这是从Alex的书《Bit of a Blur》里节录出来的，因为觉得实在太有趣， 决定打出来跟大家分享一下。XD Alex在99年宣传13期间，开始对开飞机感兴趣，还向Dave买了一架小飞机。 （是的，Dave会开飞机，而且好像还蛮行的） 以下这段趣事（or惨事？XD）就发生在Alex学会开飞机之後。 这段有点长可是很有爆点，所以强烈建议大家耐心把它看完 XD 注：Bob是Alex他们另外找来一位很有经验的飞行员 Damon said there was no way he was ever going to get into an aeroplane with me, or Dave, let alone both of us. Then we were in Germany on a Monday. We left the stage and I told the tour manager to call a taxi. Damon asked where I was going and I said I was going home and toodle-oo. There was no scheduled flight until the morning and by the time we’d done the encore Damon had completely changed his mind about which people he got into aeroplanes with. He was quite nervous and drank a lot of vodka on the way to the airport. It was a large international airport, all the runway and taxi lights were on, but there was very little traffic as it was so late at night. The terminal buildings were empty. We had the place to ourselves. It was ethereal. There was a café for the freight pilots and we ate chips and mayonnaise with a cosmopolitan assembly of flight crews while Bob activated the flight plan and made a final check of the weather. The weather outlook was quite bad with thunderstorms over Belgium, said Bob. Hopefully we would be able to avoid them or it would be very bumpy. Then he and Dave got into a conversation about de-icing equipment that I couldn’t follow. Dave was some way ahead of me as a pilot. He had an instrument rating, the very top flying qualification. In theory it meant that he had the skills to land at Heathrow, in a thick foggy thunderstorm in the middle of the night while simultaneously handling an engine failure. It was no use telling Damon that. He was looking worried and he’d opened another bottle of vodka at the mention of thunderstorms. The airport was massive and we spent a good ten minutes navigating the brightly lit taxiways. The moon was up in a cloudless sky and we were cleared to enter controlled airspace at our cruising altitude, as we’d hoped. There was a good tailwind. Then the moon disappeared and it started to get bumpy. Bob was asking air traffic for 'radar vectors' around the bad weather. Dave was writing things down. Damon was drinking vodka. I lit a cigarette. Bob screamed, ‘PUT IT OUT! If we get a lightning strike and you're smoking, we're toast.' Poor Damon. The aircraft, which must have weighted five tonnes, was getting tossed around like a feather. I’d never know turbulence like that. I had to tighten my seat belt to stop my head banging the ceiling as hailstones crashed around us. The darkness was complete apart from the warm and comforting glow of the instrument panel. My head was thrown back and I could hardly support it, then I would feel weightless. It was a runaway rollercoaster. The Cessna 310 was being put through its paces. Bob was enjoying himself at last. Our manager had insisted that at no time should the four of us ever fly together in a light aircraft, as it would invalidate our insurance. There were risks, but in less than three minutes we popped out of the storm cell into clear skies as if nothing had happened. Then Damon needed to go to the toilet. We had a hot-water bottle for that, but it had never been put to the test. The flying magazines all recommended hot-water bottles as being the best receptacles. They don’t work. They’re too floppy, that was clear very quickly, and it was a while before Damon flew with us again. -- Poor Damon indeed!! XDrz --

※ 发信站: 批踢踢实业坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 114.44.150.207