Last night I was in a sim until really late. One of the things the LSO's do is that they add some "failures" into the system. So, I got called and told to break one of the TACAN's in Florida. Anyway, I called the relevent other people and told them it was broken.

Of course, they asked "why."

On the advice of an older, wiser LSO (who is currently away in Bumfuck, Africa on an all-expense paid tour of duty), I said "An alligator ate the antenna." Actually, the advice was always blame failures on a wild animal, because then all the backseat engineers won't start asking why too detailed questions when all they need to do is just accept that is was broken. This is leading me to wonder if his advice was more hazing than realistic, because all this could have been avoided if I said there was a power failure.

The response I get was "How big was that alligator? Have you ever SEEN a TACAN?" (The answer is no)

My response: "Have you seen this alligator? Its the size of the one who ate Captain Hook!" (At this point, I had lost all composure. Ah, the joys of a late night.)

Some joker listening in: "A crocidile ate Captain Hook!"

For the rest of the night, I got one too many alligator jokes.

Then, later on in the sim, they called up WSSH (another airport for the shuttle to land at). Now, getting the forces out there is notoriously difficult, just on shear driving time and distance. So, I calmly try to explain how long-simulated since the people there are really snug in their beds not playing with our sim- it will be before a weather balloon will be ready. The responses I got back included the following: Can't we get them a police escort so they can drive faster? Don't they understand this is an emergency, can't they hussle just a little bit? I could get out there faster than that! Let's send a T-38. Silly Air Force, they are SO lazy, if it was the Navy, now they'd be ready to go...

Ah, the questions you get.