Funniest thing you've heard on the radio?

jesse said:
Sidnaw traffic, Cherokee two-two-one-two-romeo is 10 miles to the southeast. Any traffic in the area, please advise.

The guy sounded like a total idiot.
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This is the reason i left poa. We as pilots NEED to support pilots, not discourage them. student pilots especially. While i enjoy funny ATC exchanges, Making fun of new pilots is not good for the industry.

sorry, needed to vent. just saw the AOPA article on student pilot success rate and seems to me this kinda talk doesnt help. IDIOT? this is how i was taught to communicate
 
I am a radio guy and I still freeze on the air. The idiot comment aside, this is generally a hilarious thread.
 
Michael said:
This is the reason i left poa. We as pilots NEED to support pilots, not discourage them. student pilots especially. While i enjoy funny ATC exchanges, Making fun of new pilots is not good for the industry.

sorry, needed to vent. just saw the AOPA article on student pilot success rate and seems to me this kinda talk doesnt help. IDIOT? this is how i was taught to communicate
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Calm down. He's just poking fun at EdFred. Sidnaw is Ed's airport and that was his old tail number.
 
Really: I was returning home from a cross country and heard another pilot report downwind to the Tower:

Pilot: Tower, 34X is on the downwind.

That's all. Only thing was "on the downwind" came out in a groan, as if he really had to answer the call of nature and could barely wait to land and get our of that plane.
 
I was doing a runup at Santa Barbra, CA the other week. A Cessna 210 was taxing to the same runup area and as soon as he got close ground told him "caution twinstar in the runup area". A few minutes a Warrior (I think, forgot already) wanted to do the runup and ground didn't let him enter the runup area while both of us were there (there was plenty of room for him). Then the 210 leaves and the Warrior requests permission to taxi the runup area, ground let him but just like the last guy he to him to caution me.
I should have said that I'm peaceful on the radio.
 
In preparing my flight bag for tomorrow (Young Eagles), I was going through stuff and found the hand held recorder (audio) and dubbing cables. I won't be able to video the flights, but I bet if I audio record I'll hear some "funny things on the radio" from my little passengers. I'll try to figure out how to upload them after.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
In preparing my flight bag for tomorrow (Young Eagles), I was going through stuff and found the hand held recorder (audio) and dubbing cables. I won't be able to video the flights, but I bet if I audio record I'll hear some "funny things on the radio" from my little passengers. I'll try to figure out how to upload them after.
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Would love to hear it! You can use the free program Audacity to edit the audio to just include the good clips, and export as MP3. PM me if you need help.
 
Michael said:
This is the reason i left poa. We as pilots NEED to support pilots, not discourage them. student pilots especially. While i enjoy funny ATC exchanges, Making fun of new pilots is not good for the industry.

sorry, needed to vent. just saw the AOPA article on student pilot success rate and seems to me this kinda talk doesnt help. IDIOT? this is how i was taught to communicate
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Notice how that post is 5 years old. If you were here 5 years ago you'd have understood that I was making a joke about a member of the forum in good humor.

It's really never a good idea to post about something that old because you likely don't understand the context.
 
TangoWhiskey said:
Would love to hear it! You can use the free program Audacity to edit the audio to just include the good clips, and export as MP3. PM me if you need help.
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Darn. Worked in the 172 but not in the 150. Found other issues with the 150 audio as well. It is about 5 years older than the 170.

Oh well, I got pictures. The funniest thing any of the kids said was "I flew a plane one time in a video game but it had a joystick and not one of these so this might be different" and my favorite (before I even started the prop, after seeing another plane take off - "I can tell this is going to be a whole lot of fun" (I said 'you're right, it sure is').
 
As a newly minted pilot some 18 years ago I was flying my then pregnant wife out of Albuquerque New Mexico. It was a very hot summer afternoon.
She was sitting co-pilot with the sectional spread out accros her lap.
Well the bumps caused her to get sick all over the sectional. About a minute after the barfing incident the controller asked for my current position. "Stand by, my wife just got sick all over the sectional".
 
I flew to KSTS on Sunday with an "almost CFI". He said it would help him prepare to just observe (and give feedback about what I did wrong at the end of the flight).

I am still not too good with towered airports, but this time I did pretty well. After landing and as I turned off the runway, the tower controller - a young woman - said what she always says which is sort of automatic - something like "Cessna 516, contact ground point niner. Good day, sir." I replied back "Will contact ground" or something and she then said "sorry, I meant to call you ma'am" and I said "that's OK I knew what you meant!"
 
