Since my posts are so often a rush to the defense of pilots, airline employees, and are not always "overly jovial", I thought I'd toss out a few observations from years of flying for United. Some, I actually thought up on my own. The cruise portion of a long flight can cultivate some diverse thoughts. Others, I have heard from other pilots and even a few passengers.

I hope you enjoy them


AVIATION TRUSIMS AND OTHER FACTS

Weather forecasts are nothing but horoscopes for the air.

That old myth: Chickens can�t fly, is not true. I�m a chicken, and I can fly. I just don�t fly when it gets too scary.

Mankind has at lease one perfect record in aviation: We�ve never left one up there. This doesn�t apply to space flight.

Never fly with another pilot who�s braver than you

Try to stay in the middle of the air. The edges of the air are defined by such things as buildings, water, interstellar space, other airplanes, and, if you don�t tolerate all-nighters, darkness

It takes full power to taxi an airplane with the wheels up

Without ammunition, the Air Force is just another expensive flying club

I tried to fly a helicopter once or twice, but it didn�t work either time. Maybe I was thinking too much about all those moving parts. An airplane has less moving parts than a helicopter, and you don�t need every single part to stay up in the air. Not so in helicopters.

You don�t hear about vintage helicopter fly-ins all that much.

Real planes use only a single stick to fly. This is why helicopters need two.
The most common phrase heard spoken in a modern, glass-cockpit jet airliner with advanced avionics and multiple redundant safety systems: Surprise! It�s not, �What�s it doing now?�. It�s, �What�s this stuff?� This is not spoken when the airplane systems do something unexpected; it�s spoken shortly after the crew meals are delivered to the cockpit. I�ve heard it (and spoken it) throughout my 25 years as a United pilot, in every airplane type I�ve flown, from the round-dial 727s & 737-200s through the Yuppy Guppies, Airbii, and 757/767s. (They all have the same galley carts).

On my first day of Airbus training, I truly could relate to a dog watching television.

You can differentiate light turbulence several ways: Light turbulence will only cause your coffee to shake, but not jump out of your cup.
Moderate turbulence will cause coffee to jump out of your cup, and you to jump out of your seat and head to the blue room.

The seat belt sign is a great reminder that you need to use the blue room.

What are Air Pockets?
What defines the boundaries of an Air Pocket?
What is inside of an Air Pocket?
What is on the outside of an Air Pocket?
What is an Air Pocket made of?



FAB

Very nice! Have a lot of friends who are copter pilots?

Yes, a few. You oughta hear the stuff they have on us starch-wingers. What's interesting is that, given nothing but our mistaken impression that we can do anything if we just put our mind to it (except when we're carrying y'all around with us, of course), helo pilots are better in airplanes than airplane pilots are in helos.

FAB

To add, I like to bug my mom (AF MX officer) with this one: without pilots, maintainers are poorly-trained auto mechanics.

Well, as an aircraft mechanic I would just like to add:

"Without aircraft mechanics, pilots are just pedestrians."

I only heard this on recently...

"The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire"....

To build on planemechanic's post:

'Without maintenance, pilots are just pedestrians in fancy uniforms.'

Who am I if I'm a pilot and an A&P mechanic? I'd love to be home every night again, but conversely, I don't even like changing my own oil anymore.

Re: the fancy uniforms, I'd be pretty happy if I could wear my corporate gig uniform when flying for UA. That's jeans & sneakers in winter and shorts & flip-flops in summer^

BTW, I wouldn't fly an airplane that wasn't maintained by anything other than a pro, as in you and planemechanic!


FAB

thanks!

If you have your feet in both worlds- depends on which cert you have been exercising recently (depending on the FAA regs for pilot currency as opposed to MX). Of course, a pilot with mechanic experience usually helps when they are able to give more information on a broken item other than the standard 'xxxx is inop'.

The 'fancy' uniforms came from a shirt a friend of mine acquired while working MX for the local Air Ntnl Guard unit.

That's me, after I got hired at UA as a pilot, never turned another wrench on an airplane. I still have all my Snap-On tools though!

It certainly helps when describing stuff to our mechanics though, especially when they realize I'm "one of them".

Still pushing for jeans & sneakers.

FAB

As a helicopter pilot, I've always identified with the Harry Reasoner quote below:

"The thing is, helicopters are different from planes. An airplane by its nature wants to fly, and if not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or by a deliberately incompetent pilot, it will fly. A helicopter does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls working in opposition to each other, and if there is any disturbance in this delicate balance the helicopter stops flying; immediately and disastrously.

There is no such thing as a gliding helicopter.

This is why being a helicopter pilot is so different from being an airplane pilot, and why in generality, airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed, buoyant extroverts and helicopter pilots are brooding introspective anticipators of trouble.

They know if something bad has not happened it is about to."