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How NOT to get a call sign

jcoloccia

Well Known Member
There's a couple of us going through test flight crew training at the moment. A co-worker of mine had this conversation with the test flight director this morning:

Co-Worker: Are we doing the dunk tank tommorow? Man, I'm going to look like a big fat soybean in that sopping wet, green flight suit.

Test Flight Director: Soybean......hmmmm......You don't have a call sign yet, do you? :D
 
My class ('82) at Northwestern University Dental School was well known for our knicknames. There was Wolfie (lots of back hair), Nipple (extra nipple), Rick Six (he liked his beer), Mother (his last name was Bucker, so we called him Mother Bucker). The list goes on.

With a last name of Orear, and a group of twisted friends that I had in school, I was dubbed Rectum. Needless to say, I have not put that one on my business cards........

I preferr the handle my fellow hangar rats have given me lately... Painless.


Regards,

Painless...AKA Rectum
 
I got "Squawk" from the Mt SAC flying team. Apparently squawking 3 items on one flight is frowned upon at some flight schools.
 
Soybean isn't too bad. Being an instructor at the SH-60B fleet replacement squadron we got to hear and assign quite a few callsigns to new pilots.

The worst was a guy we called "Digger". He had a bad habit of picking his nose and did it at the most inappropriate times. I remember a "Snapper", a "Lingus", a "Dick Squared" (his name was Richard Dick) and a "Frog". The tough sounding names almost never stuck. You simply can't give yourself a tough sounding nickname. The only one I can think of was an old vietnam veteran we called "Snake" because he flew Cobras before coming to the Navy as a Seahawk pilot.

Mine was fairly sublime. My first name starts with "L" but everyone called me Rob or Bob. When someone asked what the "L" stood for I said "Bob". They called me "L. Bob" which later got changed to "El Bob". Not too exciting of a nickname, but better than others.
 
Some from my squadron:

Name/Call sign
LT Smart/Not so
LT Mclean/Lick
LT Windfree/Ohpera
LT Bryla/Buba (Big Ugly Blond Aviator)
and many more..


Mine, that I picked up at Test Pilot School is "Ass Clown" :eek: (long story).
 
Picture a young, hot headed USMC pilot wanting the call sign Blue Falcon and someone noticing the initials also fit Butt Face. It stuck! We had 3 other nimrods without callsigns so they became Butt Face 2, Butt Face 3 and Butt Face 4. Once they matured, you could sometimes hear something like this on the air: "Butt Face flight check in - Butt Face 2, 3, 4".

Had a man accidentally discharge his side arm in a crowded office and the 9mm ricocheted around the concrete walls. He was the only casualty, sustaining a small cut on his cheek, likely from concrete. Callsign till death: "Ricochete Rodriques".

Another pilot had the callsign of Bullet. One day while preparring for a combat sortie, he shot the deck of the carrier as he "preflighted" his side arm. He didn't really earn a new callsign from this however, "Bullet" sure was cemented after that.

Yet another Marine, standing at a bar fairly drunk. Oblivious to the world, he stuck his hand down the back of his trousers and began scratching his butt. He instantly earned the callsign "Scratch". A year later, in a drunken stupor, Scratch grabbed a waitress smack in the middle of the crotch. After his callsign became "Muffy" he decided that Scratch was not so bad after all. Muffy may be sober now but, he's still called Muffy!

Signed:
Jekyll (USMC callsign)
 
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Genius

As a young marine just arriving at my assigned infantry unit in Vietnam I was unhappy to learn that our shower consisted of a 55 gallon oil drum filled with water and held above head level on a wooden frame. You reached up and held open the tap and cold water poured down on you. I hate cold showers, so my I decided to make a water heater by floating a 5 gal can inside the barrel and use gasoline as fuel to have a fire in the can, thereby heating the water.

My earliest attempt at developing a drip system to drip gasoline into the can resulted in the flame running up the stream of gasoline dripping from the C ration can that I was holding. When I realized that I was in trouble I threw the can of gas in my hand so as not to be holding it when the flames reached it. Gas from the small can covered both my arms and ignited.

