi Bertie,

How's the Lincolnshire weather?

Merry Christmas! :)

[overpitched]

Surely I'm not the only one to depart the company hangar with one of the back doors open ??

[Ascend Charlie]

Had to drop 3 x fully kitted scuba divers from the back seat of a 206, into the water from the hover as part of a rescue demo. They were briefed on leaving the seatbelts buckled etc, and naturally, both rear doors were off. Exit went well, and flew back to base with a fair bit of airflow buffeting.

Shutdown, climb out, go to tidy up back seat ... I'm sure I had a back seat cushion when I left ... it was securely held in here with ... velcro..

I waited several days for the irate home owner to send us a bill for the roof repair, but it never came. Somewhere, there is a house with a seat cushion on the roof.:D

[SASless]

Situation:

Me in a very spiffy 500E heading to the company owned grass strip where old Vietnam buddy/company chief pilot lived and company Cessna Caravan and other 500E was parked. Was going to spend the day there waiting for the executives to finish their meeting at Corporate HQ having just dropped my trio off.

Clearing the ridge between town and the airstrip....nose went down...lever stayed up....height above ground dwindled to the height of chimney on Chiefy's company owned house. Speed approaching Warp Two....hard bank as passing the house....just in time to see the Real Boss and Next level Boss standing in the front of the helicopter shed.

Only comment from the Big Boss was "Now look here....we do not pay you to do that."

I took the hint.

Moral to the story.....always do a low recon before you fly low.

[Impress to inflate]

Some time ago I made a real dildo of myself. I was a very junior cojo doing my first offshore medivac to ARI (Aberdeen Royal Infirmary) with the companies top man. The bear in the back was mangled and not long for this world. P1 did a great quick stop over the helipad at ARI followed by the fastest shut down of a Puma you've ever seen. We both lept out and start to open the cabin doors and take the straps of the stretcher when the surgeons and nurses turned up to help. I was on the outside lifting the stretcher out when this pretty little nurse kept tapping me on the shoulder.
Nurse:- Mr Mr your helicopters....
Me:- I'm busy, just give me a minute
Nurse:- But Mr your helicopter is..........
Me:- Just give me one second and I'll be with you
Nurse:- BUT Mr its you chopper.....Its........
Me:- I'm almost finished, just a sec
Nurse:- YOUR HELICOPTERS ROLLING BACK WARDS AND PICKING UP SPEED !
Sure enough, we had done the shutdown cx in record time but had both forgotten the fecking brake. The a/c was moving back wards at a fair old speed by the time I lept in a pulled on the brake. Nearly a ward full of broken doctors and nurses. Yes I did learn from that.
I have more but thats for another day.

[MD900 Explorer]

This happened to amate of mine in Canada. Decimal went into a bar in Edmonton and was having a beer, when a pair of lovely ladies turned up.

So after a little cheesy small talk

Lady1 - So what is it you do for a living?
Decimal - Well, actually, I fly for a living
Lady1 - So you are a pilot?
Decimal - Well, actually, a helicopter pilot. How about you?
Lady1 - well my ex was a pilot and he was a right ******!
Lady1 to Lady2 - Lets get out of here.
Decimal - Barman - Get me beer, to put these flames out.

So of course i laughed my head off, thinking this would never happen to me, and lo and behold six months ago the same scenario happened to me and i felt quite helpless, but did chortle to myself. :{

MD :O

[John Farley]

In the US a very senior and respected flight test man brought back from retirement to be part of a red team very unusually said a silly thing.

Fairly gently somebody explained why he was wrong.

His immediate response - "Sorry - every now and then my brain farts"

Great recovery!

[topendtorque]

Many moons ago at a place I used work all the big bosses from o'seas were scheduled to visit. Now, part of the itiniery was to convince them of the worth of the helicopter budget etc.

The manager at this joint was a renowned buffoon, so in preparation I chewed over with the boss about us stepping out with a couple of hours fob sightseeing or whatever; no probs.

I does a final spit and polish, packs my personal .308 semi-auto Springfield just in case they like shooting and get going.

Great scott, there they are on the lawn, no worries, spot on approach and land, lunch, a couple of demos chasing cajuns, then true to form the buffoon runs out of steam.

