B1 Bomber for sale ... Thx Paul C!

 

If we didn't have a sense of humor, it would be a sad world.

 

 

 

Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Sunday and now Big Plane Monday.

A B-1 bomber was in Billings, MT doing practice approaches and touch and 

go's. On one of the landings the pilot sets his brakes on fire.

He taxis in, and the airport parks him on a taxiway and then puts cones

around him until parts and mechanics can be brought in from Ellsworth AFB,

Rapid City, SD the next day.

 

The next day is a Saturday, which doesn't have much going on, so we get to

laughing in the tower that maybe somebody should hang a For Sale sign on

the plane.

 

We convince one of our guys who's well known for doing things like this

that it would be a good idea.  So he takes off for the hardware store to

buy a For Sale sign. On the way back he stops at a car dealer and gets one

of those "As is/No Warranty" signs that hang in all used cars. On that sign

was written something like low miles, new engines, needs brakes and tires.

Those signs were taped together, and off goes our hero.

 

He climbs over the fence, leaving some skin on the barbed wire, and makes

his way the 1000 feet or so to the aircraft. As he's doing that, we see a

couple of airport vehicles starting to gather with the recently arrived

mechanics as well as the plane's crew. Not looking good for our intrepid

airplane salesman. He gets to the nose wheel and tapes the sign to the nose

strut.  Then he starts to make his way back from the plane as the vehicles

start to head out from the shop on the way to the bomber. Somehow he makes

it without being seen.

 

The vehicles arrive at the plane, and of course notice the sign right away.

The Air Force guys are in stitches, funniest thing they've seen in a long

time. Airport guys are not sure what to think. Airport management is livid

as they've been tasked with security. Pretty soon a camera appears and all

the Air Force guys are taking pictures of each other by the sign.

 

Our hero is back in the tower now, and notices the bomber's commander is

talking on a cell phone. Our guy gets on the radio to the airport truck and

asks for that guy's phone number. As soon as he finishes that call, our guy

calls the aircraft commander. When he answers, our guy says "I'm calling

about the plane you have for sale." The aircraft commander about falls over

from the laughter. It just so happened that the chief photographer for our

local newspaper is a pilot and he may have been called prior to the sign

being placed. He was told to get up here with a big lens. Here's one of the pics 

he got:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3415/3315809933_35fa96d641_o.jpg

 

An article showed on the front page of the Sunday paper. When that came

out, the Colonel running Ellsworth called the airport director and read him

the riot act, wondering what kind of dog and pony show he was running up

there. We were later informed by the crew that the sign was framed and is

now permanently mounted inside the aircraft. Hard to have that kind of fun

anymore.

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