Monday, October 8, 2007

Air Navigation Rules

Pilots as a general rule are a group of people who are pleased with themselves and like to think they're a cut above the rest of humanity, never mind the cabin crew. They are certainly skilled people who have achieved a lot by earning the command of an aircraft and are usually more than happy to allow others to admire their prowess.

It's practically a rite of passage for new cabin crew members at an airline to have the chance to sit in the cockpit of the aircraft during a take-off and landing in order that they might gain an insight into what's going on the other side of the door. It's also not unusual for the pilot to take the chance to pull the newbie's chain a bit.

This was certainly the case when one unfortunate stewardess was observing the flight crew and asked how the managed to navigate from airport A to airport B. As luck would have it at that moment there was low cloud below the aircraft, a contrail above them and a high sun, which cast a dead straight shadow from the contrail onto the cloud below which stretched ahead of them. "Oh'" replied the pilot to her question, "we just follow the black line you see there." "Oh, I see..." answered the stewardess, thus confirming the flight crew's preconceptions about cabin crew's intellecual standing and earning herself years of mickey-taking.

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