I ran into the GP large tent that I shared with my platoon, with both arms on fire. The rest of the platoon looked up from their card game non-plussed at the antics of the FNG. I was known thereafter with the rather sarcastic nick of "Genius". After I finished the design and the guys actually had hot showers, the name stuck but some of the sarcasm went away.

When I get an email that starts, "Hey Genius", I know it is from one of my vietnam Marine buddies.
 
Callsigns...

Once upon a time, a certain Marine sergeant with numerous designations and several hundred flight hours under his belt was crewing a flight with a newly-designated crewchief. The crew turns up, but gets a high vibration reading on the swashplate, so they shut down and re-grease the swashplate bearings (the authorized corrective action at that time). Turn-up again, vibes check good, last long time...
So they lift off to head outbound, and the following radio call is received:

"Hustler 404, Willow Grove Tower; be advised the crash crew observed an object depart your aircraft."

The pilots lets Tower know they'll stay in the pattern and full-stop to their line to check the aircraft, while the enlisted crew in the back is checking things out already. They're turning final when the following radio call is received:

"Hustler 404, be advised the crash crew recovered a greasegun from Delta and the parallel." (The intersection of taxiway Delta and the parallel taxiway was our squadron's normal takeoff position)

That's how that highly-experienced Marine sergeant earned the callsign "Greaseman"... Did I mention that the HAC (Helicopter Aircraft Commander - the pilot) on this flight was our new Commanding Officer? Oooops... way to impress the new CO. :rolleyes: Took over 6 months for everyone to forget about that incident and get back to calling me "Mo".

Wait, did I say "me" back there? Noooo, that wasn't me... musta been some other guy I know...
 
some just stick....

Oil cooler leak, not one but 2 midairs with birds (one thru the windscreen) we call him "LUCKY"

Paying chicken with a Ford Thunderbird and losing, we call him "Birdstrike"

Refusing to paint your RV and wondering why someone marked the aluminum with an ink marker (no it wasn't me), his callsign be "Sharpie"

This is my favorite, but because of the big stink he thru it did not stick. We were a gaggle on the way to Oshkosh and our first stop was Provo, UT. His beautiful RV-6 had not been out of its test period very long, and after refueling, the flaps wouldn't retract. It was several frantic minutes until a cleco fell from the area around the flap actuator. "Cleco" it should have been, but sigh, he likes Yellowtail better.

Love em all.......

Redtail
SoCal Wing, VAF
 
Handle

Mine was chickenbone.

Long story, but basically I got the name when I broke the windshield of a crew bus with a cold chicken leg. :p
 
the_other_dougreeves said:
Could that be Dan Checkoway, Mr. RVproject.com?

Guilty as charged. Maybe I'll get a better call sign after I paint the plane this fall.
 
Don't have one

I don't have one yet, but I'm sure I'll do something to earn it.

When I ran our aviation unit for the Sheriff's Office we had names.

The CP was named "Professor" because of his ability to take the simpliest stuff and turn it into a disertation. (Kind of like George :) )

One of the observer was called "5 Head" because he had a forehead you could paint a bill board on.

Another was Cowboy because of his rodeo obsession.


I got to name one of the list members who is building a 9, Glenn Brasch from Tucson. His name is "hotline" because he has one to Van's and uses it often!!
 
Nomination

RV7Guy said:
I don't have one yet, but I'm sure I'll do something to earn it.QUOTE]
How about Dingle. :D
Unfortunately, you don't always have to earn them, but good luck.
 
dan said:
Guilty as charged. Maybe I'll get a better call sign after I paint the plane this fall.
714D + Paint doesn't compute with me... What kinda scheme are you doing?

/thread hijack.
 
ANG Det Commander

Sometimes a person's own given name is so good, they don't need a call sign.

As I was returning from to the States after a four year tour at Bitburg Germany (Crew Chief, Transient Maintenance), I was handed a set of orders to prepare for a deployment of an Air National Guard KC-135 that would operate out of our base for a month.

