Sometime early 90's. I was a Fokker100 FO.
We had an FMS box where if one typed the approach set up sequence out of order somehow, both boxes would fail and I believe it would take out the ND magenta line guidance for several minutes before resetting. It was a long time ago, some software issue I believe.

I then end up riding in the jumpseat of a Lufthansa Airbus into Hamburg Germany late one night with low triple digit meters vis in fog. Very nice crew, decent aviation conversational English.

On descent, the FMS entries seemed very similar to the F100. I asked the FO if they had the same failure problem if X,Y,Z,F,U was pressed. To my surprise as we descended below 10K, he quickly types in the sequence while I'm thinking "don't do that" as CA "Fritz" slowly looked over with the same look as mine, unable to stop FO "Franz" from hitting "Execute" (or whatever the Airbus entry is).

Sure enough, both FMC's puke and take out the approach magenta display. CA "Fritz" starts yelling at FO "Franz", "Franz" starts yelling at "Fritz", Hamburg Approach "Hans" starts yelling at "Franz" and "Fritz", they yell back, all in high speed P.O. German like a scene from the bridge in "Das Boot" as they crash dive the U-Boat. Me? I'm looking around for an empty rivet hole to crawl out of.

I think with the vectors out of sequence and back to the approach took about 25 minutes. Walking out of the terminal with 150 grumpy Germans, my wife (who was riding in back) asked what took so long. "errr, uhh.....I'll tell you later".:D

Jump seating on a cargo 727 to SFO. First officer's leg, and for the full four hours plus enroute he was bemoaning the fact that he hadn't had a decent landing the entire trip. He was determined to grease this one one and spent the last hour or so prior to top of descent talking about being on profile and stabilized and all of that. Around the Modesto VOR, the captain reaches down by his flight bag and pulls out a sketch pad and a pencil and starts drawing. He's drawing with enough flourish that the FO notices and asks him what he's drawing. "Oh, nothing, sometimes I just like to dabble in the arts". Just prior to 10,000 feet, the captain finishes and puts the pad down. So we're descending over the bay, slowing down, getting configured, things are looking real good for the approach and landing. At about 500 above touchdown, the captain says "hey Mike, check this out". He's holding up his sketch pad on which he created a really excellent rendering of a safe falling out of a second story window and crashing on the sidewalk below. The FO says "Son of a bit€*!" and proceeds to make, according to the captain, his worst landing of the week.

In a unknown airline in the United States, onboard a Airbus A320, im in the jumpseat, the meals come out, we all eat.

Captain: Hey bud, can you sit on my seat, im going to do Yoga .

Me: ok

Captain: You know how to work the radios right?

Me: Sure captain

Captain: gets out of chair, proceeds to do an hour worth of yoga, while i work the radios on the left seat of the airbus .

At the time i had just finished my ATP , and type rating, had not even done IOE at my first airline.

Cool experience tho.

Got about 20 mins of left seat time in the 777 about the same way.
Think the captain was taking his morning constitutional instead of yoga.

I think on the 777 they call that the $100 poop.

When I was a lowly regional FO, I was commuting on my own company airplane. The captain, a big greek dude, started showing me and the FO pictures of his daughter. He told us she was 15 or 16... somewhere around there. She did mature well ahead of the pack and had a lot of talent. And all of said pictures were of her in very revealing bikinis and in poses that would be found on Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. He kept going "Isn't she really pretty?" over and over again. All I could think of was the face of Chris Hansen.

I was stationed in Europe flying F-15s in the early 90's. Another pilot and I were traveling by ourselves to Turkey on a Lufthansa A320 for a deployment. During the flight, the line to the aft restrooms was long and I made my way forward to use the one there. As I exited, I ran into the FA in the galley. I told her I was a USAF pilot and asked if I might be able to see the flight deck. She knocked, entered, came back out and held the door open for me. I'm pretty sure we were traveling in civilian clothes and I know I never showed any kind of ID. A different time for certain.

I entered, introduced myself and had about a 10-15 minute chat with the guys while they showed me around the first airline cockpit I had ever visited. I thanked them and was about to leave when the Captain said, "When we turn the seatbelt sign on during descent, come on back up and you can sit in the jumpseat for the landing". Very cool.

My cohort and I were in the window and aisle seats in the same row with no one in between us. I had the window, so he swapped and put me on the aisle so I could make my exit easily at the right time.

"Ding!" ...... comes as we descend into Istanbul and I'm up like I've been shot out of a cannon. According to my buddy, the woman across the aisle from me practically had a heart attack since I guess she assumed I either had bad intent or was urgently needed on the flight deck. Either way, she was a basket case until we touched down. Oops. :o

Looking back it was a very eye opening experience for me. The whole auto-throttles wiring the speed blew my mind, never mind the fact that they didn't move. I couldn't believe how far down the runway we landed (normal touchdown zone landing) since my "normal" was trying to hit the first 500 feet.

Was on a Republic E-175 commuting to JFK and the entire way the Captain and FO are talking about actively cheating on their wives. I think that I'm going to get wrapped up in their bad karma and we will crash and the poor wives last memories of their husbands will be of them cheating on them.

Was on an old Southwest 737 that didn't have GPS and and ATC keeps on trying to give them direct. After several "unables" the Captain gets out his handheld VFR Garmin and starts accepting direct the rest of the flight.

I got to ride up front on one of UPS's last DC-8's trying to get home. The flight had been delayed and I wasn't going to have much time to switch planes in Rockford to make it home. The Captain asks if I was in a hurry and when I said I was he told the FO to fly the clacker the entire way so they could make up some time and give me a better shot for my last chance to get home. I ended up beating the crew to the airplane in Rockford.

At my airline we had a DC-8 simulator instructor who had a fun little demonstration. He would have the airplane at redline airspeed at the outer marker and successfully land it. Now of course this was a simulator stunt only; the real airplane would have come apart. The DC-8 has no speed brakes; it is certified to use inboard thrust reversers inflight. (The outboard reversers are locked out unless the gear is down.) So at the marker he would throw down gear and full flaps and go to full reverse on all 4 engines. He always got it on the ground, on speed.

This is literally the best thread of all time...