Funny things you have heard on the radio

Barry

Barry

Pre-takeoff checklist
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knoxflier
En route from West Memphis to Knoxville on Sunday, I heard some young sounding person ask ATC "Can I change my call sign today?" ATC paused a second or two, and then asked what his # was, and he replied "This is NXXXXX, but today I'd like my call sign to be the Millennium Falcon, please". There was total silence for a few seconds and then I heard an airline pilot say "well i've been flying for 20 years, and that is the first time i've heard that one". The ATC person just never responded o_O

I just had to share.
 
balls for asking!

I was departing my home class delta one time and heard a local yokel call up and he kept ending his calls with 'over'. "n12345, 10 south, over"...."inbound for landing, over". after a few calls and a confused tower controller who started playing along, I called up and said "exiting the delta, over and out". he got a kick out of it.
 
okay.. so stupid question.. how do you get a cool callsign.. or something other than "Skyhawk 1234"?

Also.. I'm pretty sure if you actually tried to register a "Millennium Falcon" call sign the goons at Disney would come after you.
 
Twenty-five, or so, years ago I was flying a 19-seat turboprop (J32) for American Eagle. I was on final for 20R at BNA. A SWA flight was taxiing to 20R for departure. The Tower asked him if they were ready and he responded, "We're always ready!"

Someone, I'll never admit to knowing who, immediately said, "That's not what SHE said!"

Very unprofessional. People shouldn't do that. :)
 
eman1200 said:
balls for asking!

I was departing my home class delta one time and heard a local yokel call up and he kept ending his calls with 'over'. "n12345, 10 south, over"...."inbound for landing, over". after a few calls and a confused tower controller who started playing along, I called up and said "exiting the delta, over and out". he got a kick out of it.
Click to expand...

So, which was it? "Over" or "Out". They mean different things. "Over" means I'm finished transmitting and expect an answer. "Out" means I'm finished transmitting and DO NOT expect an answer. Sorry, but the Army was rather insistent on this back in ROTC in the early 1970s.
 
I was calling traffic to a plane, don’t remember which company but the traffic was Alaska. There was another plane close by, American. Close enough that the pilot may have called the wrong plane in sight. So before applying Visual Separation I wanted to make sure. I told him about the other plane and decided to get cute and described the plane he was looking for has a picture of some Eskimo looking thing on the tail. He called it, I climbed him using Visual. A few seconds later a voice pops up and says, “that’s the captains girlfriend.”
 
Ghery said:
So, which was it? "Over" or "Out". They mean different things. "Over" means I'm finished transmitting and expect an answer. "Out" means I'm finished transmitting and DO NOT expect an answer. Sorry, but the Army was rather insistent on this back in ROTC in the early 1970s.
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It wasn’t OR. It was both, AND. It was both my last call and I didn’t EXPECT an answer but he gave me one. U can take it up with him if it didn’t meet the standards. ;)
 
eman1200 said:
balls for asking!

I was departing my home class delta one time and heard a local yokel call up and he kept ending his calls with 'over'. "n12345, 10 south, over"...."inbound for landing, over". after a few calls and a confused tower controller who started playing along, I called up and said "exiting the delta, over and out". he got a kick out of it.
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Reminds me of:
 
eman1200 said:
It wasn’t OR. It was both, AND.
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FAA Pilot/Controller glossary:

OVER: My transmission is ended; I expect a response.
OUT: The conversation is ended and no response is expected.​

So, "Over and out" means, "My transmission is ended; I expect a response AND the conversation is ended and no response is expected."
 
Larry in TN said:
FAA Pilot/Controller glossary:

OVER: My transmission is ended; I expect a response.
OUT: The conversation is ended and no response is expected.​
Click to expand...
So, it would be "Then clear me through the Bravo, over."
followed by "I'm too busy flying to copy a number, out."
Correct?
 
Airplane-movie-cockpit-scene-1980-750x502.jpg

Huh?
 
