Years ago when based at DFW as a 727 F/O flew with a character whose reputation preceeded him by a "significant" amount. I was told people had been bidding to avoid flying with this guy for years. Of course, I thought I was a pretty easygoing guy and could tolerate just about anybody....When I ended up flying with him, I could tell at first he was a little "ideosyncratic"....
"Not very good, -high by 200 feet on that altitude restriction!" -he blurted out in a rather unfriendly, louder than necessary voice (I was trying to meet altitude restrictions at a certain DME on a long descent...done all manually with 3 to 1 "Kentucky windage" on the 727) Then when he grew a little more "comfortable" with me, I suppose...his true colors started to show.... On one leg I left climb power on for a brief time after level off and as the airplane accelerated to about .85 he screamed out at the top of his lungs "THE WINGS AND THE TAIL FALL OFF AT .88 OR .89!" -after which I looked over at him in shock and said "huh?" (his screaming distracted me) he screamed again "THE WINGS AND THE TAIL....etc" -that was his "subtle" way of saying "watch your power setting, we're accelerating through cruise mach".
This guy carried his own bag of "gruel" with him on trips....wouldn't eat food off the airplane...he only asked for hot water from the flight attendants to mix with his gruel. He was a "survivalist" type, talked about guns and food storage etc. He hated having flight attendants in the cockpit, even on long enroute legs. (the days when f/a's were young and beautiful and flirty) This guy was not just a weird pilot, but a strange human being. He got along great with the S/O, who was a retired Air Force Major about 45-50 yrs old and Mormon, so he had the whole food storage/end-of-days thing as a common interest. They talked about military retirements, then he (the capt.) asked me if I was retired military (I was about 30 yrs old at the time) ...I looked over at him trying to find just the slightest little "glint" of "kidding" or "humor" in his eyes....there was nothing...a cold, steely, almost malignant, completely humorless stare. They say the eyes are the "windows of the soul" ...when I looked into this guy's eyes, it's as if two "off" flags dropped into view, indicating an insidious failure somewhere in the underlying machinery. Strange dude, -to say the least....