I was starting my engines up and listening to the Student Pilot doing his thing x-wind when I heard ATC at Prestwick ask him what his intentions were... His reply was " I intend to finish my CPL/IR and go back to Dubai and fly for an airline"...
It had a few people doubled up for a few minutes...
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
I flew to KSTS on Sunday with an "almost CFI". He said it would help him prepare to just observe (and give feedback about what I did wrong at the end of the flight).

I am still not too good with towered airports, but this time I did pretty well. After landing and as I turned off the runway, the tower controller - a young woman - said what she always says which is sort of automatic - something like "Cessna 516, contact ground point niner. Good day, sir." I replied back "Will contact ground" or something and she then said "sorry, I meant to call you ma'am" and I said "that's OK I knew what you meant!"
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Reminds me of one time a looong time ago when I would go up every year (when I was 12ish maybe?) and my voice hadn't broken yet. I had to talk to Potomac to get back inside the ADIZ to land at Manassas (HEF), and on our handoff to the tower, the controller called me ma'am ("G'day ma'am" or something to that effect). My voice hadn't changed yet, and I remember not being too terribly happy.
 
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jpower said:
Reminds me of one time a looong time ago when I would go up every year (when I was 12ish maybe?) and my voice hadn't broken yet. I had to talk to Potomac to get back inside the ADIZ to land at Manassas (HEF), and on our handoff to the tower, the controller called me ma'am ("G'day ma'am" or something to that effect). My voice hand't changed yet, and I remember not being too terribly happy.
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Before mine cracked I purposefully deepened it to prevent such things :sad:

Now I find myself sounding like I did then normally.
 
Inbound to Morristown, NJ late last night; about 200 miles out -

Cleveland Center to me: Descend maintain 14,000.

Me: Umm...any chance we can get that at pilot's discretion? We're a little tight on gas.

ZOB: No, sorry, I need you to start down now and you can plan <some fix> at 8,000.

Me: Ouch, we don't like that idea.

ZOB: No, I know. No one does. But it's New York being....

...long pause...

...the way they are.
 
Teller1900 said:
Inbound to Morristown, NJ late last night; about 200 miles out -

Cleveland Center to me: Descend maintain 14,000.

Me: Umm...any chance we can get that at pilot's discretion? We're a little tight on gas.

ZOB: No, sorry, I need you to start down now and you can plan <some fix> at 8,000.

Me: Ouch, we don't like that idea.

ZOB: No, I know. No one does. But it's New York being....

...long pause...

...the way they are.
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That sounds like one bad vector away from "Unable, minimum fuel."
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
I flew to KSTS on Sunday with an "almost CFI". He said it would help him prepare to just observe (and give feedback about what I did wrong at the end of the flight).

I am still not too good with towered airports, but this time I did pretty well. After landing and as I turned off the runway, the tower controller - a young woman - said what she always says which is sort of automatic - something like "Cessna 516, contact ground point niner. Good day, sir." I replied back "Will contact ground" or something and she then said "sorry, I meant to call you ma'am" and I said "that's OK I knew what you meant!"
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....sheesh, talk about positive reinforcement .....
 
This weekend I was doing a solo-mini cross country and I heard:

"Windham traffic, Bugsmasher 1234AB 3 miles to the north inbound for landing on 27. Windham."

...minute or so later...

"Windham traffic, Bugsmasher 1234AB is entering crosswind for....ugh.....forget that..."

...minute or three later...

"Windham traffic, Bugsmasher 1234AB is entering DOWNWIND for 18, downwind for 18. Windham."

I had a horrific landing (with people watching of course) on 27 before he announced his base for 18 and when I got a look at the windsock it was hugely favoring 18, even though the ASOS said 250. Very shifty winds on Sunday.
 
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Just seems awkward to only say "Norcal Approach, Arrow 123SA level five thousand five hundred" I guess.
 
Teller1900 said:
Flying the route from LGA-LEB the other day, heard this with BOS Center after a Cherokee pilot (rather sheepishly) called up and asked for flight following and a vector over or around Bruswick airspace (good airspace to avoid).

BOS: Roger, have your request. Climb and maintain 4,500, I'll have a hand off for you in a minute.

Long pause.

BOS: Cherokee XXX, did you copy Boston?

Short pause.

BOS: I said climb to it, not squawk it!
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I first read this and was wondering why the pilot thought he'd need to avoid Brunswick whereas it is a civilian airport now...then I saw the date of the OP!


I was actually flying back from BXM (Brunswick) to AUG on Sunday when I heard an Execjet pilot whom just landed announce:

"ExecJet 1234 clear of runways 17/35 at....<long pause> <laughing> where are we again?" Then the other pilot piped in with "Augusta"

I then replied: "I forget where I am sometimes, too".

:lol:
 
Also heard on a quick hop down to PWM a few weeks ago while talking to Portland Tower.

