[FUN] Share your funniest moments at VATSIM!

[Andreas Fuchs]

XXXX_V_APP>i manage the next arrival then i close we will talk

>take your time

XXXX_V_APP>well i have troubles controling my docs are wet with coffe

 

Edited May 14, 2005 at 06:20 PM by Guest

[Pierre Theillere 861704]

Hi Andreas!

 

Excellent... one thing I really find funny is that pilots and/or ATC can hardly imagine what real life is going on the other side "behind the mike" on the background whist we share the friendly VatSim skies!

It reminds me once I was controlling LFPG_V_APP, we were text-chatting with TWR, probably very childish jokes (LOL, I let you imagine what kind...) and suddenly a pilot called with a "different" (funny?) accent asking for his clearance. I admit I was already a bit alaugh before. Then as I was trying to give him his long clearance, I suddenly completely felt alaugh on voice channel, tires in the eyes as my laugh was too much! And the guy even asked me what was funny... making me even more laughing!

And that time, I had to sent a message to all pilots telling them I had voice problems (LOL!) as that we were going on by text... going on my laughing and trying to give normal service!

It would be funny to know your funniest moments on VatSim... and also your "strange" background activities in real life!

 

Pierre, LFPG, STV1010

http://mapage.noos.fr/b744-PS13/cockpit.html

[Andreas Fuchs]

Cool idea!

 

Come on guys, share your funniest moments at VATSIM with us!

[Larry Stewart 811621]

Okay, I think my funniest (dumbest?) moment was only a few weeks ago. I was on approach & having some serious failures. I had been cleared to land & had several aircraft on a somewhat close approach behind me. I didn't bother to tell the controller because, while some allow you to have failures, I remember the days when you were not allowed to call emergencies, you just delt with it or logged & came back later.

 

Anyways, I hit 50ft AGL & heard the 'too low, gear' for the first time. Well, I immediately drop the gear, & am holding it off at Vref waiting for 3green.

 

I get it at about the final landing zone marker, & start trying to get the wheels on the ground. I certainly should have gone around, but this IS a sim, so I thought I would get down & lock the wheels up, throw out the anchors & pray it got us slow enough to make the final taxiway.

 

I got it down, got the 1 engine I had into reverse, threw the spoilers up & the last notch of flaps down to get the speed bled off as quickly as possible. At this point, my mind went into normal landing mode & my eyes fixed on the ASI. I was waiting for 60kts, and did not notice that my brakes had come in & went right back out (aka no 'BRAKES' red bar). Well, I have about 300ft of runway left, and I am still at about 100kts & know I am blowing the runway.

 

Long story short, I blew the runway pretty significantly, with about another 300-500ft off of the end of the threshold. Enbarr[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ed as I was, thought there was only a Center controller on that I had left his airspace, I couldnt help but wonder if he was watching & giggling.

 

Oh well, my big DOh!

[Ian Duke 814240]

I was flying under the control of a good friend of mine -- he issued an instruction but accidentally called me by the wrong callsign. I informed him of this via private message, and he replied, on the public frequency with "C-ABCD, oh [censored], thinking about this other [censored] pilot N1234"

 

I felt embar[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ed for him, but luckily the other aircraft had left the frequency and it was a quiet evening

Air Traffic Controllers do curse like drunken sailors, y'know

[Dave Pascoe 824425]

While on Boston Center one day, a pilot came on who presumably was new to ATC communications. Every time I would issue an instruction, he would read back "10-4 N12345." I let this go on for a while, but then it really started to grate on me. I thought, "is this guy for real with this 10-4 stuff?" So I said:

 

Me: "N12345 descend and maintain 7,000, and lose the 10-4 stuff please, this isn't CB."

