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Famous hilarious pilot quotes


Triop

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I got a pretty fancy ex-military instructor when I started to fly. He used to swear pretty often and some quotes I will never forget :

About the nav' lights : "Never forget, lights are like politics, the reds are on the left wing"

For a perfect landing in calm wind conditions : "Just keep the stick at the right of your left ball"

About approach and landing on some of our Caribbean's rough and short airfield (this was about TFFJ/SBH) : "Never hesitate to go around. A landing here is a missed go around"

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I attended a lecture by General Tibbets several years ago. Afterwards, a university student asked a question (clearly she only went for this purpose). The question was prefaced by some politics, then asked if he'd ever been to the peace museum in Hiroshima.

His reponse was classic, "No, ma'am, I only went to Hiroshima the one time, and I didn't stop."

(I bet it was over 10 years ago)

 

EDIT: I should have said the quote wasn't famous, just the guy I heard make it :wink: )

Edited by tater
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Not exactly a quote, but.....

Old friend of mine about to go up and do a final jump (before his solo) with his ex British Special Forces paratrooper (Paras) instructor friend ... I told him "Good luck!" ... more-so meaning to have fun. I got lambasted royally on the spot and was told you never wish a paratrooper 'good luck' before a jump. What the hell did I know. oops :blush:

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8 hours ago, TheSaint said:

Not so much a quote, but one of the best aviation stories ever told: Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check?

Classic, Love it XD

One of my faves, but I cant find anything other than anecdotal evidence for it at the moment, but it goes something like:

[Callsign] an SR-71 Blackbird, unbeknowst to [ATC]

"[ATC], requesting clearance to flight level 600." (flight level 600 being 60kft)

"[Callsign], I dont think you are going to be able to make it up to flight level 600, but you are cleared."

"Roger, descending to flight level 600."

 

And here's a bonus anecdote I came across whilst looking for that one:

There's a story about the military pilot calling for a priority
landing because his single-engine jet fighter was running "a bit peaked."
Air Traffic Control told the fighter jock that he was number two
behind a B-52 that had one engine shut down.
"Ah," the pilot remarked, "the dreaded seven-engine approach."

Edited by p1t1o
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P: "errr, mission, this is [aircraft/pilot] i ... uuh... forgot my callsign .."

M: "roger, pilot, adopt new callsign 'Idiot One'

Idiot one completes mission under new callsign.

 

P: asks for landing info

T: "runway xx, wind yy, no other traffic announced. btw. is this the same aircraft that declared an emergency 2 hours ago ?"

P: "No, only the same pilot."

 

ATC: "XYZ123, turn left and report heading."

P: "Roger ... 120, 130, 140, 150, ...."

(turns wrong way and blocks frequency)

 

C: "Phantom crossing airfield without clearance state your callsign !"

P: "I'm not silly"

 

G: "xyz123 approaching runway ab, checkcar on the runway."

P: "Roger, will check the car on runway"

 

P: "apron, please call us a fuel truck"

A: "Roger, you're a fuel truck"

 

... and thousands more :-))

 

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52 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

One of my faves, but I cant find anything other than anecdotal evidence for it at the moment, but it goes something like:

[Callsign] an SR-71 Blackbird, unbeknowst to [ATC]

"[ATC], requesting clearance to flight level 600." (flight level 600 being 60kft)

"[Callsign], I dont think you are going to be able to make it up to flight level 600, but you are cleared."

"Roger, descending to flight level 600."

 

I found this in a series of excerpts from the book Sled Driver: http://rahulbandaru.blogspot.com/2012/03/sr-71-blackbird-my-oldest-flying-wet.html

And, another nice quote:

Tower: "Flight 2431, for noise abatement turn 20 degrees to the right."
Pilot (Flight 2431): "Roger, but we're at 35,000 feet, how much noise can we make up here?"
Tower: "Flight 2431, have you ever heard the noise a 707 makes when it collides with a 727?"

 

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Pilot of a small aircraft, broken english language

P: "Bratislava, this is  xyz123, request landing"

pause

P: "Bratislava, this is  xyz123, request landing"

T: "Roger, xyz123, you are cleared to land [landing info]. But please note this is Vienna"

P: "Roger Bratislava [reads back landing info more or less correctly]"

T: "Once again, xyz123, this is not Bratislava, this is Vienna"

P: "But why, we want to go to Bratislava"

T:  "Roger, xyz, discontinue approach, climb [altitude] heading [heading], vector to Bratislava"

 

We may assume that the confused guy got home.

 

More fun

 

Edited by Green Baron
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Not a famous quote, but one that will stay with me after hearing an interview of some stunt team pilots which do awesome stuff together.

It went something like this.

"All these stunts need perfect timing, half a second early or half a second to late and we've got a disaster on our hands. So when we're doing stunts and need to time perfectly, we just go 'One banana, Two banana, Three banana' "

 

:rolleyes::o

 

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 Pseudo quotes and more:

The fighter pilot's prayer: "Lord I pray for the eyes of an eagle, the heart of a lion and the courage of a combat helicopter pilot."

 

Gunter's Second Law of Air Travel: The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee.

 

Tower: "Eastern 702, cleared for take-off, contact Departure on frequency 124.7"

Eastern 702: "Tower, Eastern 702 switching to Departure. By the way, after liftoff we saw some kind of dead animal on the far end of the runway."

Tower: "Continental 635, cleared for take-off behind Eastern 702, contact Departure on frequency 124.7. Did you copy that report from Eastern 702?"

BR Continental 635: "Continental 635, cleared for take-off, roger; and yes, we copied Eastern...we've already notified our caterers."

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Mine is an actual conversation I had with a retired air force pilot, who happens to be a friend, whom I keep in touch with on Facebook. When he first friended me about six years ago, he posted a message on my wall that  turned into a light-hearted exchange that we both still laugh about. Anyhow, he flew C-130s at Fort Benning during the late 1980s:

He began by saying, "So, Alan, why do you Army guys insist on jumping out of my perfectly good planes?"

"Because we've heard how bad your landings are..." was my reply...

One of his other Air Force buddies then shot back, "Bob, I guess he does know you pretty well..."

(we did bicker back and forth for another dozen or so posts, but it was all in good fun).

Edited by adsii1970
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2 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

He began by saying, "So, Alan, why do you Army guys insist on jumping out of my perfectly good planes?"

"Because we've heard how bad your landings are..." was my reply...

Reminds me of the first and so far only time some friends and I went skydiving. On the way up one friend remarked that he didn't know why we were jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, to which the pilot replied "What makes you think it's perfectly good?"

The rest of the flight up was much quieter...

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11 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Reminds me of the first and so far only time some friends and I went skydiving. On the way up one friend remarked that he didn't know why we were jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, to which the pilot replied "What makes you think it's perfectly good?"

The rest of the flight up was much quieter...

Did the pilot have a chute on as well?

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A couple of my favourite aviation quotes;-

Never fly the A model of anything.

Never fly with someone braver than you.

You have never been lost until you have been lost at mach three.

It is better to be on the ground wishing you were up in the air than to be up in the air wishing you were on the ground.

 

 

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