Air Force says ‘see ya later’ to gator happily blocking plane’s wheels
A Florida alligator harboring apparent dreams to one day serve as an Air Force pilot sadly did not have the chomps for the role.
Officials at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, shared Monday on social media that a gator who wandered onto the flightline was quickly wrangled and relocated to a nearby river with assistance from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“The gator is now in the Hillsborough River,” the base said on social media. It suggested in the cheeky post that another infamous alligator, nicknamed Elvis, who local outlets previously reported was known to frequent the area, may have driven the recent amphibious animal away from his home.
The episode marks the latest example of an alligator wriggling its way onto a flightline.
After finding out earning wings was out of the question, the “toothy” wannabe airman elected to moonlight as a Florida-style chock block, positioning himself between the wheels of an aircraft.
Some comments online suggested the semiaquatic beast’s inactive CAC card or his poor navi-gator skills led him to be escorted off base, but allig-edly it was his snappy attitude that caused his runway removal.
Despite his propensity to one day serve as a reptile-Raptor airman or a lizard-Lancer pilot, and hopes that — like his distant cousin who enlisted in the Australian armed forces — he too might find love in the military, the scaly creature was only given a cold-blooded, “See you later.”
