Whats the funniest thing you've heard over the radio?

[Hacker]

Talon I dudes talking to the chick working Crowbar; a British controlling agency in south afghanistan...

Talon I: "Crowbar, Talon 69, request."

Crowbar: "Go ahead with request."

Talon I: "Please state your weight in stones and hair color."

Crowbar: "I'm everything you can imagine"

After our AEF in summer 07, we actually got two of the Crowbar chicks to come to our post-deployment party at Lakenheath.

We were not disappointed by what we saw when they arrived.

Just got this emailed to me. 10% rule probably still applies, but still good

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In addition to communicating with the local air traffic control facility, aircraft are required to give the Iranian Air Defense Radar (military) a ten minute "heads up" that they will be transiting Iranian airspace. This is a common procedure for commercial aircraft and involves giving them your call sign, transponder code, type aircraft, and points of origin and destination.

I just flew with a guy who overheard this conversation on the emergency frequency 121.5 Mhz while flying from Europe to Dubai. It's too good not to pass along. The conversation went something like this ...

Air Defense Radar: "Unknown aircraft at (location unknown), you are in Iranian airspace. Identify yourself."

Aircraft: "This a United States aircraft. I am in Iraqi airspace."

Air Defense Radar: "You are in Iranian airspace. If you do not depart our airspace we will launch interceptor aircraft!"

Aircraft: "This is a United States fighter. Send 'em up!"

Air Defense Radar: (no response ... total silence)

Musta been Navy. They always announce their boats on radio as "This is United States Ship" instead of their actual vessel name. A Navy pilot would probably be inclined to call himself "United States Fighter" when talking to outside agencies like that.

But, a fighter monitoring 121.5?

[Scooter14]

But, a fighter monitoring 121.5?

Navy common, or is that 243.0?

I think our GCA guys simulcast on 121.5 and 243.0, maybe Ahmadinejad's boys do the same thing...

[BigFreddie]

Flying the NATS one night on 123.45...

United (male voice): "Hey, Delta ###, when you gettin' in tonight?"

Delta ### (female voice): "United I'll be in before you. Want to meet up?" - and she sounds niiiice...

United (male voice): "Sure, I'll see you at the hotel."

Unknown #1 (male voice): "What hotel?"

Unknown #2 (male voice): "Can I come too?"

----

The pattern around Abilene/Dyess on 243.0

Unknown: "This f!cking radio won't work."

Tower: "YOU ARE TRANSIMITTING ON GUARD!"

Unknown: "I can't believe this radio is so f!cked up. F!ck this thing."

Tower: "YOU ARE ON GUARD. CHECK YOUR RADIO."

And it went on for about 5 minutes...

----

Student in T-1s gives their entire "practice emergency separation" briefing over ABQ's freq - ending with "any questions?"

ABQ Center: "Yeah. Can I have my frequency back now?"

----

And the "8 out" thing is really stupid...

[polcat]

That guy is actually the chief up there. If you get ever get the chance to tour the tower, try to do it when he is working. He has some pretty crazy stories including when he was a POW.

I recall when he'd ask for "cash money" when an aircraft wouldn't call clear at night. No objection!

[Champ Kind]

No objection!

"Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine up & hold...."

[Guest RabidWombat]

thank you champ! you just cracked me dude. A laugh here and there are the only things keeping me from hanging myself from the plasma tv behind my desk... the maestro desk....sigh. not that i read baseops forums while at work.... please don't kill me big blue!!! if anyone is at the location we are talking about with the funny tower controller... listen for "Turd" on command post frequency.

[FourFans]

Tower: "Crome 23, confirm you shut down engines before Charlie?"

Us: "Affirm"

Tower: "Veeeeeery lucky! You pay big bill if not shut down!"

FF

[Guest FUBAR]

Ok so this wasn't over the radios but it was over the inter-plane and it's damn funny.

One of our C-130 crews were flying out of K2 and they were having comm problems. They had been working the issue for about 10 minutes and couldn't seem to figure out what was the cause of the problem. Then the co-pilot (female) turns to the pilot (male) and says "why is it that whenever you plug in, I squeal?"

priceless

[JarheadBoom]

Tuesday night:

Navy: "Annnnnd, Team xx, terminate underrun... or uhh overrun... uhhhhhhh....... yeah, terminate whatever it is we're doing wrong here"

I've read about this one several times, but never heard it myself... until tonight.

To set the scene - this particular Washington Center controller sounds like the automated ATIS broadcast voice (he's the only Wash. Center controller I've ever heard pronounce every syllable in "Washington" on every radio call)... and apparently Larry the Cable Guy flies for World in his spare time...

