You Know You're A Pilot When

Quoted from Fly Lah! and saw this entry in one of my pilot friend's blog



- you know the rule ‘8 hours bottle to throttle’

- you say ‘fou-er’ instead of ‘four’

- you have an CR-2 / E6B / (Flight Computer)

- “correction” has replaced “I mean, umm, err, sorry” in your everyday speech

- you almost pull on the hand brake in an attempt to ‘add flaps’ to slow down

- you do the ‘Tune, Identify, Test (TIT)’ check on the radio before you drive your car

- your friends first reaction is “WOW” when you tell them you’re a pilot

- You know way too many acronyms (VTC, WAC, VNC, TAC, ERC, ERSA, AIP, CAR, CASR, CAO, AGL, AMSL, VFR, IFR, VMC, IMC, KIAS, KCAS, GS, ATIS, AWIS, CTAF, MBZ, CTA, CTR, NOTAM, FSS, VOR, OBS, DME, NDB, ADF, ILS, LLZ, TVASI, PAPI, ETA, ETI, LSALT, ALT, FAI, DI, TC, ASI, ELT, SID, STAR, MDA, DA, MZFW, MTOW, LW, MZW, GW, BRW, PNR, CP, FMC, FMS, EADI, LNAV, VNAV, MN, etc etc.

- you get in your car and think, “Passenger Brief”

- you no longer check normal weather websites, but rather use NAIPS for the nearest airport / Area (eg. Area 21)

- you love your beer

- you see red lights up ahead while driving and use both feet to brake

- You can name all different types of clouds when you look up at the sky

- you love flying RC planes / helicopters

- cars seem weird when you steer and it doesnt bank

- you use “three six zero,” not just “zero”

- you watch EVERY SINGLE plane that flies overhead

- you know what all this mean :

TAF YSBK 070420Z 070618 03010KT CAVOK
FM09 VRB03KT CAVOK
T 17 13 09 06 Q 1018 1019 1019 1018
METAR YSBK 070430Z AUTO 36008KT 9999NDV // NCD 19/03 Q1018
RMK RF00.0/000.0

- you’ve been told ”never turn back to the runway after engine failure after takeoff” by your instructor

- you would be more worried about losing your logbook than your first born child

- you spend hours at the airport looking at airplanes and still be amazed at how they get airborne

- you know the most of the call signs for many major airlines

- you know “Victor” is a letter, not a person

- you do ALAP scans while driving (A.L.A.P – Attitude, Lookout, Attitude, Performance)

- You say ‘clear left, clear ahead, clear right’ before you turn right in your car

- you know what a Cumulonimbus (Cb) can do to your little piper warrior

- when giving directions, you give ‘Zero-Niner-Zero (090)’ instead of East, and your friends thinks you’re crazy

- you conduct a fuel drain test after refuelling your car at a petrol station

- you know what a lenticular cloud is, and appreciate the beauty of it

- your friends always ask you, “why do you always use feet and not metres?”

- you tried using your Wizwheel (CR-2/E6B) while driving to work out your ETA

- you get ‘pissed off’ when the weather turns ’shitty’

- you have a VTC, WAC, VNC, ERC, or a TAC on the wall of your bedroom

- you yell ‘clear prop!’ before starting your car

- you almost crash your car while looking at an aeroplane flying above you

- you enjoy reading your AIP – like reading a novel

- you remember the 4-stroke cycle (Intake, Compression, Power, Exhaust) by remembering “Suck, Squeeze, Bang, Blow”

- your friends call you ‘Captain _________ (your name)’

- you draw pictures of runways, airports, airplanes,etc when you are bored

- you love the joke :

Q: “How do you know when you are flying a Cessna?”
A: “When you get a bird strike from behind.”

- you always try to ‘trim’ your car while driving

- you know exactly what “Bankstown Tower, Uniform-November-Foxtrot, TWRN, One-Thousand-Five-Hundred,
Received Whiskey, Inbound.” means

- you at the same time hate AND love flight planning

- you use 24 hours time

- you remember the transponder codes by :

7500 – Seventy Five, Staying Alive (Hi-Jack)
7600 – Seventy Six, Radio Tricks (Radio Failure)
7700 – Seventy Seven, Going to Heaven (Engine Failure)

- you entertain yourself by reading number plates of other cars using phonetic alphabet

- your friends get confused when they look at your watch because it is set to zulu time (UTC)

- you attempt to do coordinated turns in your car

- when getting married you say “affirm” instead of “I do”

- you wear your sunnies everywhere you go just to ‘protect’ your eyes

- you pull back on the steering wheel of your car when you see an increase in field elevation ahead

- you wear your sunnies at night, just to protect your night vision

- the first thing you do in the moring is look at the current TAF and METAR from NAIPS

- you know the conversion unit for Litres to Kilograms in the back of your head

- you always practice the speech when you are bored, ‘Good evening ladies and gents, this is your captain speaking….’

