A lady sitting in first class saw the plane's cockpit door open, she was incredulous to see that the pilot was reading. Very concerned, she asked a flight attendant, "Miss, why is the pilot reading? Isn't he supposed to be flying the plane?"
The woman fainted when the flight attendant said, "Oh well, he's just studying what to do when the engines fail in mid air."
In the days when the military used their owns planes for moving people the pilot came out of the cockpit with two pieces of string and gave them to a badly behaved boy near the front, Hold those still while I go for a cup of coffee. The boy didn't move a muscle for 20 minutes!
That's not too far from the truth. You always knew that things were going to go seriously tits up when you went into the flight deck and the crew 'had the manuals out'