Afternoon everyone,
I recently went off to Washington DC with my Son, and took in the sights at the Air & Space Museum. For the Aviation Buff, this place is one of the Holly Grails.
While we were roaming the museum, we went by the Airline section. I stepped into the front section of American Airlines DC-4 on display, and suddenly I remembered a story my Dad told me about one of his flights. I was transfixed while it all came back to me, and of course a smile came over me.
This story takes place in the late 40's or early 50's, as Buzz Flett was a Co-Pilot at Northeast Airlines. On this particular trip, he happen to be flying with his cousin, Captain Tiny Rollins. Tiny got to Northeast a few years earlier than Buzz, so that is why he was the Captain.
He and cousin Tiny were cruising along at altitude, when Tiny starts messing with a wire-tie that was across the autopilot switch, which inhibited anyone from turning the autopilot "on", mostly because he wanted to see if it worked. His thought was, why hand fly the airplane when there might be a perfectly good working autopilot attached to that switch.
On a quick side note - as the story goes - Northeast Airlines leased the DC-4's from American Airlines, and since Northeast wanted to keep costs down they decided that they didn't want to maintain unessential things like Autopilots, hence, the wire-tie holding the switch in the "off" position.
Eventually the wire-tie was removed, and the switch was placed to the "on" position. Low and behold the autopilot worked great, the aircraft was holding heading and airspeed - what more could a couple of airline pilots want.
Well,... what cousin Tiny really was thinking now, was to play a practical joke on that new young Stewardess who was working the forward cabin of the aircraft. It use to be a right of passage for pilots to play practical jokes on young unsuspecting stewardess'; they thought they are pretty funny at times. This is right about the time they start to develop their plan, and precise preparation was key. To aid them in their plan, the DC-4 cockpit has a very unique setup that our two young aviators wanted to exploit to set the joke. The cockpit has only one radio & circuit breaker panel behind the Captains seat, leaving a large open netted area behind the Co-pilot seat for last minute bags and such.
1st, ensure that the Autopilot is engaged and aircraft is holding Heading and Airspeed - Check.
2nd, passenger load being low, only four or five bags in the storage area - Check.
3rd, move a few big bags around to make a nice little place to hide two pilots - Check.
4th, leave a note for the Flight Attendant, the most important item - Check.
5th, hit the Flight Attendant Call button on the overhead panel, "ding" - Check.
Lastly, scurry like hell to get into the extra storage area and place the biggest bags on top of each other to hide two pilots,... and wait - Check.
As protocol dictates, the young flight attendant enters the cockpit and walks in a few feet, passing the hiding pilots. She stops just being behind the empty pilots seats, sees a small sign on the throttle quadrant saying - "Gone Fishing, Be Back In An Hour." She looks into both empty pilot seats again, looks over her shoulder to see if anyone is behind her - no one there. She then blurted out a blood curdling scream that everyone on the aircraft could hear, this included the Senior Stewardess working the aft lounge - Not Good.
I asked my Dad after he told me this story, "So what did you get for that stunt'? He said about two weeks off. I said, "you were lucky, you'd get fired for doing that now".
I recently went off to Washington DC with my Son, and took in the sights at the Air & Space Museum. For the Aviation Buff, this place is one of the Holly Grails.
While we were roaming the museum, we went by the Airline section. I stepped into the front section of American Airlines DC-4 on display, and suddenly I remembered a story my Dad told me about one of his flights. I was transfixed while it all came back to me, and of course a smile came over me.
So, here is how the story goes.
He and cousin Tiny were cruising along at altitude, when Tiny starts messing with a wire-tie that was across the autopilot switch, which inhibited anyone from turning the autopilot "on", mostly because he wanted to see if it worked. His thought was, why hand fly the airplane when there might be a perfectly good working autopilot attached to that switch.
On a quick side note - as the story goes - Northeast Airlines leased the DC-4's from American Airlines, and since Northeast wanted to keep costs down they decided that they didn't want to maintain unessential things like Autopilots, hence, the wire-tie holding the switch in the "off" position.
Eventually the wire-tie was removed, and the switch was placed to the "on" position. Low and behold the autopilot worked great, the aircraft was holding heading and airspeed - what more could a couple of airline pilots want.
Well,... what cousin Tiny really was thinking now, was to play a practical joke on that new young Stewardess who was working the forward cabin of the aircraft. It use to be a right of passage for pilots to play practical jokes on young unsuspecting stewardess'; they thought they are pretty funny at times. This is right about the time they start to develop their plan, and precise preparation was key. To aid them in their plan, the DC-4 cockpit has a very unique setup that our two young aviators wanted to exploit to set the joke. The cockpit has only one radio & circuit breaker panel behind the Captains seat, leaving a large open netted area behind the Co-pilot seat for last minute bags and such.
Plan complete - time to put it in motion, but you've got to go by the checklist:
1st, ensure that the Autopilot is engaged and aircraft is holding Heading and Airspeed - Check.
2nd, passenger load being low, only four or five bags in the storage area - Check.
3rd, move a few big bags around to make a nice little place to hide two pilots - Check.
4th, leave a note for the Flight Attendant, the most important item - Check.
5th, hit the Flight Attendant Call button on the overhead panel, "ding" - Check.
Lastly, scurry like hell to get into the extra storage area and place the biggest bags on top of each other to hide two pilots,... and wait - Check.
As protocol dictates, the young flight attendant enters the cockpit and walks in a few feet, passing the hiding pilots. She stops just being behind the empty pilots seats, sees a small sign on the throttle quadrant saying - "Gone Fishing, Be Back In An Hour." She looks into both empty pilot seats again, looks over her shoulder to see if anyone is behind her - no one there. She then blurted out a blood curdling scream that everyone on the aircraft could hear, this included the Senior Stewardess working the aft lounge - Not Good.
I asked my Dad after he told me this story, "So what did you get for that stunt'? He said about two weeks off. I said, "you were lucky, you'd get fired for doing that now".
Here's a photo of "Captain" Flett in a DC-6; probably plotting the next practical joke.
No comments:
Post a Comment