- you can tell what maneuvers the plane above you is doing and say it aloud

- you always blame the crosswind for your crappy landing

- you thought/dreamt about flying a Learjet

- you always dream you are flying

- you don’t think of weather as good or bad, but rather as VFR or IFR

- you know the formula for ‘Lift’

- you know how to draw the Drag graph

- you constantly say “stand by” instead of ‘wait, hang on, etc’ when someone asks you a question

- you get in a car and first thing you think of is ‘checklist’

- you are at the airport and you can name all the planes for hours no probs

- you get turned on by the sound of an a/c engine

- the sound of the engines spooling up on a 747 at takeoff gives you an orgasm

- you would rather fly than to have sex

- you have seen Top Gun

- you enjoy interpreting TAFs to our friends

- when you do a 60 degrees steep turn in a piper warrior, you think youre in a fighter jet

- you love playing Flight Simulator games, if not, any aeroplane games that involves flying

- “affirm” and “negative” replace “yes” and “no” in your daily speech

- you pull out your weight and balance chart while loading your car

- you always try to keep the RPM in your tachometer constant while driving

- you always acknowledge any request made by replying “roger, wilco”

- you have busted airspace at least once in your flying

- you tend to look around for people before starting your car, making sure its ‘clear’

- you know what Induced drag & Parasite drag is

- you always stare at captains when you see one at major airports

- you apply back pressure on the steering wheel on dirt roads

- you always look at your watch while driving, estimating your ETA

- you never trust the weather person on tv, you always check NAIPS or ATIS

- your camera is full of aeroplane photos

- your favorite word happens to be ‘CAVOK’

- you carry TWO (2) torches with you at night

- you hope to one day live next to the airport, while your mates thinks you are stupid

- you dont experience nausea while flying

- you tilt your head (pretending the car is in a bank) while turning left or right in your car

- you can stare at ONE aeroplane picture for hours without becoming bored

- you enjoy every minute of the view outside the window while flying overseas as a passenger for +8 hours -> and not fall asleep

- your ultimate goal is to fly for an airline

- you dont think the opposite sex pilots attractive

- you know the phrase for working in an airline:
“Never screw your crew.”

- you were sad when you found out concorde stopped flying

- “Say again” replaced “what, huh” in your everyday speech, your friends thinks that you are very polite, but infact, its a pilot thing
( Evelyn Potoczny )

- you know more about the plane you fly than your own car (engine, electic systems, hydraulics, etc etc)

- your friends always buy you aviation related stuff for your birthday (like aeroplane models, RC plane,etc etc)

- you have a copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator at home

- your favourite site is ‘www.airliners.net’

- you hate Nimbostratus (Ns) clouds

- you think flying in the sky is safer than driving on the road
( Peggy Kwan )

- you remember when sex was safe and flying was dangerous

- ‘VMC or IMC’ have replaced your description of ‘Good or Bad’ weather
( Haidee Wong )

- you know the ‘take-off safety brief’ word by word without having to look at the checklist/manual

- your friends always ask you “will it rain today?” and your reply is always “what do you think Iam, the weather man?”

- you attempt to make a ‘x3 Mayday’ call when you stall your manual car

- you answer multiple choice questions in your exams using phonetic alphabet (e.g. A = Alpha, B = Bravo, C = Charlie, D = Delta)

- out of the 26 phonetic words, ‘Whiskey’ happens to be your favourite

- you hate studying statistics

- you spend more than 10 minutes looking for the auto-pilot button in your car

- you know exactly what this means:

PAPA-INDIA-LIMA-OSCAR-TANGO-SIERRA
ALPHA-ROMEO-ECHO
TANGO-HOTEL-ECHO
BRAVO-ECHO-SIERRA-TANGO

- Everytime you hear an aircraft flying above you, you ALWAYS tend to look up at the sky without thinking twice, and you wont stop staring at the aircraft until its out of sight
( Tobias Suen )

- this happens to be your favourite phrase/quote,

“once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward; for there you had been and there you long to return..” – Leonardo Da Vinci

- you keep your eyes on the sky all the time and constantly looking out for aircraft
( Enoch Kam )

- you can operate the FMS through the CDU with finesse, but can’t figure out Microsoft Powerpoint
( Kelvin Seow )

- you know the world have changed when a flight attendant could get a pilot pregnant

- you end your phone calls with you aircraft call letters.
( Josh Frost Worrell )

- you have been flying for years, you still remember how your first solo flight was like
( Matthew Ng )

- you have ever tried to say ”I Love You” to your girls in phonetic alphabet, that is,” India Lima oscar victor echo Yankee oscar uniform”
( Parker Leung )

- you have chosen the right uni course when you dont mind getting up at 3am for an early flight, when 60 hours a week at uni doesnt bother you
( Nathan Hayes )

- you dont have any holidays, but you would still rather be stuck in a classroom at bankstown for 7 weeks straight because you can see all the aircraft on your breaks
( Nathan Hayes )

- you know you love your course when:

* u think its fine to spend 4 hours on public transport for an hour flying
* u think holiday sucks and can’t wait to return to the airport
* u know everyone thinks u are cool even though u are just an normal person
* u think its reasonable to leave the airport at 11PM and come back at 8AM the day after
* u enjoy every single minutes you spend at the airport
* u no longer care about living under the flight path. in fact, u love living under the flight path
( Enoch Kam )

- you don’t say ‘due to’, but just ‘due’ (I can’t go due to the rain; I can’t go due rain)
( Edward Terry )

- you ever dreamt that during a commercial flight, the pilots passed out and you, the only pilot on the plane, were about to save everyone by landing a 250 tons aircraft safely
( Ryad Bounoua )

- your friends always tries to tease you by calling out “Hey! a 797, look!!” when they see a random plane flying, and you know there is no such plane call a 797

- you know what fleet of planes each airlines have

- you know how reverse thrusts works

- you know why the Airbus A380 has only 2 reverse thrusts and not 4

- you are either a Boeing fan or an Airbus fan, and not both

- you are interested in military aircrafts even though youre not from the military

- you are driving on a highway, you tend to start calling out, “Max power is set…..V1…..Rotate…..V2…..Positive rate of climb….Gear up….” when you are bored, or driving by yourself