I’ve never been on a plane, so if you’ll indulge me I will share one from the four years I spent riding the Long Island Rail Road.
LIRR Conductor: “Ladies and gentlemen we are now pulling into Woodside Station. At this time we would kindly ask for all those passengers still in the first car to move toward the back of the train, seeing as how it (the first car) is on fire”
Whilst waiting in line at the departure gate for a flight from Majorca to the UK, the choice of muzak made available to the passengers was confined to ‘The Last Post’.
IIRC, it was Delta, many years ago, really hard landing, the kind where you lose fillings and break up kidney stones. Anyway, as we were taxiing to the jetway after this rough landing, the pilot came on to say “Well folks, that was a bit rough, but we pilots like to say, ‘any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.’”
I get so tired of hearing that “any landing you can walk away from…” line that now when I hear it I have the urge to get down on my hands and knees and crawl off of the plane. Just to be perverse.
I used to be the ‘Duty Pilot’ on weekends at our flying club, which happened to be located on a closed military base (we taught military people to fly, and in exchange they let us have our flying club there).
One day I was drinking coffee and chatting with a few other guys when we heard a student from another flying club announce that he was inbound for a touch-and-go. The tower, in a rather surprised voice, said, “Uh, sure. Cleared for a touch and go.” Apparently, even though the base was closed they decided to let this guy do one, since there was no other traffic.
Anyway, this kid does one, then announces that he’s going around for another. The tower lets him. After a couple more, I heard this radio exchange:
<Tower>“Cessna XXX, could you please tell me if you were planning another Touch-and-Go after this one?”
<Cessna XXX> “Uh, I hadn’t decided. Why do you need to know?”
<Tower>“Well, we’re just trying to calculate your landing fees, seeing as this is a closed airbase. You’re up to $42,000 so far, and I just wanted to know if I should keep adding.”
<Cessna XXX in a shocked voice>“THAT WAS MY LAST LANDING!!!”
<Tower>Okay, you’re cleared en-route. Just kidding about the landing fees, although you might want to read your flight supplement before going flying next time. Have a nice day."
We were busy snorting coffee out of our noses and rolling on the floor laughing.
Oh, I forgot the airline one. We were seated on a Northwest flight, and the Captain made his announcement starting, “Good afternoon, this is your Captain, Howdy Doody speaking. Today’s flight…”
The rest of the announcement was completely straight, so the Howdy Doody comment was really strange.
Until we were leaving after the flight, and I found out the pilot’s name really was Howdy Doody.
About 35 years ago on an Air Canada flight in a Vicount, the Captain announced, “Would any children who want to fly the plane please come forward.”
So three of us did, and took turns sitting in the copilot’s seat holding the yoke or whatever the steering thing is called. (Of course the pilot was steering.) Somehow I can’t see that happening today.
Especially not after a large jet crashed and killed a bunch of people because a kid was flying. I think this happened in Russia.
U.S. airlines are not allowed to let any non-flight crew touch the controls in any way.
And now for one I at least wish they would have made a couple of times.
http://www.ucomics.com/bizarro/viewbz.cfm?uc_full_date=20010801&uc_comic=bz&uc_daction=X
Just flew Tucson to LAX and back on Southwest. A surprising lack of interesting announcements.
Except the one about “Please make sure your seatback is in the most uncomfortable position possible…”
It wasn’t a joke, but.
We were taxiing in after landing and the crew gave the standard shtick about “please stay in your seat until the airplane has made a complete stop and the cabin lights have been turned on.”
The plane stopped for a few seconds. Naturally a bunch of people jumped up and started pulling stuff out of the overheads. The plane started moving again and people started tripping, bags fell out, etc.
The flight attendent, with the most exasperated tone imaginable, clicked the intercom and said “I said STAY IN YOUR SEATS!”
I just want to enter a protest:
I’ve flown a whole lot, my first flight at the age of 6 months, and I have yet to ever hear anything funny, dammit!
The pregnant woman sitting next to me screamed nonstop from the moment the pilot said this, until the wheels touched the ground.
Had she not been pregnant I might have tried the “airplane” slap-the-hysterical-woman trick, but I did not.
I also did not hear well for about twenty minutes.
b.
I swear, in the subject line of the above post, it read “This is your captain speaking. Please don’t panic.”
Perhaps some friendly mod will fix that and remove this post?
TIA
B.
I did precisely that on an Air Alfa flight from Izmir to Amsterdam, in 1994. Well, didn’t TOUCH the yoke, but they let me sit in the pilots seat anyway. A DC-10. Man, does that thing have a lot of dials compared to a Peugeot. 
Let’s just say I’ll never fly Air Alfa again…
Taxiing in a SouthWest flight from SkyHarbour (Phoenix, AmericaWest’s Home Base) to LAX, the pilot says: “Everybody sit on the left side of the plane in a window seat. Make sure to wave at the AmericaWest plane as we go by, we want them to think we are full!” Since there were only about twenty people on board, it was really funny.
Ok, I give up. What’s a touch-and-go landing? Why do people do them?
A touch-and-go is a training maneuver pilots do to familiarize themselves with approach and landing procedures. Rather than landing and coming to a full stop, power is reapplied just as the aircraft touches down. T&G is also used when testing an aircraft following a maintainence procedure.
We also do touch and goes just to practice landings and take-offs, which tend to be the more difficult parts of flying, or at least the ones that require the most practice to remain sharp. There are also different take off and landing techniques for such things as shorter than usual fields, soft fields (that means turf, usually), no flap landings, and so forth that can be practiced on any length of runway above the minimum length needed to accomodate the plane.
Part of the reason for not coming to a full stop is time - it’s quicker to touch wheels and go right back up than to brake and start the process over. Since even small planes are a fair chunk of change per hour, the touch and go minimizes the time spent put-putting on the ground and maximizes the flying time, therefore giving the pilot the most bang for the buck.
on our approach into Cincinnat/Northern Kentucky Int’l Airport. Just as we were about to land, maybe 100-200 feet above the runway, we suddenly went into a steep ascent and bank left. Apparently we were a few seconds from existing in the same ground space as another plane [sub]happy to still be here.[/sub]
The pilot came onto to say “Sorry about that, apparently air traffic folks in Cincinnati can’t control their ground traffic. But don’t worry, we won’t charge you extra for the excellent view of the city you’re about to get.”