"Cleared...ummmm....your Class Charlie...uhhhhh.......airspace....mmmmm...to the south, request frequency change...."

"Freq change approved, see you next time."
 
Barry said:
En route from West Memphis to Knoxville on Sunday, I heard some young sounding person ask ATC "Can I change my call sign today?" ATC paused a second or two, and then asked what his # was, and he replied "This is NXXXXX, but today I'd like my call sign to be the Millennium Falcon, please". There was total silence for a few seconds and then I heard an airline pilot say "well i've been flying for 20 years, and that is the first time i've heard that one". The ATC person just never responded o_O

I just had to share.
Click to expand...
I was landing at KHUM and an FAA Kingair was carrying out a flightcheck of the GPS 12 procedure. He reported "IYUKU, NACIV Then JOBUP". Someone on the tower freq said "You guys are naming these after your kids now!" The Kingair crew was rolling in the aisle, tower was silent.
 
[QUOTE="luvflyin, post: 2950508, member: 25363" I told him about the other plane and decided to get cute and described the plane he was looking for has a picture of some Eskimo looking thing on the tail. He called it, I climbed him using Visual. A few seconds later a voice pops up and says, “that’s the captains girlfriend.”[/QUOTE]

For the longest time, I thought it was Jerry Garcia
 
Shooting the ILS this morning on tower frequency at DEC (not sure about the names, but the rest is 100% true):

D-"Uh hey Bob, this is Dick down at the cargo ramp, have you got any reports on ceilings? "

Tower had updated the ATIS based on report we gave from our first approach literally 3 min ago...

T-"Yeah, I just got a report of 500 AGL"

D-"Uh, OK, so 500 feet.... would that be VFR?"

T-"no,VFR is at least 1000 foot ceiling"

D-"Uh, ok I guess well just hang out here bit then and see if it improves...."

I was very glad to be out of there before Dick got airborne....
 
Approach calls out "traffic, 12 O'clock 1 mile same altitude, I'm not talking to him, advise when you have that traffic".

Well, that traffic was damn a damn Zepplin airship(offered tours at the time, about 12 years ago) which could be seen for miles. I said "oh...I have him alright, maintaining viz separation no problem".
 
On Albuquerque ground one day:

Click......click.....click click....click click..... Hmmmm........click click click......What the F***....click....click click......What the F*** is wrong with this?....click......this F*** thing is F****** broken.

GRD: No, it's not broken, we heard everything you said.
 
Geosync said:
Approach calls out "traffic, 12 O'clock 1 mile same altitude, I'm not talking to him, advise when you have that traffic".

Well, that traffic was damn a damn Zepplin airship(offered tours at the time, about 12 years ago) which could be seen for miles. I said "oh...I have him alright, maintaining viz separation no problem".
Click to expand...
A zepplin???
 
Last month rwy 13 at SAT was closed, so traffic was landing 22. At dusk, controllers started saying "caution, bats on final." There is a well-known bat cave with a large colony on the final course for 22.

Finally, one of the airliners asked "Really?" and the controller explained about the bat cave. The airliner asked if anyone ever saw them coming out. The controller said sometimes a plane would hit one and think they had a bird strike, but it was really a bat strike.
 
Van Johnston said:
Last month rwy 13 at SAT was closed, so traffic was landing 22. At dusk, controllers started saying "caution, bats on final." There is a well-known bat cave with a large colony on the final course for 22.

Finally, one of the airliners asked "Really?" and the controller explained about the bat cave. The airliner asked if anyone ever saw them coming out. The controller said sometimes a plane would hit one and think they had a bird strike, but it was really a bat strike.
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I get ATC passing along the warning per some protocol, but as a pilot what are you supposed to do about avoiding bats...in the dark?
 
ateamer said:
Yep, a real rigid frame airship. They were doing tours in the San Francisco Bay Area. I had a similar conversation with NorCal Approach.
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I had no idea they were still flying.

