Tales

The Authority team was rather discouraged by their loss, and morale sagged. Senior management decided that a reason for the crushing defeat must be found, and so a project team was set up to investigate the problem and take appropriate action.

It was found that, while the Rowing Club had eight people rowing and one person steering, the Authority had one person rowing and eight steering. Senior management accordingly hired consultants to study the Authority’s team structure. For half a million dollars the consultants advised that the team needed to be better coordinated so that more effort went into rowing.

The new Authority team consisted of four steering managers, three senior steering managers, one executive steering manager and one rower. A performance appraisal system was set up to give the rower more incentive, and he was sent to courses run by the consultants so that he would feel empowered and enriched.

The next year the Rowing Club won by two kilometres.

The Authority sacked the rower for poor performance, sold off the paddles and halted development of a new boat. The money saved was used as performance bonuses for senior management.

Over enthusiasm During his service career a friend of mine had a problem in his Meteor jet fighter and prudently decided to land at the nearest airfield – one not used to such elite machinery.

He landed and came to a stop at the end of the runway and for safety reasons elected to shut down the engines and get a tractor to tow the aircraft to a hangar. He felt relaxed at having handled an awkward situation with coolness and that nothing untoward had happened to him or the aircraft. As the engines wound down he spoke to the Control Tower about his tractor require-ent. As light rain was falling he wisely kept the cockpit hood closed.

However, the next 20 seconds were not so calm and collected. A fire engine, with red flashing lights and siren wail- ing, pulled up alongside. Before the pilot could stop them, two men in astronaut like anti fire suits and hel- mets began spraying foam over the aero- plane, while another similarly garbed giant placed a ladder against the fuse-

lage and then swung an axe through the cockpit hood in front and behind the pilot. After removing the shattered perspex the fire fighter produced a knife and bending over the fiercely gesticulating pilot, cut through the shoulder and parachute harnesses, as this was happening another energetic fellow with a similar knife appeared on the other through the thigh straps and before the unfortunate pilot could further remonstrate, four arms lifted him bodily out of the cockpit! RAAF Meteor jet fighter Idiot When on exercise with the USAF a few years ago a Yankee friend told me a story that, well, just had to be American! Two fighter jocks were transiting the good ol’ US of A in a tandem seater and after a few hours (which is a long time in the back seat started to get bored. for these guys to be in the seat) the guy He went cockpit dials and knobs, played with the screens and well he was still bored. He looks down at his lifevest and takes it apart looking at the whistle, the emergency codes and the sea dye etc. That still didn’t excite him so he looks down between his legs and sees a dayglo tog gle. After this much boredom he seems to forget that it’s the inflation toggle of his liferaft.

To cut a long story short he pulls the toggle just enough to inflate his dinghy. Now that’s exciting. It starts to inflate and make him quite uncomfortable in Do you have a tale to tell? If so then share it with the world by sending it in to “Tales, Australian Aviation, PO Box 3105, Weston Creek, ACT, 2611 or by fax on (06) 288 2021.

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his straps, but because the straps only cut across his hips, his legs start to get pushed up in a quite unnatural and unflattering position. He panics and reaches for his survival knife. He blindly stabs around the cramped cockpit finally puncturing the raft.

The front seat pilot, semi dazed by the relentless boredom of the long transit hears this loud explosion from behind then immediately sees a wall of talcum powder dispersing through the cockpit. Fearing a catastrophic but smoky engine failure and being in the barren midwest, the pilot calls eject, eject-the rear seater sees his buddy catapult sky-ward and fears that with his preoccupation within his own cockpit he hasn’t heard the full story.

He thinks if the captain bangs out we must be in some serous trouble! He ejects as well leaving the poor old once serviceable aircraft to sustain unbalanced flight for a while before crashing into the sparse Arizona wastelands.

Needless to say both pilots had a nice two year ground posting to plan some inflight entertainment for their next posting on long haul C-130 ops.

Chauvinistic Granny A number of regional airlines operate turbine powered aircraft with a passenger capacity of around 18 seats.

Because of their relatively small size, these aircraft are generally operated with a crew of just two pilots. As there is no Flight Attendant to supervise pas- normally done by the First Officer, who senger loading and unloading, this is also gives the obligatory safety brief before rejoining the Captain on the flight deck.

Recently, at the conclusion of such a flight, the female first officer was farewelling passengers on the tarmac of a country aerodrome when she was approached by an elderly and irate female passenger. “Thanks very much for the cup of tea you didn’t get me,” she complained, “and I hope that you had a lovely time sitting up the front with the pilot!” Short and sweet Legends are made this way while some others just accumulate a that will live with them always. Indonesian airlines are often, perhaps unfairly, lumped in that basket as the following item reflects.

A couple of years ago I was in Bali. At breakfast one morning one of the guests said that she was going over to Lombok that day, and that she was flying. Another guest said that she was taking a great risk, to which she replied in song: “It’s Merpati, and I’ll die if I want to. ” (Peter Cush, Arcadia)