More Silly From the Radio

All these lighting systems have scared one of my readers, so here's an even lighter post.

I was being vectored once for a visual approach to a runway. The controller is probably fifty miles away in an underground bunker, looking at my airplane's image on his radar. He tells me what heading to fly, and what altitude I may descend to, then asks me if I have the airport in sight. Seeing as we were about four miles from the airport, and the visual approach is only used in relatively good weather, the controller was quite surprised to hear the reply "In IMC." That meant I was inside a cloud, and unable to see much of anything beyond my windshield.

"Really?" he said. "I thought it was pretty much clear everywhere."

"It is," I replied truthfully. "You managed to vector us into the only cloud within fifty miles."

The cloud was a little puffball, probably less than a thousand feet thick, and narrow enough that by the time I had finished laughing at the puzzled controlled we were out the other side and visual with the airport.

My other silly for the day is a story someone else told me, coming into an uncontrolled airport, while a GA pilot had a stuck mike. The guy was running through checklist items aloud, but he had some unorthodox names for his checks. He was heard saying, "... pointy dials ... flashy lights ..." Hey, whatever gets you on the ground right side up.