After an embarrassing while with nothing for them to do I suggest would they like to go for a fly. The eyes light up, I'm right on cue, what could this lead to?

I thinks of long hours making money, big contracts all that.

Their leader says, "What will we do?"

'No Probs,' I say rather flamboyantly, 'I've brought a gun we'll go shoot some wild pigs, eh!!!

Silence, absolute f'n silence, you see they were all Bruninians.

[movin' up]

Errr, whats a Bruninian?:confused:

[verticalhold]

Pulled up in the pouring rain at a well known, very far north airport after a long hard day. Freight to drop and refuel to take, all rotors running. Begged P2 to take care of AC while I ran for pee and ciggie. Bladder control was better then but it was still going to be a close run thing.

Much relieved I walked back outside to let P2 off for his well earned 5 minutes, when I met him coming the other way. He froze and then turned to the aircraft. It was still running connected to the bowser with no-one on board. We covered the hundred metres in immersion suits, life jackets et al faster than Linford Christie on speed.

The ground crew had never noticed thank god, P2 just got out and walked in, fatigue was the only reason.

God knows what we looked like vaulting into a 332 done up in all the kit, God knows what we would have looked like had it not been there!!

[topendtorque]

'Errr, whats a Bruninian?:confused:'

Oy yes my horrible spelling, thankyou for bringing to my notice. It should have been Bruneian, native of the Islamic state of Brunei Darussalam. A truly top spot.

[chopper.al]

I had just recently passed my PPL when I first met an older gentleman who had only started his training. I had just got out of the helicopter when I was met by the instructor and this new, old student and I, rather helpfully and wanting to show off my new skills, said I would help him with the checks and get him ready until the instructor had nipped to the loo. We run through the checks with me explaining how important it is to check all of the nuts and bolts and oils, etc. We climbed in and I told him that I would do the R/T for him as sometimes you get a bit tongue tied when your new to this sort of thing. (the more I think about this the more condescending I sounded!)

I jumped out as the instructor arrived and told him of my helpfullness and that I thought the old chap seemed very comfortable sitting in the cockpit. '' He should'' he replied, ''he's an ex British Airways training Captain''

[Boslandew]

It was a beautiful summers day at Penzance heliport. I was due to fly the afternoon schedule to the Scillies and clad, as was the custom, in full airline uniform swaggered out to the waiting 61. In full view of thirty-odd holiday makers, I commenced the walk-round, conscious of the on-lookers. I looked up to check the tail-rotor gear-box oil-level, tripped backwards over the ground power cable and went flat on my a**e

Put the words 'mighty' and 'fallen' into a sentence.

[MOSTAFA]

Just closed down the Lynx on the lawn of Government House in the Falklands. British High Commissioner gets out in his best white uniform complete with Lord Nelson type hat (covered in white feathers) and carrying his sword/dagger thingy (Full Regailia). RM Band struck up "God save the Queen" He saluted as I dissipated the hydraulics (you had too then) a massive squirt of hydraulic fluid shot out of the dump pipe and covered his back and hat, it was dripping down all the feathers and covered his back. To make matters worse I needed to vent an engine (also common then) and we then lost him in the smoke!!!

Looked like something out of a carry on film.

[Devil 49]

Dropped my pax at a small Gulf of Mexico pad and cleared that single-ship pad by hopping to that field's crew quarters deck, shut down, grabbed some reading material out of my flight bag, and went downstairs to the galley to standby.
Passengers call for pickup and reposition to the next station, so I gulp my coffee and head out. Fold and stick the periodical in my hip pocket, up 5 flights of stairs, return the magazine to my bag, climb in and start. Pulling pitch, I see a wallet blow over the side, into the Gulf, scattering bills and stuff, and think "Somebody's going to miss that."
Drop the pax at the base, secure the aircraft, go to the vending machine, and- no wallet. Not only that, it's break day, I have no money and no credit cards for the 500 mile, overnight drive. Fortunately, it's a big base, lots of pilots with senses of humor and generous to boot.

[ShyTorque]

It had been a long, difficult day. I got in, made myself comfortable for the last sector.

The initial radio conversation went like this:

ShyT: "G-****, fully ready for departure!"

