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I was sitting in the captain's seat while the F/O was standing at the bottom of the stairs during boarding. The baggage is being loaded into the tail cargo compartment as the passengers board the plane. As an older lady approaches the stairs, I hear her ask the F/O, "Will my bags get there when I do?". The F/O calmly replied, "Yes maam, as long as the tail does not fall off.".

As we were boarding passengers in St. Louis for the short flight to Kansas City, a couple of attractive ladies in their early 20s poked their heads into the cockpit and asked if they could look around. The captain said "sure, come in". He showed them some of the "bells and whistles" of the B-727, and after a few minutes one of the women said that she hoped we had a safe flight. The captain reassured her that we would do our best. Then she said, "I want you to give us a safe flight because I have $3000 assets on the plane.". As she says this she fondles her breasts, then says, "... you want to see?", and lifts her sweater to reveal a pair of very nice $3000 assets. A minute later, she is passed out over the F/E's shoulder. She finally wakes up and they go back to take their seats.

And now for the rest of the story...

As we are taxiing out for take off, we get a call from one of the flight attendants asking us to stop the plane because they had someone in one of the emergency aisles who was drunk and passed out and she needed to move them out of those seats. Guess who this was...

On a night flight, cruising through clouds, static electricity sometimes builds up on the airplane. Sometimes you can see a dim glow out in front of the plane. Other times you see the static electicity in the form of mini "lightning bolts" that move all over the outside of the windshield. I have only seen this a few times, but it is pretty amazing to watch.

We were on a flight from Atlanta to New Orleans on the night of the 4th of July. As we flew along the Gulf Coast we could see all the fireworks displays that were happening below us. Each of the fireworks explosions looked like tiny, colored, mushroom clouds below.

Every now and then one of the flight attendants would like to come up to the cockpit and chat for a while. One evening on the way into St. Louis, one of the flight attendants came in to say hello. After a few minutes, she said, "I recently got a tattoo of a tiny mouse on my leg, you want to see it?". She was wearing a skirt and started to slowly pull her skirt up her leg saying, "now where is my little mouse?". We were all watching by this time. As the skirt was just about up to her underwear she said, "Oh darn, my pussy must have eaten it!". After which, she promptly left the cockpit.

At a lot of airlines, new pilots must start as flight engineers on the older planes that have 3 pilots. The flight engineer, also know as the "plumber", mainly takes care of "plumbing" the fuel, air, and electricity in the airplane. It is a rather tedious job if you have done it more than a year or two - especially since you never get to actually fly the plane. The flight engineer has his own panel and a small desktop to put his notepad and take engine readings during the flight. On one of the desktops someone had drawn a small target and the words "Flight Engineer head impact point".

At TWA there were a lot of very senior flight attendants who had been there a long time. The cockpit door has a peephole that you can look through to see who is at the door before you open it. On one plane, someone had written this below the peephole: "Objects in peephole are older than they appear".

While boarding our commuter airline flight from Boston to Albany, a male passenger who had an artificial leg was giving the F/O trouble about where he could sit and that he could only have one carry on bag. Finally we got everyone settled down and got under way. When we leveled off at our cruising altitude, the F/O, who was Argentinian but spoke only slightly accented english, said, "Did you hear that guy giving me a hard time about his carry on bag?". "Yes, what happened?", I said. The F/O replied, "I told him if he did not let me check his second carry on bag and put it in the baggage compartment, I was going to make him check his leg instead!".

One of the Flight Attendants told us about a mother with a young boy around 10 years old. All through the flight this kid was giving his mother a hard tim about one thing after another. The mom kept trying to placate the boy but it was a struggle. Finally as the passengers are lined up in the aisle and leaving the plane, the kid starts up again, saying something like, "If you don't let me get some ice cream, I am going to tell daddy that I saw you with uncle Mike's penis in your mouth."

Every airline has what are called "check-pilots", some of their regular pilots who are sanctioned by the airline and the FAA to ride along on a flight and critique the crew on decisions and adherance to company and FAA rules. One afternoon during the rush hour of European airline flights out of JFK, we were taxiing out in a long line of aircraft from all over the world. The captain pointed to the plane right in front of us and we heard him say, "You know, every pilot on that airline is a check-pilot.". We thought, "wow, that is not possible is it?". Then as the plane turned the corner and we could see what airline it was, we understood. The plane was from CSA - Czechoslovakian Airlines - All their pilots are Czech pilots!

In the cold war days, the only western flights into or out of Berlin, Germany had to fly in one of 3
air corridors. These corridors were 20 miles wide and only 10,000 feet high. So you had to fly low to and from Berlin. On the Berlin to Frankfurt corridor, one could sometimes see pyramids off to the east side of the flight path. The first time I saw this, I had to do a double-take to make sure I really saw a pyramid. It turns out that these pyramids were actually slag heaps from all the coal mining that was being done in the east.

One of the benefits of being an airline pilot was the ability to ride "jump seat" on your and other airlines (for free). One summer I used this benefit to get a ride to Stockholm on a Pan Am flight from JFK. But since the flight was completely full I had to actually sit in the jump seat in the cockpit the whole flight - 8 hours! This seat is right up against the side of the cockpit and impossible to even lean over a little so I was awake the whole flight. Somewhere over the North Atlantic, the captain said "Hey, the lights are on tonight". I looked out the window to see the Northern Lights which looked like a waving curtain of yellowish light.

I worked as an airline pilot for TWA and was fortunate enough to be working in Berlin the whole month of October, 1989 (the month before the Wall opened).

At that time, the American military provided "tours" to East Berlin for US citizens. We got on a military bus and entered East Berlin through Checkpoint Charlie. The protocol was very unique. The US (British and French as well) did not recognize the East German police as having any real authority in East Berlin. So the East German border guards could not enter the bus. Anyone on the bus who was not in uniform was required to hold up your passport in the window so they could compare the passport photo to your face. The people in uniform would show nothing and stare straight ahead. Once into the East, the bus parked on Alexander Platz and we had 4 hours to wander around the city before our bus returned to the West.

The contrast between East and West was quite striking. In the East there were no flashy signs or advertisements. I only wish that I had taken pictures while there.

One of the benefits of taking the US Militray tour into East Berlin was that one was not required to exchange currency at the East German official rate of 1 DM (West German Mark) to 1 OM (East German Mark). One could simply go to a normal currency exchange window in West Berlin and exchange your DM or dollars directly into East German Marks at a rate of 9 to 1.

During my 4 hours in East Berlin, I ate lunch at a little cafeteria. I had some beef goulash, bread, and some juice for the US equivalent of $0.35!