N12345: "10-4"

Me: *Banged head against wall*

[Scott Smith 921136]

Ive got two, sadly very ashamed about them as i feel like a newbie pilot after it!! and both sadly at EGLL so sorry EGLL aprroach and tower

 

Ok 1st one:

 

I was coming on aproach lined up nicely and came down at the correct speed, i then turned autopilot fully off and came down for landing. I touched down and all of a sudden the aircraft wouldn't stop it was stuck at 160knots the full runway!! So i got 3/4 of the runway and was really getting concerned i then just cut off the engines but by this time i was far too late! I stopped on the gr[Mod - Happy Thoughts] and decided to have a look around my settings to see what the problem was! and believe it or not i had forgotten to turn Auto-Throttle off!! I was so embarrsed i just disconnected straight away.

 

2nd one:

 

Again i was coming in for a nice landing everything was fine touched down and wouldn't slow down, i also seemed really low i check outside the aircraft and i was sliding on the fuselage of the aircraft opppsss!!! sorry control lol

 

I have had a few mistakes like not setting my altitude properly and when the approach says to me to descend then i sort the problem out i stalled the aircraft! But don't worry i havent done anything like that in awhile now! Thank god

 

COME ON GUYS SHARE THE STORIES!!

[Keith Smith]

I kept the log from my 2nd ATC session. The 1st was at 2am, and I only had one arrival...didn't seem worth logging. My second session, though, ended up being a SWA flyout from San Jose to Reno. Being text only, and without aliases, my fingers were pretty tired by the end, and mistakes started showing up....like this one:

 

SJC_TWR: SWA3222, windows 320 at 7, rwy 30L cleared for takeoff

SJC_TWR: SWA3222, winds are also at 320 at 7. ignore the windows, they're less important

 

And later on...

 

SWA2257: At the gate and shutting down - will be refiling in 2 min. SWA2257

SJC_TWR: SWA2257, I'm going to take a wild guess and say you're filing to Reno.

SWA2257: how'd you guess?

SJC_TWR: SWA2257, at last count, there were 3.5 billion SWA flights enroute to Reno 30 mins ago

SWA2257: Copy that... Was supposed to be with the crowd, but had some issues...

SJC_TWR: SWA2257, I had issues when I logged on and saw them swarming all over my airport

SWA2257: Hopefully they didn't trash the place too bad...

SJC_TWR: SWA2257, there's beer cans everywhere and an unexplained smell at gate 12

SWA2257: Got the same problem at the hub office at LAS

[Andreas Fuchs]

*ROTFL* Keep them coming, these stories are really funny!

 

Do you know these "Roger-pilots"? I once had one on my frequency, doing Swiss Radar. Believe me, I am a relaxed person, but in the end I wished I had some wood to bite into.

 

ABC123: ABC123 good evening

LSZH_V_CTR: ABC123, Gruezi, Swiss Radar, identified.

LSZH_V_CTR: ABC123, expect vectors for ILS 14.

LSZH_V_CTR: ABC123, turn left to BLM.

ABC123: Roger

ABC123: Roger

Ah, a new pilot, let's be gentle with him, I better explain him the readback-thing

 

LSZH_V_CTR: ABC123, please readback direct to BLM

So far everybody understood this

 

LSZH_V_CTR: DLH4487 contact LSZH_V_APP on 118.000 good day...

ABC123: Roger

Ok, he needs it more precisely, he probably does not understand that much English

 

ABC123: which freq?please

ABC123: wich altitude?

LSZH_V_CTR: ABC123, when you get an instruction, you should read it back, so I know you have understood it.

Could I say it in a more precise way?

 

LSZH_V_CTR: ABC123, descend FL120 .

LSZH_V_CTR: LX7001, descend 5000ft,Q1016 .

LX7001: 5000f, Q1016

LSZH_V_CTR: ABC123, ILS 14 frequency in Zurich is 108.30

ABC123: Roger

Argh!

 

ABC123: Thanks for your help

At least he's polite

 

LSZH_V_CTR: ABC123, after reaching BLM turn left on heading 110.

ABC123: Roger

Obviously he needs it word by word, REALLY precise, so let's do it. I am sure he will understand it now.

 

LSZH_V_CTR: ABC123, and PLEASE do not say "Roger". you have to make a proper readback like "Descend FL120" or "after BLM left hdg 110."

ABC123: affirm

grmblpf!

 

LSZH_V_CTR: LX7001, descend 2800 .

LX7001: 2800f

LSZH_V_CTR: LX7001, speed 220.

LSZH_V_CTR: LX7001, turn left heading 190 cleared ILS ILS.

LX7001: speed 220

LSZH_V_CTR: LX7001, turn left heading 190 cleared ILS 16.

LSZH_V_CTR: ABC123, rate of descent 2000ft per minute.

LX7001: hdg 190 cleared ILS16

ABC123: affirm

not again

 

LX7001: established on ils16

LSZH_V_CTR: LX7001, winds 210 at 3, runway 16 you are cleared to land.

LSZH_V_CTR: LX7001, are you using any addon-scenery for LFSB?

LX7001: clear to land rwy 16

LX7001: no normal scenery

LSZH_V_CTR: LX7001, copied.

LX7001: clear to land, normal scenry

LSZH_V_CTR: ABC123, descend FL100 .

ABC123: affirm

I am starting to get REALLY annoyed!

 

LSZH_V_CTR: ABC123, NOOOOOO, do NOT say "affirm". Say "descend FL100".

Now he MUST understand it, pleeeeeeeease!

 

LSZH_V_CTR: ABC123 contact LSZH_V_APP on 118.000 good day...

ABC123: Roger

!!!TILT!!!

 

I really had tried, but to no avail Nowadays I have a good laugh about these situations

[Ross Carlson]

This isn't so much funny as embar[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ing, but one of my first times on CTR, I descended an aircraft to 3000 feet in preparation for clearing him for the ILS 33 approach at KBTV (Burlington, VT) Well, if you know the area, you know that the mountains south east of the field climb up to about 4200 MSL. OOOoooops. Yah, that's right, I descended him right into a mountain.

 

No big deal for a new CTR controller right? Well, here's the embar[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ing part ... I'm a real world private pilot based at KBTV! I should know that my descent was below safe terrain elevations ....

[Javier Larroulet]

1.- About a year ago, during a 24 hour event here in Chile

(internal comms between approach and center, approximately 4 a.m., no other controller working anywhere near)

 

CTR: Are you tracking ABC123?

APP: Nope, should be with you

CTR: definitely not with me, can't drop track, can't handoff

APP: weird, neither can I

CTR: (on freq) ABC123, do you hear the center? (no reply)

APP: (on freq) ABC123, Santiago Radar, do you read? (no reply)

CTR: and who the f*** is tracking him then?

APP: Beats me... aliens maybe

CTR: Maybe, hehe

 

Needless to say, the traffic continued to cross our airspace without ever contacting, and we never knew who was tracking him

 

2.- Same event, in the last couple of hours of the event... unexperienced controller working APP on a very difficult geography, CTR monitoring

 

CTR: remember, MVA's are critical on the immediate vicinity of the airport, there's hills all over

APP: yep, don't worry, everything's fine

CTR: That B763 is too low

APP: No he is not

CTR: Yep he is, he is 5000'

APP: Fine then, sector minima is 5000'

CTR: take another look...

(3 seconds, Student checks the MVA and realizes sector minimmum is 9000' instead of 5000')

APP: S**t, hold on.

 

APP (on freq): ABC456, Immediately climb FL90 for g......

(blip dissapears, and reappears 300nm south in his departure airport)

ABC456: Santiago, errrr, not sure about this but I'm pretty certain I got killed.... I guess my flight plan is closed by now, good evening

[Ali Abou-Zeid]

WOW!

 

You guys are funny

 

Well, here are my funny stories as Pilot and as ATC. They're not sorted chronologically because I can't really sort them out

 

Anyway, here we go:

 

Pilot

1. That's an embarrasing one: Was once flying Emirates from Dubai to Sydney in real time (not sync with real life clock, but only no sim acceleration speed). Having not been to Sydney before, I don't know of any ATC there, and the procedures as well. Anyway, the flight was 14 hours, by the end of the flight just before entering over Australian land, I fell asleep. When I woke up, I found my aircraft circling over Sydney and the controller had left me a few "Contact me on frequencyxxx.yy" messages. After that, I requested that I restart my flight from I had last saved, because it was a scheduled flight and like that I'll land so late. Anyway, I kept explaining and he was really pissed at me that he wasn't really happy with all what I'm saying. So, in the end he was like "Do whatever you want, just stop circling around in my airspace." I apologised, disconnected, loaded my flight back, connected again, and he wasn't there when I entered his airspace. However, during approach I followed the "Trust your instinct" rule not the "trust your instruments" one. And I ended up flying ILS approach for something that looked like a runway from far away for me, however, I ended up requesting a to re-fly my approach, but APP controller was like "You'll make it, contact tower......" I contacted tower, and I made it, touched down so late on the runway, but spoilters, full reverse thurst on 4 RR Trent 500 engines, and I disengaged autobrakes, and pressed the brakes myself. In the end I was welcomed to Sydney" Perfect ATC there.
    
   
2. Andreas, you really shouldn't read this one also embarrasing. I was flying from Zurich to Geneva like I usually do when I need to give my friends at SwissFIR some traffic in the days of (waiting for SB3). Anyway, I was expected to land on RWY23, as the controller (Raffael Walther) had told me to expect. So, he cleard me for a VADAR3N transition, and I flew a VADAR3A transition (although I read back correctly VADAR3N), I just mixed up and relied on my knowing the area (I control there ). The VADAR3A (for those who don't know the airport) is a straight in approach for RWY05 (opposite of RWY23). It was a mess, but was resolved as well.

 

Well, I guess I have some funny ATC stories rather than embarrasing ones

 

ATC

Before I go on with this. SwissFIR people are not supposed to be reading most of this

1. I had met a new controller at SwissFIR, and it was fun controlling together, I was usually TWR and he's GND. Anyway, in SwissFIR's day on 28th Jan 2004. The setup was the same so, then we decided that we'll joke around for a little (while we still had a lot of traffic). We decided to close down runway 28 (main runway for departures unless heavy and some arrivals come in there as well) and make a BBQ party in the middle of the runway, get beer n' stuff, as well as ignore our traffic. Just the idea made me almost fall from my chair while controlling. We then started doing that almost everytime we control. Was pretty funny. Also, when he's flying I just send him private and tell him to p[Mod - Happy Thoughts] me some beer at Zurich. He even once mentioned it in his remarks (Carrying beer and dropping on request) or something around these lines, that was really funny. Then the conversation ended by me telling him about the variety of Egyptian made beer and how well they taste or if they don't taste
    
   
2. Another one, I was on TWR, and had an MD-11 cleared to land on RWY14. I saw the altitude decrease, and as he touched the ground, the speed stayed constant for a while, until he overshot the runway, and parked in the church somewhere around. I contacted him asking what had happened (I cant' really remember the reply) but he requested to be towed from there (just a joke, wasn't a newbie "sorry for embarrasing you"). Anyway, I sent him emergency vehicles as well as a towing truck, and they got him to a gate at E terminal (Mid-field). It was just funny how I caught him embarrased, but he cooped really well there, and in the end we ended up with a laugh on both sides.

Ok, next is a general one. And I do not mean to make fun of any person on VATSIM or in real life. I usually like talking with different accents, and a lot of my friends say that I do it right, so, when I fly to Italy, or France, or get Italian or French aircraft while controlling, I just speak like them. Again I repeat, I'm not making fun of any ones accent or peoples accent. I just like it. My preferred are Italian & Russian

 

Have fun guys, and if I remember more funny/embarrasing stories on VATSIM I'll come back and write them down.