ATC: "Aren't you going to start the engine first?"

ShyT: :O Oops!

[before landing check list]

Scene:1988, LAX at about 0200hrs, IMC, in a Army H60 without a lot of extra fuel....

US: R23643
Them: LAX approach

PIC (me) flying the aircraft, slightly off assigned altitude (4,150, should have been 4000)

LAX approach: "R23643 say altitude"

PNF: (before I could stop him) "Altitude"

LAX approach: (Ready to play the game) "R23643 say cancel IFR"

Me: "Sorry about that, R23643 4,150 correcting to 4,000"

We had a talk afterwords.

Jerry

[generalspecific]

Two good ones from a list that is worryingly long.

1. Chatting in the engineering workshop about Eurocopter. "They fly nice" say I "but spares are a nightmare as they never seem to hold inventory and expect the customer to hold their own, but hey the french are deeply arrogant so they don't care and if you do eventually get some spares by random luck and good fortune they then have the temerity to charge like a wounded bull".

From behind the parts rack comes a well dressed gentlemen. "Meet Monsuier Leclerc the head of something very important from Eurocopter" says the engineer...

2. Also made a stop in Asia at a private jet FBO at the main airport. landing fees were steep but this was Luxury! Coffee, cake, someone handing you a folder with your en route weather. Bouyed by my new found feeling of self importance, I said to a very pretty and well dressed lady by the reception. "hi love, can you call me a cab if you have a minute?" "not really" says she..."why not" says I... "Because I'm the Deputy Director of Civil Aviation".... :O

[Cotton Eye Joe]

Once had a chartered lunch flight to a wine estate. Scorching hot day. After lunch I made myself comfortable in the shade under the heli and waited for pax to finish lunch. Inevitably dosed off. Was awakened by pax staring down at me. Felt like I could disappear.

[oldbeefer]

Was Number2 to the Sqn Cdr (Bunny A)while on det to Alberta with 4 Pumas. Task was to take Army boss to a curry lunch. This was all set up in a very large marquee. Sqn Cdr makes his approach to very close to marquee - this inflates with air, pulls all the stakes/pegs out. Sqn Cdr bogs off rapidly. Marquee collapses onto assembled throng, knocking the food onto the floor as it did so. Sqn Cdr borrows dog collar from the padre and goes back by road.

He did survive.

[firebird_uk]

In my early days as a CPL I was given a charter into Royal Ascot. Returning to collect my PAX after the racing the radio conversation went something like this.

FB: Jockey** Finals
ATC: Jockey** gate 2, we're locating your passengers.
.......
ATC: Jockey** your passengers are not here. Air taxi to parking next to the 109s.
FB: Jockey** Air taxi parking.
.......
ATC: Jockey** they're not the 109s they're the Dauphins.
FB: Ohh, Err, which ones are the 109s?
ATC: They're the white ones!

:O

[boguing]

Is Stevie Terrier still around?

I might wel be able to offer him a little crumb of absolution.

[jackx123]

I was witness to the following event at a soaring club.

The tug pilot had just taken off with whatever hanging behind him when a clean C-210 crossed very close to his nose at HIGH speed. Obviously not seeing there was a tug in the air.

Needless to say the tug was livid and complained that the C-210 pilot should have a lesson in air law and perhaps refrain from trying to fly an aircraft.

The rumor spread and within 30 min the C-210 pilot came up to the tug and presented him as the fleet manager of a large European airline with x thousand hours and heard that the tug wanted to give him lessons how to fly an airplane.

No comments, but the tug was right and still livid.

The next day the C-210 pilot took the helm of one of the gliders and in a matter of two hours he managed to total the glider - big red face.

THE TUG'S ONLY COMMENT: I heard flying can be difficult and potentially hazardous.
:D

[Tail-take-off]

This sounds far fetched but did happen.

A friend of mine was a 212 co-pilot. One foggy day he was asked to do a ground run for main motor tracking. Following a successful ground track the engineer asked if they could check it in the hover. That went well & the engineer then asked if he could pull some power. Being a helpful sort of chap my friend obliged. The next thing he knew he had lost sight of the ground.

He went down in history as the first pilot in the company to divert from a ground run! :sad: