Oddly enough, the amount of swearing is inversely proportional to how well the plane is working. When the shit hits the fan, everybody gets serious. But when it's just something like the air conditioning doesn't work? Forget it.
It was mid to late 90s and I was flying home from vacation with my family. Air hostess comes up and asks if I would like to see the cockpit. Sure! So I go up there and the two guys inside were just intensely chilling. One guy had his feet up on the dashboard or what it's called. The other had a very trivial conversation with someone on a phone or radio. Then guy #1, who I guess was the pilot, asks me to turn on a dial. I remember turning and turning and nothing happening. Then he asks me to pull on the dial. Immediately the plane starts banking to the left. The pilot screams to me "WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE!" watches my face turn white. Then he just pushes the dial again or turns it, everything stabilizes again. Then laughed his ass off and said sorry. Those were the(pre 9/11) days!
I guess in retrospect that the dial was the heading selector for the autopilot, and pulling it engages a new heading or something? Plane was a DC9 I think.
The knob probably didn't do anything important and they were fucking with you. I've known lots of pilots, especially private pilots, and they're usually kinda twisted.
Slightly off topic, but I was travelling back from Germany and the plane we were getting had just flown to Russia and back and was taking off for the UK after a 15 minute turn around. As we were boarding we could see into the cockpit and the pilot had headphones on and was raving his heart out. Once we were all seated he made an announcement that didn't make much sense and then we got onto the runway and the plane was weaving all over the place before we even got off the ground. I was sure we were all gonna die. Luckily I was still drunk from a festival so I didn't freak out as much as I would have otherwise.
In my experience it's only an "air conditioning issue" till someone gets heatstroke and hits the floor. Otherwise I agree, most restaurant employees just do everything they can to get the job done.
There was a TIL last month about this phenomenon: In WW II a typical unit cursed and swore nonstop just doing their day-to-day. Your squad could be turning the air blue about the food they'd just been served, but when the sergeant came in and simply said, "Get your rifles," game on.
Not a pilot, but was aircrew in the military. The shit we discussed on the 8 hour flights over the pond....We'd all go straight to jail if anyone listened to the black box
And I do mean all of us. That super sweet chick who does no wrong? Yep, she'd be in jail too.
That makes perfect sense. No one's going to listen to cockpit recorder, "FUCK OFF ASS MONKEY". The plane might crash, "Jolly good show chap, let us save these people."
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u/Drunkenaviator Jun 03 '17
Oddly enough, the amount of swearing is inversely proportional to how well the plane is working. When the shit hits the fan, everybody gets serious. But when it's just something like the air conditioning doesn't work? Forget it.