[tom van der elst]

online flying with the mainland pilots club,

i had to stay up through the night once.

as these guys are mainly from Canada,

they fly when i'm sleeping,usually

this time,i stayed with them,and had a really good time,

and at 9 o'clock in the morning my time,

one of them typed "guess you are off to bed now eh?"

to which i replied "nope,gotta go to a florist,the wife's not happy "

 

most embar[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ing moment: years ago,flying fs2000 and the 767 PIC,

i was given a visual at KMIA...i touched down so hard,i was immediately

at virtual ZBAA...big hole in the runway.

all this on a very busy airport,with full staffing,and lots of other traffic

nowadays,i manage to do slightly better,but hot lava isn't that nice either.

gotta work on that,i guess.

 

cheers

 

Tom.

[Fred Clausen]

My funniest moment flying was when I flew into BOS....had to have been a long long time ago. I was in an A320, and I decided to break it in on a flight on VATSIM. I flew from someplace I don't know, to BOS. Along the way, I was joined by some....ahem, fellow pilot...that decided to fly formation with me. He and I decided to start our descent into Boston at the same time, and we probably looked like one blip. Boston Center signed on and decided to give me a vector for spacing. I did my 360, and it didn't help much, because when I got to app I was asked to hold. Big problem. I didn't know the systems well on the plane, and I had never manually held before. Instead of saying unable hold, I accepted the clearance. I probably gave that controller heartburn....so then I get cleared on the approach and on final I get too low, and splash into the water. I bounce up, land on the runway. Problem 2 and 3. I didn't know how to fly the stupid thing, and I couldn't get autobreaks or real breaks working. So after skidding off the runway, I signed off.

 

As for controlling, I had a guy leave an airport south of El Paso, TX, and fly into a small regional airport in ZAB. This guy's fp comments was something along the lines of "HAULING DROUGS " It cracked me up.

[Grant Christensen 810317]

I had a funny one the other night controlling sydney tower.

 

ABC123: Twr, we are declaring an emergency.

TWR: ABC123, understand declaring an emergency, state your intentions please

ABC123: Twr, consider me a p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]enger who has taken over the controls, I have no idea what I am doing

 

Good things was we got him down ok.

[David Voogd 857885]

I wasn't sure if it was myself or another pilot - but I / They ended up going right off the end of runway 36 in Winnipeg - which is sad in itself if you've ever been to Winnipeg (11,000 foot runway lol!) - controller pipes up something on the lines of "Take your first exit ramp off the highway, a right at Tim Horton's and taxi to the gate".

[Travis Faudree 821145]

I was doing some local pattern work in a chopper to give one of our newer guys a workout at DCA Tower. He told me to air taxi to the departure end of runway 22, after which I proceded to air taxi right across the active runway 19 to the approach end of 22. A big oops, and all the worse was the fact that he was one of my "co-workers"

 

As a controller, I'd have to say it was a guy who was flying with a buddy in a twin prop. We give all GA arrivals 15L/33R at BWI, since its right there at the GA ramp. He touched down at a rather high speed (I could only see groundspeed, not indicated) and continued right off the end. His wing man radioed "WHOA Nellie!", which indicated to me that he really had run off the end. My next instruction was "Nxxxxx, make a left or right U-Turn, turn left on Quebec and taxi to maintenance, he's already been notified."

[Kenneth Hald 832365]

Sorry to the Kindergarten i was flying too loooowwwwwww....

 

http://www.sunsetblue.5750.dk/sider/main.htm

 

Kenneth

[Michael Hermes 893329]

Best things happen close to or short after midnight local time in the VACC-SAG area:

 

one aircraft approaching EDDL RWY05 in use. Coming in over MEVEL.

 

EDLL_APP: "ABC4711, are you able to proceed DCT LEBTI ?" (even spelled it for him)

ABC4711: "affirm"

EDDL_APP: "ABC4711, roger. After MEVEL proceed DCT LEBTI"

ABC4711: "after MEVEL DCT LEBTI"

 

after a few minutes

 

ABC4711: "Do you have a frequency for LEBTI ?"

EDDL_APP: "LEBTI is a FIX, not a VOR or NDB. So it has no frequency"

ABC4711: "roger. Unable to tune to LEBTI VOR. Do you have a vector ?"