Wash. Center: "World xxx, Washington Center, traffic at your 11 o'clock, 500ft above and climbing, opposite direction, an Airbus, report traffic in sight"

World xxx: "Ahhh, roger that Center, we got 'im on the fishfinder"

[Guest Fogo]

heard several transmissions like this while deployed. It's always good for a laugh

Definately always good for a laugh. The varying levels of ability to speak english always add to the fun.

[capt4fans]

Not exactly the funniest, but figured it was worth sharing.

Out in the range at Red Flag, and as the AWACS, had to keep repostioning the orbit, it was dead as a doornail on freq since it was the middle of the night, and I guess Seattle center was tired of our last request.

AWACS: Seattle Center, request to repositon to ...........

Center: Roger Sir, and just in case you need to move again, cleared to maneuver anywhere in the Northwest United States Let me know if you want to change alltitude.

AWACS: Roger.

[jrobe]

"Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine up & hold...."

dear god the memories....

I assume tha he is still there, smoking his 3-5 packs a day

[BQZip01]

Three stories from Nav Training:

1. We're flying the mighty T-43 and the squadron commander's going to be on board. The nav students get a head's up on it and are told in no uncertain terms to make sure we practiced our radio calls the night before (cut us some slack, it was early in training and some guys kinda clammed up when they had the radios) so we don't screw up on the radio while calling the commander's call sign. Well, the flight goes smoothly and the students don't make any significant mistakes. Then we get to the last 4 miles of the approachand give the comms back to the pilots. These contract guys are having a blast and they request a closed pattern (kinda interesting to see a Boeing 737 pull closed).

Pilot: Randolph Tower, Gator 01, request closed

Tower: Gator 01, closed approved, call when established downwind

We pull up into the closed pattern and the next thing we hear is

Pilot: "Tower, Gator <long pause while he tries to remember what number we are> FVCK! <another awkward pause> zero-one, closed downwind"

The navs are howling in the back.

2. Not really a radio story but an interphone issue. In the T-43, each complex has a single TACAN with two guys facing forward and two facing aft. Each pair has a switch that says "active" when the channel you have inputted is being displayed on the compass. The problem is that you have to coordinate with the other 3 guys in your complex when you want to change it. In addition, each student takes turns "taking lead" and actually directing the pilot to do something. The rest tell their instructor what they'd do, e.g. "I show us 1.2 miles left of course, I'd correct 4 degrees right for the next 2 minutes." The rule on our jet was that lead had enough to worry about and that he could change to whatever frequency he wanted at his discretion.

So I'm sitting in student position 12 (S12) and the guy next to me is S11, both in the back facing aft. We're both doing pretty well and we're quite bored with simply monitoring what's going on. S10 has lead and is way behind the jet and is frantically trying to catch up. S11 and I decide to try and help the guy out a little bit and dial in the next TACAN frequency for him.

"Aft complex, S12, any objection to switching to the ### VORTAC?"

"S9, Nope"

"S10, No"

"S11, I've got it" and he switches it to the ### VORTAC

"### is now the active" I say

About 15 minutes later, S10 is finally catching up to the jet and he asks,

"Can we switch to the ### VORTAC"

S11 and I exchange a look of confusion wondering what he's been navigating off of and then bust out into laughter.

"You can switch it, but we're already on that channel."

<pause>

"Really?"

"Yep."

S12 keys up his mic

"Welcome to the here and now".

3.So I have lead for a bit and we're heading right for a VORTAC at 6 miles a minute. I'm directed to pass lead up to S2 (some rollback from another class who was having troubles with the Nav program)

Me: "S2, are you ready for lead"

S2: "S2 is ready for lead"

Me: "S2, you have the lead"

S2: "S2 has lead"

Just then, the pilot comes over the interphone and says, "We've got a B-52 passing under us at 500 feet low on the left side, in case anyone is interested"

"S1, off headset"

"S5, off headset"

"S9, off headset"

"S7, off headset"

"S6, off headset"

...and a few instructors too.

And I thought I felt the plane turn slightly to the left as everyone crowded by the windows for a look. I was sitting S12 and didn't really much care. Well, the B-52 passes underneath us and I see it on the right side as the tail goes underneath us. I spend a few seconds looking at the jet and then look back at my instruments. The TACAN is showing that we are 8 miles from the TACAN. I'm thinking, ok, so we're 4 miles up and with slant range that means we're about 3 miles out, so I'm looking to turn in about 30 seconds. I look back up to see how far away we are now and the TACAN shows 9.7 miles and climbing. I think to myself, "wait a minute I thought I was 8 miles away and now I'm 9 miles away. That can't be right unless..."

