Practical Jokes / Pranks

[Chuck17]

That prank works SO much better when you are flying downrange and ask the dudes in Germany to pull the same official sounding lead-in. Because who knows.... Saddam may have had NBC weapons, airsamples may be the only way we detect them! Even better is getting the cockpit printer to print labels and forms for said airsamples.

Ive got some good ones I will dig up and post.

Chuck

[Chuck17]

This one is my favorite from UPT. Make sure you pre-flight your shit!

Chuck

[Chuck17]

These are a series of shots of a newbie Loadmaster who was kind enough to 'check our radar' on the crowded ramp at Al Udeid...

Chuck

[Guest Cam]

I've got pics that I'll post later if/when I get a chance.

Warning- this is a very long story.

While deployed to "a remote island destination in the Indian Ocean", my crew was assigned spare aircraft preflight duties, which entailed preflighting the spare up to taxi.

A young, enthusiastic, and gloriously naive EW was working the flightline as the duty dog (i.e., errand boy). The uberghey radio callsign of the duty dog was "ROLLING THUNDER." He decided to come over to our jet to see if we needed any help. He plugged into the interphone and said, "Hey guys, this is ROLLING THUNDER. Do you fellas need anything?"

I replied "Yeah, my airspeed indicator requires an ops check, and I need someone to blow my pitot tube." I said this fully expecting him to tell me to fornicate with myself.

Instead he answered, in the same chipper voice, "Well, am I authorized to perform that kind of maintenance?" Evidently I had found the only person in the Air Force unfamiliar with this particular prank...

My response was "Yes! Since aircrew fly these jets, every time an airspeed indicator is changed out an aircrew validation is REQUIRED. We're busy running checklists, so if you can help us out that would rock!"

When he said "OK I'll need a ladder," the crew chief chimed in "I'll get you one sir!" before this EW had even finished his sentence.

As the crew chief fetched a ladder, I shouted off interphone to one of my Navs, and when he popped his head upstairs to see what I wanted, I tossed him my camera.

As the EW was mounting the ladder, the Nav stepped outside and slipped the camera to the second crew chief.

"Confirm the pitot heat is off?" The EW asked.

"It's off!!"

...and then it happened. 220 knots indicated! With tears streaming down my face I advised the EW to keep blowing. About that time the Ops Sup rolled up in his truck to see what was going on. I gave him a big thumbs up through the window. He shook his head in confusion, and then realized what the EW was doing. He threw his head back in laughter and gave me a big thumbs up back. He then called me on 311.0 and said "Uh, when you're done with ROLLING THUNDER, could you send him my way? I need to talk to him." I assumed he was going to talk to this young EW about not being so naive...

The EW soon ran out of breath and asked me if that was sufficient. I assured him it was and told him the Ops Sup wanted to see him.

After a few minutes of discussion, my crew came to the consensus that this would have been even funnier if we had talked the EW into signing an ops check off in the forms. Just for grins, I called the Ops Sup on 311.0 and asked if ROLLING THUNDER was aware of the "nature" of the ops check he had just performed. Fortunately the Ops Sup came back with "Negative. I needed to talk to him about something else."

I answered "Roger that. Could you send him back to our aircraft please?" The Ops Sup agreed, and one of our crew entered a bogus write up in the forms that said "Airspeed Indicator requires aircrew ops check IAW T.O. 1B-52-1."

A few minutes later, ROLLING THUNDER was back. Still as upbeat and enthusiastic as ever, he asked "What can I do for you guys?"

"Well," I answered, "It turns out that since you're the one who performed the ops check, you're the only one who can sign off the forms. I need you sign off the 'corrected by' block so we can call it good.”

His answer was "NO!" I figured he was finally on to us, but he continued, "I used to be enlisted as a crew chief. I need to sign off the INSPECTED BY block" He then dutifully signed off the forms.

Shortly thereafter, the primary aircraft took off and we shut the spare down. When we got back to the squadron I made a phone call. As I was finishing the call, the young EW walked into the relatively crowded room. I hung up and told him, "That was maintenance. I have bad news. When you performed the ops check you blew too hard. The airspeed got all the way up to 220 knots."

The EW's eyes grew wide and he asked "Did I damage anything?"

