COTC - 24 Dec 2025 - Merry Christmas Aviation Humor

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Good morning, Northern Michigan. This is Mike, and

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this is Cup of Traverse City for the

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12/24/2025,

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and Merry Christmas Eve.

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And since I'm taking tomorrow off, Merry Christmas

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as well.

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And today, I wanna go, into the weather

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first here. So, today, cloudy, high near 37,

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northwest wind around five, becoming south in the

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afternoon.

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Tonight, mostly cloudy with a low around 29.

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South wind,

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five miles per hour becoming north after midnight.

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And tomorrow, Christmas day,

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mostly cloudy with a steady temperature around 32.

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North wind around 10 becoming east in the

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afternoon.

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Tomorrow night, chance of snow showers after 1AM,

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mixing with freezing rain after 4AM.

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Yeesh.

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And cloudy with a low around 23.

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Southwest winds,

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five to 10 miles an hour,

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and gusts as high as 25.

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Precipitation

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percentage, about 40%.

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Friday, snow showers, freezing rain,

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mostly before 1AM.

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Yeah. That's gonna be fun.

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Anyway,

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so, yeah, I figured I'd cover the weather

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for the next couple of days. Actually, I'm

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taking,

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Thursday, Friday, and the weekend off, so,

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I'll

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return on Monday.

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But, today, I wanted to do some,

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aviation

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humor around this time of year.

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I know.

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It's it's it's my own thing, but

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the FAA

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or, actually, more accurately, ForeFlight, which is a

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a tool that pilots use

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to check weather, do flight planning, all that

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stuff.

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Insert some pretty funny things into the terminal

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area forecast

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or the

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METAR,

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which is the,

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now I can't remember what the what the

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acronym is, but it's, you know, basically the

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weather for the next hour at a particular

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airport or reporting station.

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And,

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I was just looking at, today's,

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current

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METAR.

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And, basically, it's marginal VFR,

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winds three sixty at eight knots

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and

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six miles plus visibility,

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overcast at 2,500

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feet.

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And,

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the the there's a warning on here. Red

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reindeer nose use prohibited

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on all taxiways,

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and that's for that's for Traverse City

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right now. But there's a lot of them

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that, I've seen over the last

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little bit, you know, looking around different airports.

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One is Santa activity in vicinity of the

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airport,

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festive weather.

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Let's see. Possible smoke, chestnuts roasting.

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There's a couple others.

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Let's see. Caution, Grinch activity

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in the vicinity of the airport in

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magic rain door reindeer

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dust

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in the vicinity of the airport.

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Cole in vicinity of Noddy.

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So, you know, they have a pretty pretty

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good,

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sense of humor and, you know, festive little

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messages,

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on the,

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on the terminal area forecast and the METARs

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and, you know, I guess that's a

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joke. Now

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one more, thing.

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Most pilots have to do what's called a

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biannual

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flight review,

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and you don't have to do it with

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an FAA inspector. You have to do it

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with a an instructor.

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But,

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you know, they call

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it a mini checkride, I guess.

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Checkride is where you're going for another license,

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like, you know, if you're going for your

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private pilot's license, you have to take a

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checkride with a FAA

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authorized examiner and

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blah blah blah blah. It's called a, you

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know, a practical test,

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but called a check ride. So we just

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sort of call these check rides. So

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here here's one.

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Santa was up for his check ride,

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and the FAA examiner arrives to perform Santa's

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annual flight review.

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It should be biannual, but, and it doesn't

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have to be FAA. But, hey, this is

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a joke.

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And after checking the sleigh and the reindeer's

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weight and balance, the examiner claims in the

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sleigh with a shotgun.

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And, Santa looks at her, so why why

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is the, you know, why do you have

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a shotgun? He says, well, I'm not supposed

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to tell you this, but you're gonna lose

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an engine on takeoff.

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I thought that was pretty funny.

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And,

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also, the the FAA

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will,

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put up

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ADS B data for Santa's sleigh.

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So if you're using a flight tracker like

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flight radar 24,

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ADSB exchange,

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there'll be an entry in there where you

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can follow Santa's sleigh.

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So

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like I said, the FAA and,

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you know, ForeFlight and some of the other

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apps do a lot of fun stuff around,

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you know, around

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Christmas. I don't think they do it around

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other holidays. I know,

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locally

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here, when they have fireworks going on, they'll

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put a little note in the METAR

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or the ATIS. ATIS is, you know, where

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pilots

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listen to the hourly weather on

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a, you know, a looped

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thing, you know, think of it like the,

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NWS weather channels,

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and the weather radio radio. Well, there's a

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similar thing for for pilots,

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comes from

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the local control tower or

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whatever, and

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sometimes they'll put something in there about, you

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know, hey, fireworks,

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four miles north northeast

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of the airport or whatever, something like that,

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around the fourth of July or whenever they

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have a fireworks show. I know around here,

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the Cherry Festival usually does one at the

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end as well. So but that normally coincides

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with fourth of July or pretty close.

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So, anyway, I guess we're going a little

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long. That's okay.

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I hope you enjoyed

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listening to a little bit of aviation humor,

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and I will catch you on Monday. Everybody

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have a merry Christmas,

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a happy holiday, whatever you, celebrate or don't.

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If if you don't,

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happy Thursday tomorrow.

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Anyway,

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catch you,

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on Monday.