At that point I realized we'd passed the TACAN almost 30 seconds prior and were proceeding to truck outside of our celnav track rapidly and I keyed the mic."

"Pilot, Lead, turn left 170, max rate!"

Then I realized, hmm, I'm not lead right now

"Uh, pilot disregard last. I'm not lead."

Now the poor guy who had lead heard everything, but the instructors were all off headset or were talking to the pilots, whom I interrupted, but they couldn't make out who it was. S2 panics and tries to figure out where we are and a few seconds later turns us back to course, but not until we flew outside our 10-mile-wide corridor by 12 miles.

Since no one knew who it was that botched the radio call, I didn't get downgraded for it and got firewall 4s for my gradebook; my best flight of training.

Edited November 20, 2008 by BQZip01

[FireMission]

That story lost me at S12.

But, I guess that explains some navs i've worked with.

[BQZip01]

Los Angeles Center reported receiving a request for clearance to FL 600 (60,000 ft). The incredulous controller, with some disdain in his voice, asked, "How do you plan to get up to 60,000 feet?

The pilot (obviously a sled driver), responded, " We don''t plan to go up to it, we plan to go down to it."

He was cleared.

And few more from Brian Shul, an SR-71 pilot, taken from his book "Sled Driver" (this guy was blessed with far more aeronautical and literary skills than I could ever hope to possess):

The predominant radio chatter was from Los Angeles Center, far below us, controlling daily traffic in their sector. While they had us on their scope (albeit briefly), we were in uncontrolled airspace and normally would not talk to them unless we needed to descend into their airspace.

We listened as the shaky voice of a lone Cessna pilot asked Center for a readout of his ground speed.

Center replied: "November Charlie 175, I'm showing you at ninety knots on the ground."

Now the thing to understand about Center controllers, was that whether they were talking to a rookie pilot in a Cessna, or to Air Force One, they always spoke in the exact same, calm, deep, professional, tone that made one feel important. I referred to it as the "HoustonCenterVoice." I have always felt that after years of seeing documentaries on this country's space program and listening to the calm and distinct voice of the HoustonCenterControllers, that all other controllers since then wanted to sound like that... and that they basically did. And it didn't matter what sector of the country we would be flying in, it always seemed like the same guy was talking. Over the years that tone of voice had become somewhat of a comforting sound to pilots everywhere. Conversely, over the years, pilots always wanted to ensure that, when transmitting, they sounded like Chuck Yeager, or at least like John Wayne. Better to die than sound bad on the radios.

Just moments after the Cessna's inquiry, a Twin Beech piped up on frequency, in a rather superior tone, asking for his ground speed.

"Ah, Twin Beach: I have you at one hundred and twenty-five knots of ground speed."

Boy, I thought, the Beechcraft really must think he is dazzling his Cessna brethren.

Then out of the blue, a Navy F-18 pilot out of NAS Lemoore came up on frequency. You knew right away it was a Navy jock because he sounded very cool on the radios.

"Center, Dusty 52 ground speed check."

Before Center could reply, I'm thinking to myself, hey, Dusty 52 has a ground speed indicator in that million dollar cockpit, so why is he asking Center for a readout? Then I got it -- ol' Dusty here is making sure that every bug smasher from Mount Whitney to the Mojave knows what true speed is. He's the fastest dude in the valley today, and he just wants everyone to know how much fun he is having in his new Hornet.

And the reply, always with that same, calm, voice, with more distinct alliteration than emotion:

"Dusty 52, Center, we have you at 620 on the ground."

And I thought to myself, is this a ripe situation, or what? As my hand instinctively reached for the mic button, I had to remind myself that Walt was in control of the radios. Still, I thought, it must be done -- in mere seconds we'll be out of the sector and the opportunity will be lost. That Hornet must die, and die now.

I thought about all of our Sim training and how important it was that we developed well as a crew and knew that to jump in on the radios now would destroy the integrity of all that we had worked toward becoming. I was torn. Somewhere, 13 miles above Arizona, there was a pilot screaming inside his space helmet.

Then, I heard it. The click of the mic button from the back seat. That was the very moment that I knew Walter and I had become a crew. Very professionally, and with no emotion, Walter spoke:

"Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check?"

There was no hesitation, and the reply came as if was an everyday request:

"Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground."