"I don't know, but technically the flaps are limited to 190 knots, and the -1 doesn't specify that airspeed limitations only apply in flight. Maintenance needs to have you fill out some paperwork and answer some questions regarding the flap overspeed you caused."

The EW's shoulders slumped and he sighed and turned to leave. At that point I finally lost my composure and started laughing my ass off. Everyone else in the room started cracking up as well, and FINALLY the light came on. "NO!!!" He shouted in disbelief. "NOOO!!" He then stormed out of the room.

By close of business that day, printouts of the photos along with copies of the writeup he had signed off were posted EVERYWHERE in the Ops and MX squadrons.

That poor kid wouldn't even LOOK at me for a good 2 weeks...

[Login Name]

got some usafa dudes to perform echo checks on the engines on the -135s at mildenhall. had these kids screaming as loud as they could into the tailpipes daily. then the aircrew had them do said air samples. everybody was getting a good laugh at their expense while they were there. unfortunately weren't able to get them to do yell checks on the cables when we were taking them through the iso dock.

[sky_king]

I'm still in UPT but I've already seen a few good ones. Obviously the standard 'test the pitot tube' gag is always good. Others I've seen/heard.

We had a reservist tell a brand new student that Life Support needed him to pressure test his G-Suit. To do this, before you shut down the airplane, press the G-Suit test button until the G-Suit is completely full. Then wear it into Life Support for them to check for leaks. Makes for an interesting sight.

The second prank usually happens when testing the microphone in the Scott Tester. The new guy is either told they should be hearing the Air Force song when they plug in or they need to call for the crew bus to come pick them up.

[LockheedFix]

FourFans,

I know you have a picture of the ROTC cadet strapped to the pylon of the F-4 at the Zoo. That one's gotta go on here.

[FourFans]

Thanks for reminding me!

He had it coming...

and yes, that's genuine duct tape underwear.

Seriously though...I had nothing to do with this...

[Guest Hydro130]

Those "air samples", pitot tube MX checks, etc just never get old.

Neither does the heavy grease pencil on the headset ear-cups and boom mike. Best applied prior to the Jumpmaster Brief or an arrival leg back to the squadron during duty hours. Never fails to be funny.

I had a Nav on a Bosnia deployment once who would sneak the straight-laced IF's pubs & checklists out of his bags in-flight and put in small cut-outs from quality German porn pics (sheisse, dogs, homo, toys, etc) EVERYWHERE. The Nav mercifully used removeable double-sided tape for the pubs. The eng finally gave up on trying to remove them all on a daily basis - that Nav was unrelenting (and otherwise bored). The FE was still finding well-buried pics months after the deployment ended...

Cheers, Hydro

[Steve Davies]

Not my pranks, but...

In the 1980s a small group of Air Force, Marine and Navy pilots 'assigned' to the Aggressors at Nellis flew MiGs with the 4477th TES Red Eagles out of Tonopah.

Each day, they'd board a Cessna and fly up from Nellis to the Tonopah site first thing each morning. One of them, a Navy pilot, would sleep on the flight. Whenever he did, which was by all accounts nearly always, the others invariably played tricks on him. The best was to carefully dislodge the Navy pilot's brief case from his sleepy clutch, break the code to it and then steal the special Tonopah ID badge that the Navy pilot would need to show on arrival (this badge could only be worn at the site, and had to be removed from sight at all other times). As a twist to add to the entertainment, they would change the combination to the brief case, close it, lock it and then replace it in the Navy pilot's lap. Sometimes they would also tie his shoe laces. Whatever, this hapless man was always targeted. Anyway...

...On arrival at Tonopah, the guys would disembarked the Cessna and show their IDs to the awaiting security detail. All, that is, except the Navy pilot who would struggling to open his case. With the security detail becoming concerned and the Navy pilot becoming increasingly irate, he would have no choice but to resort to smashing open his case. Of course, he'd find that there was no pass in there anyway and would be arrested quickly by the security forces and held until the squadron commander arrived to approve his release. Later that morning, an anonymous voice would come over the tannoy to announce that the Navy pilot's ID badge had been 'found'. Usually, it had been found taped to a urinal in the restroom, but it is said that occasionally it would be located in one of the stools perched ontop of something altogether less pleasant.

