The best plane for pulling pranks on F/As was the Shorts 330.

We were flying from BWI to ISP (loong way in the skypig) with my girlfriend in the back (F/A). I was flying with a buddy of mine, a former pilot for Air Liberia. He's black, I'm pretty whitebread and I'm bored. Half way there I tell my buddy hey, let's swap seats. So we climb over the center pedestal and trade. Now remember, the cockpit doors in a Shorts are sliding doors to the outside of each pilot's shoulder (you get your own door). I ring the interphone and ask for a soda for me, nothing for Mike, the F/O. Pretty soon I can feel the pitch change as she walks up the aisle. Also, I should say that she liked to give a little squeeze to Captain Happy when she opened the door. Well, she slides the door open, reaches forward, sees this big black hand on the yoke and screams! She drops the drink, slams the door shut and runs to the back of the plane. She cussed us out the rest of the pairing. It was great!

The Shorts had a pretty big overhead panel with all sorts of cool switches and lights. There was one light, I think it was an inverter light that you could make come on without blowing anything up. Guys would get a labelmaker and put T. O'HEAT next to the light. You'd flip the switch, make the light come on and ring the F/A. She'd come up and you'd say,"Hey, Suzie, we have a toilet overheat", pointing to the glowing light. You'd send her back to flush the lav 3 times. She'd come back up and you'd say "sorry, that didn't work - dump a bucket of ice down there". If you really had a live one the coup d'etat would be, "damn - that light is still on. Feel around the bowl to see if you can find which side is hot". They'd come back with a blue hand and you'd say "that's OK, the light went out". You just didn't want to order a beverage after that one.

Then there was the classic landing gear malfunction. This worked REALLY well with 30 businessmen early in the morning. The Shorts had the gear in pods next to the fuselage. There was a 10kt difference if the gear was up or down. You'd call little Suzie up front and say "Suzie we have a gear problem today. We have to check it out before we land. I need you to go by row 6 and jump up and down 4 times. That will help unlock the gear". So she'd go back, you'd wait until the 4th THUMP and put the gear handle down. Worked every time. She'd be so happy that she had helped save the day.

Ahh the good old days!