I think it was the forty-two knots that I liked the best, so accurate and proud was Center to deliver that information without hesitation, and you just knew he was smiling. But the precise point at which I knew that Walt and I were going to be really good friends for a long time was when he keyed the mic once again to say, in his most fighter-pilot-like voice:

"Ah, Center, much thanks. We're showing closer to nineteen hundred on the money."

For a moment Walter was a god. And we finally heard a little crack in the armor of the HoustonCentervoice, when L.A. came back with,

"Roger that Aspen, Your equipment is probably more accurate than ours. You boys have a good one."

It all had lasted for just moments, but in that short, memorable sprint across the southwest, the Navy had been flamed, all mortal airplanes on freq were forced to bow before the King of Speed, and more importantly, Walter and I had crossed the threshold of being a crew. A fine day's work.

And a few more amusing comments:

Yea, Though I Fly Through the Valley of Death ..I Shall Fear No Evil. For I am at 80,000 Feet and Climbing! (Sign over the entrance to the old SR-71 operating base Kadena, Japan).

"You've never been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3" Paul F. Crickmore (SR-71 test pilot)

The three best things in life are a good landing, a good orgasm, and, a good bowel movement. The night carrier landing is one of the few opportunities in life where you get to experience all three at the same time. (Author unknown, but surely someone who's been there)

Basic Flying Rules: Try to stay in the middle of the air. Do not go near the edges of it. The edges of the air can be recognized by the appearance of ground, buildings, sea, trees and interstellar space. It is much more difficult to fly there.

How do you know when you've landed with your gear up?

It takes full power to taxi

That story lost me at S12.

But, I guess that explains some navs i've worked with.

They can keep the crew positions straight even on a 20-person crew and the pilots can't? Yeah, I know plenty of navs like that too...

[WeMeantWell]

Frankfurt tower to C-17 on approach: "Reach 232, 350 knots at 10 miles, I love it..."

--------------

Reach: Frankfurt Tower, Reach 232 request overhead

Tower: Very funny Reachy

--------------

Frankfurt Tower: Reachy 232 are you a globemaster, a hercules, or a galaxy

--------------

Rumour story, maybe somebody can prove/disprove:

C-141 landing on Christmas in close to white out conditions, still on rollout

Frankfurt Tower: Reachy. what color are the lights in front of you...

Reach: uhhhh... Blue

Frankfurt Tower: Merrry Christmas Reachy

---------------------

Jacksonville center:Cleared direct Fayette-Nam

---------------------

McGuire App: Jinx 23, turn 090 (away from the airport), climb and maintain 3000

Jinx 23: 090, climb to 3000, cancel IFR, squawk VFR

McGuire App: Uhhh its overcast 500 at WRI

Jinx 23: yeah, I think we can make it

---------------------

What about a good Rudishim story?

[RASH]

It's the early 90's, and I'm a brand new Tweet FAIP fresh out of PIT on my first T3 cross country with another IP. We're on our second leg from Amarillo to Colorado Springs, it's about 10pm and Denver Center's frequency is dead quiet for almost 10 minutes. Then...

(Female Voice): "United 69 checking in level at 350"

(Denver Center): "United 69, Denver Center, Roger. Say, are you flying one of those new 777s?"

(Female Voice, obviously proud): "Why yes, I am, and I must tell you it's a most wonderful ride..." and then she proceeds to go on for a minute or two about how great daddy's new cadillac is...

(Unknown): "Dammit...a brand new aircraft and it already has a crack in the seat!"

Followed by another 10 minutes of silence...

[slacker]

Here's my contribution to taking an email and pretending I heard it on the radio-

Two weeks ago, flying in the middle of the night with Chicago Center. Silence for 10-15 mins.

Unknown voice: "I'm f#cking bored."

Chicago CTR: "Who said that?"

Unknown Voice: "I said I was f#cking bored, not f#cking stupid."

Funniest second hand interphone story, I wasn't on the flight, but I know someone who was.

Back ground- The J's pilot seats have a cut out between the legs which allows the yoke to come all the way back. The Legacy C-130 seats do not have this cut out.

Female pilot places her Coke on the seat between her legs. Within seconds the Coke slips thru said cut out and spill everywhere.

Female pilot on Interphone, "Damn it, This hole between my legs has given me nothing but trouble."

All other crewmembers throw down their headsets in order not to be heard exploding with laughter.

EDIT- HMMM.... my post was edited and not by me.....

HMMM again, when I edit, it doesn't show it was edited.

[DFRESH]

Not heard by my self, but repeatedly reported by many others:

Erau @ KDAB uses "Riddle" as callsign. Busy day in the area for Riddle a/c and a guy transitioning from Jax calls up "Riddle me this, what the hell is with all the riddles?"

not as good as some others on here, but still somewhat amuzing.

