Leaving JFK on 956, we were on Ground frequency, and due to the huge backlog were kept on it until close to tower departures...

JFK Ground: LHxxx continue taxi, follow United 956 on taxiway x
JFK Ground: LHxxx do you copy?
JFK Ground: ... is LHxxx listening to?

2 mins later:

LHxxx: JFK Ground what is our status please?
JFK Ground: Where the hell have you been damit?
LHxxx: We were on tower, seeing what our queue number was...
JFK Ground: Did I tell you to bug the tower? He's got enough work to do without YOU adding to his workload until I TELL YOU TO... Now FOLLOW UNITED 956...
LHxxx: Follow United 956.
JFK Ground: Jesus Christ that was hard.

:D

I was wetting myself in 17A getting a very dodgy look from 17B ;)

These aren't CH9, but I have heard a few funny ones before. Once I was in Phoenix about to fly a jet back from an airshow. I heard someone getting "cleared unrestricted climb to FL600." I was wondering what the heck was going on since no one flies that high when a U2 taxied by.

I once heard a flight of 4 check in on our frequency, "Spud check, one potato, two potato, three potato, four. Denver Center, Spud 11 flight checking in level 210"

I once heard an air traffic controller instructing a student in a restricted area doing aerobatics, "Ratch 21, work West. You are about to spill out of your area." "Ratch 21, say heading" .... long pause here ... reply from student "uhhhhhh.... up"

The best I've heard were last December sitting on a plane durring a blizzard at ORD. Our flight was going to GRU and did eventually leave about 4 hours late. Apparantly every plane that did land had to wait four hours for a gate as well

Some of the messages were

1. United xxx: Anyone know if Dominos will deliver?
2. United xxx: Thank you for the gate, but it's been ten minutes and their is nobody to operate our jetway. (They called every 5 minutes for 30 minutes)
3. United XXX(My Plane): Our push isn't strong enough to get the plane over the snow drift we need to wait for different one to arrive
4. United xxx: We've been waiting for two hours a gate...do you know how much longer?. (Answer: 2 hours)
5. United xxx: Any chance of going to the hangor and bringing in busses. (Answer: No Buses Available)

In the funny catagory:

I was flying to LGA a couple years ago from ORD and it was one of those days where every departure had a 25 minute visit to the "Penalty Box" ATC had told a plane to proceed to the penalty box and shutdown the engine. The flight responded with "Thats Just Great". ATC shut back with, "My Job is to get you out of this airport as fast as I possibly can" for which the pilot responded with "and doing a hell of a job at it"

I've heard a few good Ch9 ATC exchanges, but most recently it was a Ch9 ramp exchange that stood out.

The guy directing planes to and from their gates made several wisecracks about pilots, ATC, Paris Hilton, etc. He had a regular comedy routine going. The pilots seemed to get a chuckle or two from it, anyway.

About a month ago we were still at the gate in ORD and our communications were with maintenance (sorry, don't know proper terminology). UAxxx heavy comes on and says they had a bird hit their window while landing and need to have it cleaned. Maintenance asks for clarification, which is given, and maintenance says, "Oh, okay... I thought you said a bird had come THROUGH your window!" Which led to this:

UAxxx: "Nope, it was a small bird, we just need to get it cleaned up, nothing serious."

Maintenance: "Tell that to the bird."

I have actually heard this happen as a passenger and told the FA to tell the captain. I'd rather keep ch 9 and having private conversations go public isn't good for that.

Most interesting convo I heard was with a truly incompetent
LA Center controller -

ATC: Delta xxx, slow to yyy knots, present heading.
Delta: If we slow to yyy knots, we will fall out of the sky.

and later:

ATC: United zzz (ours), I need you to make a tight turn
(description forgotten) immediately ...
United: That is outside of the design specifications for
this aircraft.
ATC: Oh.

Great, now I will feel quite safe when I come home. :(

Concerning, but hilarious :D

You'll be pretty safe unless you live in L.A.;)

My guess is that this was someone who was recently promoted
to the big city after working in a mostly general aviation airport.
Probably came as a big surprise that 757s don't behave the same
way as Cessnas.

We ended up making about the tightest turn I've ever
experienced, though.

Not to put you on edge, but this is becoming more common all over as new hires who don't have knowledge of a/c capabilities are coming on board. Doing away with the cockpit familiarity program hasn't helped either. Where pilots and ATCs used to get to spend a lot of time talking about their procedures, why certain requests are made and what certain a/c are capable of, they no longer have that opportunity. While it had the appearances of ATCs getting a lot of free trips (and not to say it was never abused), it really was a useful program.

I just had the BEST gem on my flight from ORD-SFO. As we are about 2 hours into the flight I think, someone signs off with a really bad seemingly fake cowboy type accent. As soon as gets off the channel ATC relys with "Yee-Haa" and a chuckle. Some other pilot comes on with: "Is he for real?" and our pilot UA159 comes back with "That is what urinalysis is for."

I nearly lost it; got a real strange look from the guy next to me though, I guess he wasn't on CH9 with me. ;)

I've done that a few times... my seatpartner is obviously thinking "why is he laughing at the Map...:confused: " :D

Love Channel 9
 

I really enjoy Channel 9 - it's humorous but also very educating. One pilot I had recently chose different 'goodbye' slogans (from different languages) when he was moving from one frequency to another!

I've noticed that I don't always know what they are talking about when listening - ie: vectoring the final, 'snowbird xxx', 'jetski', etc.

I found a great site (http://www.flightaware.com) that has some very cool stuff but the entire process really interests me. No - I'm not in the market for a career change, just would like to know a bit more. :)

Also - is the flight simulator anything worth exploring? I'd love to be in the cockpit jumpseat one day to just watch how the entire process happens.

Thanks!

The bloody AF pilots always sign off wherever they are with "au revoir." (And, I admit, I LOVE it, in spite of its obnoxiousness!)


Easy solution: do what I did, make yourself a 3K and get flown to DEN in F to ride in the simulator!