Aviation Humor -- Definitions and Lies
Definitions
- Airfoil: Reynolds Wrap for manufacturing aircraft wings.
- Airspeed: Speed of an airplane. Deduct 25% when listening to a Navy pilot.
- Angle of Attack: Pick-up lines that pilots use.
- Arresting Gear: A Policeman's equipment.
- Bank: The folks who hold the lien on most pilots' cars.
- Barrel Roll: Sport enjoyed at squadron picnics, usually after the barrels are
empty.
- Carburetor Icing: A phenomenon happening to Aero club pilots at exactly the same
time they run out of gas.
- Cone of Confusion: An area about the size of New Jersey located near the final
approach beacon at an airport.
- Crab: The squadron Ops. Officer.
- Dead Reckoning: You reckon correctly, or you are.
- Engine Failure: A condition which occurs when all fuel tanks become filled with
air.
- Firewall: Section of the aircraft specially designed to let heat and smoke enter
the cockpit.
- Glide Distance: Half the distance from an airplane to the nearest emergency
landing field.
- Hydroplane: An airplane designed to land on a wet runway, 20,000 feet long.
- IFR: A method of flying by needle and ripcord.
- Landing: A controlled mid-air collision with a planet.
- Lean Mixture: Non-alcoholic beer.
- Motor: Word used by student pilots and Yankees when referring to the engine.
- Nanosecond: Time delay built into the stall warning system.
- Parasitic Drag: A pilot who bums a ride back and complains about the service.
- Range: Usually about 30 miles beyond the point where all fuel tanks fill with
air.
- Rich Mixture: What you order at the other guy's promotion party.
- Roger: Used when you're not sure what else to say.
- Roll: The first design priority for a fully loaded KC-135A.
- Service Ceiling: Altitude at which cabin crews can serve drinks.
- Spoilers: The Federal Aviation Administration.
- Stall: Technique used to explain to the bank why your car payment is late.
- Steep Bank: Banks that charge pilots more than 10% interest.
- Tactics: What a clock sounds like when it needs fixing.
- Tail Wind: Results from eating beans, often causing Oxygen deficiency in the
immediate vicinity.
- Turn & Bank Indicator: An instrument highly ignored by pilots.
- Useful Load: Volumetric capacity of the aircraft, disregarding weight of cargo.
- Up: A chant used by pilots taking off from Colorado Springs, who want to discover
the meaning of life.
- VOR: Radio navigation aid, named after the VORtex effect of pilots trying to home
in on it.
- Windsocks: Socks that need darning.
- Yankee: Any pilot that asks Houston tower to "Say again".
- Zero: Style and artistry points earned for a gear-up landing.
- I'm from the FAA and I'm here to help you.
- Me? I've never busted minimums.
- We will be on time, maybe even early.
- Pardon me, ma'am, I seem to have lost my jet keys.
- I have no interest in flying for the airlines.
- I fixed it right the first time, it must have failed for other reasons.
- All that turbulence spoiled my landing.
- I'm a member of the mile high club.
- I only need glasses for reading.
- I broke out right at minimums.
- The weather is gonna be alright; it's clearing to VFR.
- Don't worry about the weight and balance -- it'll fly.
- If we get a little lower I think we'll see the lights.
- I'm 22, got 6000 hours, a four year degree and 3000 hours in a Lear.
- We shipped the part yesterday.
- All you have to do is follow the book.
- This plane outperforms the book by 20 percent.
- We in aviation are overpaid, underworked and well respected.
- Oh sure, no problem, I've got over 2000 hours in that aircraft.
- I have 5000 hours total time, 3200 are actual instrument.
- No need to look that up, I've got it all memorized.
- Sure I can fly it -- it has wings, doesn't it?
- We'll be home by lunchtime.
- Your plane will be ready by 2 o'clock.
- I'm always glad to see the FAA.
- We fly every day -- we don't need recurrent training.
- It just came out of annual -- how could anything be wrong?
- I thought YOU took care of that.
- I've got the field in sight.
- I've got the traffic in sight.
- Of course I know where we are.
- I'm SURE the gear was down.
Truths
- The only thing worse than a captain who never flew as copilot is a
copilot who once was a captain
- It's easy to make a small fortune in aviation. You start with a large
fortune.
- A male pilot is a confused soul who talks about women when he's flying,
and about flying when he's with a woman
- A helicopter is a collection of rotating parts going round and round and
reciprocating parts going up and down -- all of them trying to become random in motion.
Helicopters can't really fly -- they're just so ugly that the earth immediately repels
them
General
- Some Hot Shot Pilot!
It seems that a young man volunteered for military service during
World War
II. He had such a high aptitude for aviation that he was sent
right to
Pensacola Naval Air Station, skipping recruit training. The very
first day
at Pensacola he solos and is the best flier on the base. All
they could do
was give him his gold wings and assign him immediately to an aircraft
carrier in the Pacific.
On his first day aboard, he took off and single-handedly shot down 6
Japanese Zeroes. Then climbing up to 20,000 ft., he found 9 more
Japanese
planes and shot them all down as well. Noting that his fuel was
getting
low, he descended, circled the carrier and came in for a
perfect landing on the deck.
He threw back the canopy, climbed out and jogged over to the captain.
Saluting smartly he said, "Well sir, how did I do on my very
first day?"
The captain turned around, bowed politely, withdrew his samari sword
and
replied, "You make one velly, velly selious mistake!"
Many thanks to Cazfry Computing |