Another one involves a Riddle and a Papa Echo (from nearby Pheonix East, who has a contract with some certain foreigners that generally answer tech support lines) heard on clearance:

"Riddle ### would like to request VFR to the north practice area @ 3k with Charlie/Foxtrot (don't remember the atis)"

clearance starts readback and get's stepped on.... garbled, and then when clearence stops xmit

"uhhhh also uhhh to the north practeece are-eee-ah, uhhh N6969 PaaaPaaa Acho"

Riddle to clearance:

"Riddle ### can we change that to the south practice area"

[BlackKnight]

A long time ago in a UPT far far away (me at Sheppard in '98). Sitting observer in the RSU, Italian dude (ID) on his first tweet solo, (Italian) instructor with us in the building listening to it all...

ID comes up initial, goes into the break with a guy (conflict) doing a straight-in.

RSU Cont: "In the break, break out".

ID: -no response

RSU: "Rolling out on downwind, break out".

ID: -no response

RSU: "Approaching the perch, break out".

ID: -no response (IP starts getting pissed)

RSU: "Rolling off the perch, break out, proceed to XX, re-enter!"

ID: "(C/S) Roger" (finally breaks out and proceeds to XX point to re-enter).

Different Tweet w/IP in it flying outside downwind: "T-37 proceeding to XX, your gear is still down".

ID: "Below 150 (knots), gear clear" [in other words, he's forgotten to raise his gear after breaking out, realized it when receiving the radio pimp, and done his best bullsh!t excuse over the radio that he's below the 150 knot (or whatever it was)limit of the gear even though we all knew he had it firewalled going at least 250 with the gear hanging]. IP pacing back and forth swearing in Italian.

ID finally gets all the way back to initial (after being told to do a straight-in full stop by his IP through the RSU controller but they let it go- think they just wanted him on the ground no matter how he got there), breaks, comes off the perch and rolls out on final. I (being the observer) put the bino's on him and say:

Me: "Sir, he doesn't have his gear down"

RSU: "(C/S), go around, re-enter for straight in full stop"

Italian IP behind me (sts): "GATZO!!!!" (SH!T!!!! in Italian). Storms out of RSU.

F'n hilarious.

Barney

[BQZip01]

This was was relayed to me by a retired IP at a UPT graduation ceremony. Seems this guy was an F-86 driver and was talking about his night training.

A/C: "Tower, Strike 66 holding at 3000 over the Habuu beacon"

Tower: "Copy, Strike 66"

Unidentified A/C (in a panicked voice): "Hold on there! That can't be right. Tower, I'm holding at 3,000 over the Habuu beacon too!"

Tower (in a frantic voice): "Uh standby."

About 10 seconds pass

A/C (holding back laughter):"Strike 67 knock it off. Yer my wingman."

Edited November 21, 2008 by BQZip01

[MadMac]

I'm only on page 6 when I hit this gem

I did not hear this one so I don't know if it's true.

When Eastern went on strike an Eastern jet with some scabs was taxiing around an airport when the controller became very busy and frustrated with all the chatter and blocked transmissions. He said, "Everyone stop! Nobody move until I straighten this out." After a moment of silence someone says, in a tattletale voice, "Eastern moved."

[StainedClass]

In 1999, I was a new First Officer at a regional airline and a C-5 AC in the reserves. Our company didn't have ACARS to get our clearance from Clearance Delivery, so we had to get it over the CLNC DEL freq. So one early AM in Newark, I heard this exchange.....

Apparently a United flight's ACARS wasn't working, so the female FO had to get it over the CLNC DEL freq like we did.

United FO (in a tiny female voice that sounded 8 years old): Newark Clearance, uh....., United 123, IFR to Chicago, ready to copy...

Newark CLNC DEL: (In a heavy New York accent) United 123, you're cleared to, blah, blah, blah......

After he finishes:

United FO: Uh, Clearance, could you say again????

Newark CLNC DEL: The whole thing???........

United FO: Affirmative....

Newark CLNC DEL: (slower) United 123, you're cleared to blah, blah, blah.........

United FO reads it back and gets it about a third correct.......

Newark CLNC DEL: United, put your Dad on the phone.....

United Captain reads the clearance back.

I almost shit myself.

[murdocjxx]

Anyone have the radio call of the 16 dude that crapped himself? I've been looking for it for awhile.

[murdocjxx]

ah here it is. Thanks nstallion!

"Ah just did something totally uncool"

f16crap.wav