There are a load of similar stories I have been told while researching this squadron, but one of the best/worst (depending on your perspective) was one pilot who stuffed a carefully snipped bunch of his own pubic hair into one of the other pilot's small snuff tins (this other pilot being a good friend of his). Best thing is that he only told him about it when the entire squadron (only 10 or so guys) was in the crew room, and the victim had just wedged a pinch of his 'snuff' behind his bottom lip. Cue raucous laughter.

Then there was the maintainer known universally as Weird Harold, who would show new pilots his 'box of baby chickens'; take a seat next to the squadron commander at the shared bar at Tonopah wearing a flowery dress, lipstick and a blonde wig; and greet visiting Generals and Admirals wearing nothing more than a tin helmet, a belt and his boots...

There are many, many brilliant stories to come out of that place!

[Chuck17]

No, those photos are not staged and yes, those are tinfoil mittens that kid is wearing. We thought the tinfoil diaper would be a little much... How else am I going to see him on my radar???

Chuck

[M2]

Not all that clever, funny or original; but still gave us a chuckle--in Bosnia we used to tape pictures of PIFWCs (Persons Indicted For War Crimes, such as Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić) on unsupected twerp's NATO badges. The were 'wanted' posters of them all over the headquarters, but usually no one noticed (including the cops).

Cheers! M2

[CHS17]

How else am I going to see him on my radar???

Radar check is classic! The other, very funny, variation that has been used in my squadron is the metal haz. cargo signs they put around aircraft. New pilot did almost the exact same thing, holding this metal sign over his head, at the Deid, and moving according to the pilot upstairs.

Same guy, earlier in the trip. I wasn't there, heard it all secondhand. This crew was flying from KCHS to a large metro area on the left coast. As they neared their destination, the IP asked the new CP if he knew what Prime Knight was. Of course the new copilot did not, so, dutifully, the IP explained it was how aircrew get rooms when transiting non-AMC bases and they (Prime Knight) has a designated frequency you call an hour out for room. Being the ambitious CP he is, he volunteers to call from his ACM seat to Prime Knight and reserve rooms. So he calls, and is answered by a third pilot sitting downstairs. The new CP proceeds to 'reserve' 69 rooms at a Holiday Inn w/ his Government Travel Card. Finally the crew arrive and are bussed to their hotel, which was not a Holiday Inn. This concerned the CP, so he informs the crew that this is not the right hotel. The IP calms his nerves explaining there must have been a mixup, don't worry about it. Of couse, the CP is very worried, so after dinner when the rest of the crew starts out for the bars, he returns to his hotel room and calls EVERY Holiday Inn in San Diego trying to cancel his room reservations. Only the beginning of ongoing harassment

[Toro]

ONW 2003. We had a 2-3 mile drive from billeting to the ops buildings, and had to drive through an manned ECP. A couple guys checked out bikes from Outdoor Rec and decided to ride to work rather than drive with the rest of us. We passed them with about a mile left to the ECP and when we stopped, we asked the cop to help us with a little joke. We told her a couple guys would be there in a few minutes on bikes and to give them a story about an APB out on two bikes stolen from outdoor rec and she would need to detain them until the matter was resolved. We parked the car and by the time we had climbed on top of the SOC to get a view of the ECP, we saw she had already detained them and gone above and beyond what we asked for. I grabbed a camera, ran down to the ECP and took this picture -

What you don't see is her standing right next to them with her gun drawn. Good stuff.

[HerkFE]

We were coming back from the Deid after a 90 day rotation. We were flying another unit’s plane home and this plane had had a LOX leak just prior to us departing. We had a very new co-pilot with us who was not on our regular crew (our co had to depart ahead of us on emergency leave). We had heard this guy was a pretty easy target and he was a good sport. All the way home we kept saying that we hoped the LOX leak didn’t come back (we were chumming the water). Most anyone who has been around Herks knows the trick where the pilot runs down the LOX indicator with the test button and the FE pulls the breaker to cause the gauge to stick at zero while the co has gone to the back. And by the way, I have since been told that this is a stupid trick and I’ll never do it again but I did it out of ignorance and lived and it was funny as hell so I’m telling the story.

