{"id":3038,"date":"2004-12-29T09:22:28","date_gmt":"2004-12-30T01:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/12\/29\/santas-flight-exam\/"},"modified":"2019-12-11T15:07:36","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T23:07:36","slug":"santas-flight-exam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/12\/29\/santas-flight-exam\/","title":{"rendered":"Santa&#8217;s Flight Exam"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:9441,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/gridpoint.com\\\/cgi-bin\\\/mailman\\\/listinfo\\\/usual-suspects&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20050104063841\\\/http:\\\/\\\/gridpoint.com:80\\\/cgi-bin\\\/mailman\\\/listinfo\\\/usual-suspects&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-10 20:00:11&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-19 13:13:07&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-07 12:50:00&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-14 19:17:11&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404}],&quot;broken&quot;:true,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-14 19:17:11&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>Santa Claus, like all pilots, gets regular visits from the Federal Aviation Administration, and it was shortly before Christmas when the FAA examiner arrived.<\/p>\n<p>In preparation, Santa had the elves wash the sled and bathe all the reindeer. Santa got his logbook out and made sure all his paperwork was in order.<\/p>\n<p>The examiner walked slowly around the sled. He checked the reindeer harnesses, the landing gear, and Rudolf&#8217;s nose. He painstakingly reviewed Santa&#8217;s weight and balance calculations for the sled&#8217;s enormous payload.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, they were ready for the checkride. Santa got in, fastened his seatbelt and shoulder harness, and checked the compass. Then the examiner hopped in carrying, to Santa&#8217;s surprise, a shotgun. &#8220;What&#8217;s that for?&#8221; asked Santa incredulously.<\/p>\n<p>The examiner winked and said, &#8220;I&#8217;m not supposed to tell you this, but you&#8217;re gonna lose an engine on takeoff.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/gridpoint.com\/cgi-bin\/mailman\/listinfo\/usual-suspects\" title=\"The Usual Suspects mailing list\">The Usual Suspects<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Santa Claus, like all pilots, gets regular visits from the Federal Aviation Administration, and it was shortly before Christmas when the FAA examiner arrived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2043],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-3038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","tag-humor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3038\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}