Just in case you all think I'm the only weird person in the NZ Coastguard, I offer this true story from our latest newsletter. I'm sure it sounds like something Howard would write.

One of the pilots, Mark, while doing his pre-flight inspection of the spotter plane, noticed there was a spider up inside the pitot-tube. (This is a tube mounted on the leading edge of the wing which is part of the system to measure your airspeed.)

The spider could clearly not be allowed to stay there in case it got itself stuck, blocked the tube and put the device out of order. Deep concern followed. How to get the spider out without poking it to death or squashing it? (It beats me why they were even worried about this, but there you go.)

Then somebody had a brilliant idea. Mark could put his mouth around the end of the pitot-tube and inhale sharply, thus sucking the spider towards the end of the tube. I'm pretty sure this was only suggested because everybody wanted to watch Mark eat a live spider by accident. He refused.

Finally, after much thought, they hit on the idea of turning on the pitot-tube heater, which is used to stop the sensor icing up in bad weather. Sure enough, the spider soon became uncomfortable, exited the tube, abseiled off the wing down to the ground, and scurried off towards the Air Patrol office in search of a more comfy home.

Great rejoicing followed. They'd fixed the problem without hurting the spider! Their self-congratulation was cut short when our chief pilot (who was inside the office) heard all the noise, wondered what was going on, stepped out of the building to find out, and stood on the spider, squashing it flat.

Brunnen-"you see? you see? I'm perfectly normal!"G