So anyway we ran the gauge down, pulled the breaker, and went to “dim” on the caution lights so the co wouldn’t see the light as he got back in the seat. Once he was all settled in and kicked back the AC casually reached over and went to bright. About a minute later the co noticed the light and gauge and brought it to our attention. We all ran the drill, “Everyone check your regulators.” I got out the dash 1 and pretended to be looking something up. This was all planned and briefed up to this point. What followed was shooting from the hip. The AC then asked the co what he thought we should do. After a few Uh’s and Um’s the AC said, “Hey load, have you got any full walk around bottles back there.”

Load: “Yep, got two full ones.”

AC: “Okay, tell ya what we are gonna to do. Load, I want you to go to a refill hose and plug in the bottle and we are going to reverse fill the LOX converter. I want you to count to three and then plug in the bottle. Co, you keep an eye on that LOX gauge and tell us if you see any movement.”

Co: “Roger that!" (as he moves his head down and closer to get a good bead on that needle)

Load: “Okay, you ready…One….Two…Three (as I push the breaker back in).

Co: (as he throws himself back in the seat in total astonishment) “YGTBFSM”(was the look on his face)

We watched him sitting back in his seat staring at the ceiling for about ten minutes trying to figure out “how the fvck that worked” before we finally let him know that he’d been had. He swallowed the hook deep.

True story

Edited April 13, 2007 by HerkFE

[Guest jojo61397]

I'm a veteran, got out about 4 years ago. Was stationed at Minot, and the MSG Vice passed this prank on to me. He used to be a pilot, but heart condition got him sidelined. He and my old ROTC Det commander played a practical joke on the wing commander. They were all doing their annual checkride. And sometime during the flight they hit a bald eagle, and had shut down one of the engines. At MX debrief the crew chief pulled it out of the engine. The CO and AC (who happened to be the MSG vice-- now a Col, then a Capt) called their friend up in Botteneau, who works for the EPA, during MX debrief. The crew chief informed the commander that they removed the body of a bald eagle and that it was against federal law to kill a bald eagle. The wing CC kind of shrugged it off. It was at this time, the CO and AC got the ND State Patrol, Fish and Wild Life, and FBI on base (all in on the prank). The wing CC then went to the club for a CC call, or something (this story was relayed to me, so I don't know the full details), but it was in front of the wing staff, most of the OG, and some chamber of commerce guys that the wing commander was arrested for killing a bald eagle. They dragged him out of the meeting in handcuffs.

[Cooter]

Chuck17 you'll appreciate this...

I'm kind of notorious for being the last one awake all the time after a hard night of boozing and make sure I get plenty of pictures of the things I do (STS). So I've got a rookie raven going out with me in a few days and we were ll drining together and he stayed at my place. The wife was good and took us to McD's for some food and he passed out on my futon about 0500. I preceded to go to town with the sharpie and gave him the typical mustache / eyebrows / fu man chu and added the F@G written backwards on his head so when he woke up he could read it in the mirror (Chuck17 sound familiar?). I went above and beyond and placed some hand written signs on his chest all the whiletaking pictures. I asked myself "What can I do to take this to the next level?" So I grabbed some "toy" my wife got like 2 years ago and placed it in various positions on him. I've got some great pics (I'll upload the cleaner ones tomorrow). Oh and I've got some good ones of Chuck as well... , my library of incriminating photos is always groing.

Cooter

Viva la Died

[Guest Rainman A-10]

Chuck17 you'll appreciate this...

I'm kind of notorious for being the last one awake all the time after a hard night of boozing and make sure I get plenty of pictures of the things I do (STS). So I've got a rookie raven going out with me in a few days and we were ll drining together and he stayed at my place. The wife was good and took us to McD's for some food and he passed out on my futon about 0500. I preceded to go to town with the sharpie and gave him the typical mustache / eyebrows / fu man chu and added the F@G written backwards on his head so when he woke up he could read it in the mirror (Chuck17 sound familiar?). I went above and beyond and placed some hand written signs on his chest all the whiletaking pictures. I asked myself "What can I do to take this to the next level?" So I grabbed some "toy" my wife got like 2 years ago and placed it in various positions on him. I've got some great pics (I'll upload the cleaner ones tomorrow). Oh and I've got some good ones of Chuck as well... , my library of incriminating photos is always groing.