EDDL_APP: ... aaaaargg ...

[Romain Riviere]

Right, you all know the "Roger" pilots. There is another breed, called the "Abbreviation Abuser". They usually radio stuff like :

XXX_TWR : ABC123, cleared for takeoff runway 27L, climb FL100

ABC123 : clrd t/o rwy 27L, c/m FL100.

 

XXX_APP : ABC123, turn right heading 240 to intercept the LLZ, cleared ILS approach runway 27L

ABC123 : t/r hdg 240 intcpt LLZ, clr ILS app rwy 27L

 

Well, I had one of these that evening. And as he finally flew out of my airspace ...

XXX_CTR : ABC123, out of my airspace, squawk 2000, frequency change approved, good evening

ABC123 : sq 2000, frq chg apvd, tks for your [Mod - Happy Thoughts]istance

 

... Only he abbreviated "[Mod - Happy Thoughts]istance" into a 3-letter-word that the forum won't allow here, thus thanking my for my buttocks in a rather familiar (yet uncalled for) way !

 

I haven't recovered quite yet.

 

Let this be a warning to you abbreviationnists : don't overdo it !

 

Romain Riviere

[Ross Carlson]

That's funny. Also reminds me of another of my funny moments:

 

When working TWR one day, I had a foreign text-only pilot fly into Boston. We get quite a few foreign pilots at Boston, so I'm used to having to do a little creative interpretation when their English isn't so good. This time, it drew a laugh from me as well as the other ZBW controllers with whom I shared this tidbit. When the pilot taxied in to the gate, he called me on text and said:

 

"ABC123, I am done, please close my fly."

 

We like to provide excellent service at Boston, but that goes a bit far.

[Keith Smith]

Ross,

 

That's good value. I would've explained that his fly was automatically closed when he landed at a towered airport. If someone else opened it, it sure wasn't us

[Javier Larroulet]

yet another one:

 

certain LAN flight (say LAN123) climbing out of SCEL for a redeye:

 

LAN123: Evening Center, Speedbird 123 with you FL130

 

CTR: Last calling, say callsign again please

 

LAN123: Lan Chile 123 with you (5 second silence with open mic) Errr, Center, I didn't say Lan Chile did I?

 

CTR: LAN123, no you did not. I don't think you're up for a 14 hour flight, you should get some sleep or try domestic routes for a while, until you can get the callsign right.

 

LAN123: You're right, we'd like vectors back to Santiago if possible. We'll be filing another FP as soon as we get there

 

 

And another one:

Certain Air Canada flight flying into SCEL on a busy hour:

 

CTR: ACA123, descend and maintain FL290. Expect lower and holding instructions in 30 miles for traffic.

 

ACA123: Center, we'd like to request priority for the approach. Our remarks say we're flying lifeguard.

 

CTR: ACA123, standby

 

(Remarks read: "BEER and Pizza for the Chilean vACC")

 

CTR: ACA123, sorry for the mixup, expedite to FL190, contact Santiago Radar 129.70, have a safe landing...

 

cheers!

[Mark Brummett]

I had one just as ASRC 1.0 was coming out...I had a screencap of it somewhere; now I think it's gone cause I posted it in the old VATSIM newsgroups from Simflight.

 

Had a pilot crossing through my airspace, in his comments on his FP were two items

 

"MIGHT BE UNRESPONSIVE-MOWING LAWN"

 

Then, right after that was:

 

"ALWAYS LERNING" (Yes, that is the exact spelling the pilot used).

[Camilo Bernal 893284]

Here's some from few months ago during a Fly-in at Miami.

 

Flight plan remarks for AAL#### were; some charts, 110 souls on board

 

MIA_V_TWR: AAL####, welcome to Miami International exit right when able.

AAL####, cleared rwy 27L. request Taxi to the gate.

MIA_V_TWR: AAL####, Taxi to Concourse E via T, Exorcist standing by gate E11. remain this frequency.