What Is a Sky Hook? The Classic Apprentice Errand Explained

If you have ever been told to go and fetch a sky hook, you were the target of one of the most traditional workshop errands there is. In Germany it is called the Lufthaken (literally “air hook”), and every apprentice is sent for one sooner or later. The joke: a hook that hangs from nothing, holding up whatever you like.

The prank in a nutshell

The new person is asked to bring a sky hook from another department or the stores. Everybody involved plays along: the storeman says it is out on loan, someone else sends them to a third workshop, and so on. The errand ends when the apprentice realises the hook cannot exist, or when someone takes pity on them.

Why the idea is not entirely silly

The phrase is older than any workshop, and engineers like it. Skyhook is a real name used for several genuine things:

• Skyhook damping is a real control concept for car suspensions. It imagines the car body hanging from a fixed hook in the sky and tries to make the shock absorbers behave like that, which gives a calmer ride.
• The Fulton skyhook was a mid-century system for picking people up from the ground with an aircraft, using a balloon and a cable.
• Space skyhooks are a long-standing concept for a tether hanging from orbit.
• And in basketball, the skyhook is the famous shot made popular by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

So a sky hook does exist, just not as something you can buy at the stores.

Frequently asked questions

Is the sky hook a real tool?

As a hook that hangs on thin air, no. As a name for engineering ideas, yes.

Why is it called Siemens Lufthaken in Germany?

The German prank often adds a well-known company name to make the part sound more official. Our Sky Hook (Siemens Original) keeps that tradition, with a price tag of $1,200,000,000 and a reliable power supply required.

More classics: blinker fluid, the muffler bearing and our list of classic fake parts.