Waiting with the great unwashed for a flight out of the Windy City, our roving correspondent Nigel Nostory noticed a pilot who arrived puffing at the gate, flight bag in hand. Swiping his security card, he opened the door and stormed down the jetway only to reappear a moment later, a baffled look on his flushed face.

Pilot: "Where's the darn airplane!? Nearly fell into an empty void down there."

Gate agent: "It's on the other side - it's a divided jetway sir."

Pilot: "Oh...must get my eyes tested again."

(Laughter from surrounding self-loading cargo.)

Agent: "I wouldn't laugh if I were you. He's your pilot."

Tall tail

The recent stories of unwanted passengers prompted Nephew Walt King, a former C-141 navigator, to recount the events of a late night flight around 30 years ago when preparing to leave Incirlik AB, Turkey with a US Army two-star general on board, along with his wife. "While completing the preflight, the loadmaster came into the cockpit, closed the door, and went up to the aircraft commander [AC] and said we had a rat on board. The AC asked how he knew this, and the loadmaster said he saw it running around the cargo area. The AC thanked the loadmaster for being discreet, and called the command post with the problem (obviously, we were not allowed to carry rats from one country to another). A few minutes later, the loadmaster again came forward, and told the AC the general now knew about the rat because it had just run between the general's wife's legs. The AC obviously saw this as a potentially career ending problem and asked what she had done. The loadmaster said: 'Why, she tried to step on it'."

EasyJet's full monty

Of course this sort of thing would never have happened in my day, but that's probably just as well. Everything was still in black and white, the pound was a crisp unaffected thing in your pocket and the weather was a jolly sight colder. Which is possibly why, in these days of global warming and all that sort of thing, a decidedly daring bunch of East Midlands-based EasyJet pilots have found it sufficiently warm to bare it all for charity. For a mere £10 ($19), you can have a calendar that truly goes undercover and behind the scenes, and your money goes to support the UK National Society for Epilepsy.

Make cheques or postal orders payable to:

"EMA Calendar" and send them to:

EasyJet Crew Room

Room 6 & 7

1st floor departures hall

East Midlands Airport

DE74 2SA, UK

Source: Flight International