A pesky cabin temperature control problem plagued us, causing all kinds of interruptions in our attempts to read our Penthouse, Playboy, or Forum’s Letters. Flight Attendants calling up, all the time bitching about the damn cabin temperature. Every five minutes an irate call, Its too hot back here! Its too cold back here.” This unhappy situation would go on for the duration of these six-hour flights, seriously hampering our discussions of pussy. A maxim in aviation is you talk airplanes on the ground, and pussy in the air!
After suffering through several of these trips, I came up with a solution. I went to a local hardware store and bought a conventional thermostat, like those used in most homes, and glued four small suction cups onto it’s back. I went out to the aircraft early next trip, before the crew arrived, and mounted my device prominently in the serving area of the Flight Attendant’s galley.
When the Cabin Crew showed up, I brought them into the galley, showed them the thermostat, and explained “the trial modification,” implemented by our maintenance department in an attempt to solve the aircraft’s temperature problems. I did fail to mention that the thermostat was not connected to anything.
“Temperature control is now the responsibility of the Flight Attendants,” I told them. We pilots then went through our normal departure procedures. We set the actual cockpit temperature controller to some “midway” position, and forgot about it. After take-off, we started to time how long it would take until we received the first temperature complaint. Fifteen minutes go by, then thirty minutes, nothing. An hour into the flight and not a single gripe!
I cracked the cockpit door to see what was going on. Every couple of minutes one of the girls would reach up and turn the thermostat control higher or lower; then about three or four minutes later, another of the girls, on her way in or out of the galley, would make another adjustment.
In the course of that one day, the thermostat in the galley was used more often than a real one during it’s normal lifetime.
In the crew van on the way to the hotel, I casually asked the Lead Flight Attendant if she noticed any improvement in the quality of the aircraft temperature? She told me “that problem is unequivocally solved.” The temperature on that flight was perfect for the first time since they started working this aircraft, totally and completely satisfactory,” they all agreed.
My bogus unit remained on that one aircraft, undiscovered, for another four weeks. The shit hit the fan, however, when one of the very senior F/As asked her boss when could they look for this great fix to be installed on the rest of the fleet?”
For the next few weeks, whenever I called back for a cup of coffee, I invariably found one or two cigarette butts taped to the bottom of my paper cup. My next few coffees had a few choice words written inside the bottom of the cup with eye liner. I started carrying a thermos with me on trips, not wanting to be “Visine’d.” Visine in the coffee is the favored manor of retribution by Flight Attendants towards asshole pilots or passengers considered to be pains in the asses… Visine supposedly causes severe stomach cramps and diarrhea.
When I think about that whole thermostat gag routine, I realize just how powerful perception can be, that whole mind over matter trip.