After some DuckDuckGo'ing, it appears that Goodyear has replaced all it's blimps with Zeppelin NT's. Although they do say that they are "semi-rigid" airships. I guess if there's any internal structure it's considered a zeppelin.
 
FCC regulations regarding call signs:

87.107 Station identification.

(a) Aircraft station. Identify by one of the following means:
(1) Aircraft radio station call sign.
(2) The type of aircraft followed by the characters of the registration marking ("N" number) of the aircraft, omitting the prefix letter "N." When communication is initiated by a ground station, an aircraft station may use the type of aircraft followed by the last three characters of the registration marking. Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, an aircraft being moved by maintenance personnel from one location in an airport to another location in that airport may be identified by a station identification consisting of the name of the company owning or operating the aircraft, followed by the word "Maintenance" and additional alphanumeric characters of the licensee's choosing.
(3) The FAA assigned radiotelephony designator of the aircraft operating organization followed by the flight identification number.

You have a radio station licence in a little plastic envelope on the sidewall together with the aircraft registration. You must follow both FCC regulations and FAA regulations. Your pilot certificate is your radio operator's license.
 
donjohnston said:
I had no idea they were still flying.

After some DuckDuckGo'ing, it appears that Goodyear has replaced all it's blimps with Zeppelin NT's. Although they do say that they are "semi-rigid" airships. I guess if there's any internal structure it's considered a zeppelin.
Click to expand...

The tour company was Airship Ventures. They were only in business for three or four years and have been gone for probably eight years by now.
 
This didn't happen over a radio, but I called a business and the old man answered. All I could hear we're grunts and sounds of exertion. For about a minute I waited patiently until, finally, he just slowly said, "********," in this haggard old voice. It sounded like he looked up and saw some impending doom about which there was nothing he could do, and he gave up.

I tried to call him back but he didn't answer.
 
I was monitoring our local approach control (Cairns) and a flight of Chinooks was receiving advisories. At one point, Cairns attempted to call the Chinooks multiple times to advise of traffic. It was probably the 5th attempt when the Chinooks finally responded. At that point, you could tell the controller was frustrated since it was a very busy day with all of the local Fort Rucker training aircraft flying. The controller responded to the Chinooks with “Next time you call for advisories, listen to the radio. Frequency change approved, squawk VFR and have a nice day.”
 
Of course...the old (urban legend?) exchange that went something like this btwn ATC and a flight in IMC:

ATC: "bugsmasher 1234, say altitude"

1234: "Altitude"

ATC: "bugsmasher 1234 say 'cancelling IFR'"

1234: "Level 5000"

...
 
I overheard this as as a newly minted pilot back in 2006. Flying back from Block Island to HPN and monitoring a busy NY Approach freq.

NYA: Skyhawk - There's a blimp at your 12 o'clock 10 miles let me know when you have them in sight.
Skyhawk: Negative
...
NYA: Skyhawk - the blimp is now 12 o'clock 6 miles practicing landings. Do you have it in sight?
Skyhawk: Negative, looking
...
NYA: Skyhawk - THE BLIMP IS 12 O'CLOCK, 3 MILES. DO YOU HAVE IT IN SIGHT.
Skyhawk: Negative

30 seconds later...
Skyhawk: We have the blimp in sight.
Exasperated NYA: Great. Now don't pop it.
 
[random back and forth fumbling with pilot and ATC]

Then

"Approach, Skyhawk 345, can we get flight following to XYZ"

"Skyhawk 345, you are already ON flight following!"

few beats later

"Skyhawk 345, Norcal...are you a student pilot?"

[sheepishly] "No..."
 
Last week, I heard a Cirrus pilot call in for runway 36 at a nearby radio. Another pilot called out, "Cirrus, we're all using 18... abort, abort, pull the chute." No response for a long time, then, "Sorry, it sounded funny in my head."
 
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