Do you fly airplanes?

If so you should enjoy this exchange be a pilot and a rookie air traffic controller.

From Dennis Rainwater, October 2007 - I have a (well, almost) personal ATC/Pilot conversation I thought I'd share with you. I was a weather guy in the USAF during the late 80s-early 90s, and while I was stationed at RAF Woodbridge in England I often hung out with a controller in the tower cab just above our office. This fellow shared a story with me that he claimed happened to him personally. I can't vouch 100% for the authenticity of this tale, but the guy was generally believable... Also, a detail or two might be blurred by my own faulty memory over the past 15-20 years, but here it goes: My friend says he was training an ATC rookie - I think he said it was out at Nellis AFB. Anyway, one day this kid takes a call from an aircraft requesting clearance to FL 800 (80,000 feet)...

Rookie (dripping with sarcasm): "Okay, hotshot -- if you think you can take her that high, GO FOR IT!!"
Pilot of the SR-71 on the other end of the radio: "Roger Control; now DESCENDING from 100,000 feet to FL 800...."

Via Business Balls.

12 injured in a South Korean plane due to turbulence

OK, this is a public service announcement from SPIIDERWEB™.

When the flight attendants tell you to keep your seatbelt fastened when seated...THIS IS WHY!

Twelve people on board a Korean Air airplane were injured late Sunday when the plane met an air turbulence before it landed in Kansai International Airport in Osaka, Japan, Jiji press said.

The Airbus 300-600 passenger plane landed at the airport at around 8:14 p.m. (1114 GMT) after it met the turbulence, the report said, adding that the five injured passengers and seven injured crew members have been sent to hospital.

It will rarely get as bad as Airplane!, but it can get close.

Via Xinhua.

Trust Me On This

I posted a while back on an airplane crash. Many thought it was a hoax, but...

Although the above-displayed photograph looks like the setup for a bit of humor to be displayed in the background of a film or as scenery at amusement park — an airplane crashed into a tree right next to a sign advertising a flight school — it is the product of a real (and non-deliberate) small plane crash.

I rest my case.

Truth be told, SPIIDERWEB™ has been wrong before. Only once and I posted a correction as soon as I discovered the error.

Hey, I have a better record than Bush.

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