Cooter

Viva la Died

You whipped out your wife's dildo to take pictures? WTFO?

Nice friend. Hey, lets go push it up, you can stay at my place and then I'll go to town on you with a sharpie and my wife's dildo then I'll post the pictures on the internet.

Sounds kinda gay to me.

[Steve Davies]

Is there any truth to the story that in the T-38 you can have fun by wedging your right elbow between the cockpit wall and the stick, dialing in full right trim, and then giving control of the jet to the guy in the back/front?

Apparently, when you take your arm away the trim knocks the stick out of the other guy's hand, and the jet rolls rapidly to the right - a manouver you're prepared for but he's not.

I heard that many moos ago there were a couple of Sled drivers at Beale who used to like to pull this prank on unsuspecting bros.

[Toro]

Apparently, when you take your arm away the trim knocks the stick out of the other guy's hand, and the jet rolls rapidly to the right - a manouver you're prepared for but he's not.

Sounds like kind of a f****ed prank, but it reminds me of one that UPT IPs pull on their students. Up at altitude, the IP takes the jet and explains to the student that due to the thinner air, the jet is much more sensitive to changes in lateral weight shifts. IP tells the student to put their arms up in the air and, after trimming up the jet, IP does the same. IP then tells student to shift their weight and move their arms to the left - and the jet slowly rolls to the left. IP tells student to shift their weight and move their arms to the right - and the jet slowly rolls to the right. Unbeknownst to the student, the IP is gently nudging the stick with his leg. It sounds like kind a lame joke and it usually doesn't get more than a "Wow, that's cool" from the student, but (much like any other prank) it gets better when they get back to the flight room and start talking about the cool experiment they did with their IP.

[Guest rumblefish_2]

Sounds like kind of a f****ed prank, but it reminds me of one that UPT IPs pull on their students. Up at altitude, the IP takes the jet and explains to the student that due to the thinner air, the jet is much more sensitive to changes in lateral weight shifts. IP tells the student to put their arms up in the air and, after trimming up the jet, IP does the same. IP then tells student to shift their weight and move their arms to the left - and the jet slowly rolls to the left. IP tells student to shift their weight and move their arms to the right - and the jet slowly rolls to the right. Unbeknownst to the student, the IP is gently nudging the stick with his leg. It sounds like kind a lame joke and it usually doesn't get more than a "Wow, that's cool" from the student, but (much like any other prank) it gets better when they get back to the flight room and start talking about the cool experiment they did with their IP.

That reminds me of a similar one...when we were all doing our zoom and boom rides, one of our IPs had one of my classmates convinced that once they broke the sound barrier, voice communication didn't work anymore so they'd have to use hand signals. Can't remember if he bought it or not...

[Ram]

I've been a T-38 FAIP for about 2 years now, and I have a pretty extensive bag of tricks...

...but since I still want to use them for the year I have left, I'm not going to share. :)

[Flare]

My fav is still having the stud give the control tower a thumbs up as we taxi back in if the jet is code 1.

"No, no, you have to stick your hand really far out of the jet!"

Good times............

[Guest Boom]

When I was a Personnel guy I would get PCS Rips emailed to me from the MPF. They can be edited in Word. Very amusing to hand someone a assignment to someplace they specifically asked not to go to*.

*Especially funny when they had just bought a house.

[Guest twinkle toes]

As a f16 crew chief, no one really falls for the "air data speed indicator ops check" anymore. However we did get a phase dock crew chief to assist our flight line crew chiefs with a "30 day engine exhaust sample". Following 1f-16c-2-12jg-00-69 the crew chief was required to wear all of his ppe; 1 set of goggles, 1 face shield (over the goggles), 1 set exhaust coveralls, 1 set of rubber lox gloves with inserts, 1 large 30 gallon garbage bag, 1 zip tie, and a rubber apron. We have classic pictures because we told him the procedure was to get on all fours and side stradel to the jet, lay on your back and then reach the bag up from the bottom to ensure no nacelle ejector bypass air was entering the bag. I have no idea where the picture are, I will see what I can find.