This aircraft had flown the visual into 29 and was cleared to land (I forgot the type and callsign).

"Aircraft 1234, cleared to land 29, and we'll need a fire truck....erm...uhh excuse me...FUEL truck, we'll need a FUEL truck." :rofl:
 
In Minnesota, and I assume many parts of the country, picking up other CTAF communications from other airports sharing the frequency happens regularly. Needless to say, there have been some interesting conversations over the air by people forgetting that on a good day, their communications may reach well over 100 miles.
My personal favorite was from during my training days...
Last July, a month into training, there was an airshow/expo over a weekend. The event drew in the Zurich Zeppelin to good 'ole KFCM. On a takeoff from 28L, the tower advised:
FCM_TWR: "Cherokee 9612W, Traffic, Zeppelin 11 o'clock, .5 Mile is landing in the South West corner of the field."
To which I replied:
Me, trying not to laugh to hard: "Flying Cloud Tower, Cherokee 12W has the window filling zeppelin in sight"
I know that the tower was establishing visual separation, but their "Thanks" over the radio was filled with just about as much stifled laughter as my transmission was.
 
Jaybird180 said:
....sheesh, talk about positive reinforcement .....
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He did say one nice thing (on downwind to land at the towered airport):

Him: Very nice, correcting for the wind

Me: That wasn't me, the plane naturally does that

(It was only 4 knots of wind, pushing us either towards or away from the runway on downwind, I don't remember, I just keep the runway at the same part of the wing strut).
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
He did say one nice thing (on downwind to land at the towered airport):

Him: Very nice, correcting for the wind

Me: That wasn't me, the plane naturally does that

(It was only 4 knots of wind, pushing us either towards or away from the runway on downwind, I don't remember, I just keep the runway at the same part of the wing strut).
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Your plane naturally corrects for crosswinds?
 
JoeSelch said:
While on downwind? Had you encountered windshear?
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Nevermind, I probably don't know what I'm talking about / not using the right words. Forget I said anything. All I know is he made a comment about what I did and I told him I didn't do a darned thing.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
Nevermind, I probably don't know what I'm talking about / not using the right words. Forget I said anything. All I know is he made a comment about what I did and I told him I didn't do a darned thing.
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Well, at least you didn't do whatever it was right! ;)
 
JoeSelch said:
Well, at least you didn't do whatever it was right! ;)
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That's the bad thing, he complimented me on doing something I didn't do (but should have done). Somehow the plane did that on its own. Then again he was tall enough to reach the rudders so who knows if he somehow did that.
 
Today's from Oshkosh...

"High wing on the downwind with the dual landing lights, what type are you?"

"We're a Piper Cub with bling."
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
That's the bad thing, he complimented me on doing something I didn't do (but should have done). Somehow the plane did that on its own. Then again he was tall enough to reach the rudders so who knows if he somehow did that.
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You did it, but it was automatic and you didn't have to think about it - it just happened.

During my last flight review the instructor commented that he "liked what I was doing with my feet". I had no idea that I was doing anything with my feet - I was just flying the airplane.
 
Yeah, I've found that the aircraft seems to very naturally transition into a good crab as soon as I get it coordinated after a crosswind takeoff. But I'm pretty sure that's all in my head (i.e., automatic) from having practiced it a whole lot. It wasn't always so. It seems to come from thinking in terms of where the aircraft is moving on the ground, as opposed to where the nose (or other parts of the aircraft) is pointed.
 
I was visiting the control tower at POU one dark evening early in my training. While there, a flustered pilot radioed tower with a very weak and scratchy signal to say that he had lost all electrical and was using his handheld radio. It was obvious that he was doing his best to handle a very difficult situation. He was having a difficult time finding the runway in the dark and the tower controller was helping by turning the runway lights up and down to help make the airport more visible. Finally when he was about 2000 feet overhead, the pilot found the airport. His next request cracked up the controller. "Request permission to descend to land."

The controller gave permission to descend as needed. Off the radio, he remarked to me that the equipment for raising the runway up to airplanes was broken tonight.
 
I got an email from Jeff Van West, the editor of IFR magazine. On the back page of each issue, they print a column that contains these kinds of things heard on the air. Jeff ran across this thread, feels it has some very funny contributions that he could use.

He says that if anyone who wants to see their originals published in IFR, they should send them to him with their name, city and state. Send to ifr@belvoirpubs.com...
 
Cxxx: "Twr, request runway 15"

Twr: "Unable. Report entering left downwind for 33"

Cxxx: "Well, the winds at 2,000' are 150 at 18"

Twr: "Sir, if I could jack the runway up to 2,000' then you could have 15. Make left traffic for 33."


I didn't actually hear that but Aunt Peggy's post reminded me of it. I forget where I read it.
 
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