Upon examination of the orders, I noticed that the deployment commander was Richard (goes by Dick) Pounder, rank, Major. So the orders read "Maj. Dick Pounder.

Due to imminent departure, I was not able to meet him, but I'm sure he'd heard it all by then.

Steve
 
call sign embarassing

Well.. you might as well know it.... I was in AIT for UH-60 school (crewchief) and I ate an (fully wrapped) twinkie from the dumpster... yea... we were hungry...
Love, your 6'4" 235 lb UH-60L doorgunner "Twinkie"
Brian
 
An old thread, I know... I don't have one yet (i'm sure it'll come with time), but here are some local ones:

Bingo - Ran one tank dry during a formation flight.
Chocks - Preflighted, climbed in, started up, and wondered why he couldn't taxi.
Schooner - His squadron in the air force was Schooner, so that's his name in our flight.
 
An old thread, I know... I don't have one yet (i'm sure it'll come with time)

Rob,
Your forum name is "Snowflake", and yet you claim you don't have a callsign?

Wanna bet?? :D :D

"Snowflake" it is!

Best,
"Moose" (because "Bull in a china shop" was too long for everyday use...)
 
I would gladly accept that, but I have to admit that I am but squatting on the name. And since I both like the name and chose the name myself, it doesn't qualify as an "official" callsign. Unless the rest of our local formation team agrees that it fits.

The other catch is that we call our formation team "Snowflakes", so "snowflake" is only correct in a general sense.
 
When I worked for Boeing on the AIMS system for the 777, we all got call signs. I was dubbed "razor" because of my last name. One of the Honeywell guys with the last name of McCullough was "chainsaw".

When I put out my flight planning software AirPlan, I named my software company Razor's Edge Software.
 
I picked up the nickname "Sparky" quite a few years ago, after having to land an Arrow with nosegear that wouldn't come down, at night...in full view of *every freaking news helicopter in Los Angeles*. It was a pretty impressive display of sparks as we slid down the runway...I have it on tape somewhere :)

Thus..."Sparky" to my flying buddies...
 
My first posting to an operational squadron with Army Aviation I was being shown around and meeting the maintainers, one of whom instantly christened me "Burken" because of my surname....Burke & Wills were two early explorers of Australia. Kept that for most of my service career, and still quite like it.:)

Though I seem to have lost that since I broke my KR2 and have now been dubbed "Crasher" by some of the guys at my old depot...
 
Being of Polish decent was tough enough growing up in the 60's. My nickname was of course "SKI" and I wanted something "cooler"! Well i went hunting one day and got a pheasant. I took a long feather and stuck it in my hat and went to work the next day with an 18" or so feather stuck in my hat. (Errol Flynn in Rubin Hood look! cool huh!?) I walked onto the job site and within seconds my boss hollers out as loud as he could, "HEY LOOK! ITS CHIEF FEATHER ***!" ..................haven't been called SKI since 1967! LOL
well what comes around goes around. my x boss is now 72 and I took him up for a ride in my citabria (building an RV 7), I asked him if he remembered giving me my nickname? but before I was finished asking he blurted out, " you mean CHIEF FEATHER ASS??? boy did I want to do some aerobatics right then!!! but I just flew him around for 3 hrs, landed, and just asked how he enjoyed the flight? his come back was, "very nice chief bald eagle!!!! your feather fell out with all the rest"
god i wanted to shoot him!! but just laughed.
 
Call Signs

My first tour of duty with the USN in P-cola I got tagged with the name "Mr. Ballistic" I sounded off one morning and had one of the D.I.s jump out of his shoes. The Sr. D.I. gave me my name as I did push-ups til he got tired. The Navy did not pan out as my eyesight went south, so I joined the Army and on my deployment to Iraq was tagged with "Face". My guys based it on the old A-Team tv show. I worked my way out of that and was re-tagged as Stogie. I enjoy a good cigar and between missions, there was nothing better than a nice "Stogie" to gather your thoughts. I'll keep this one.
 
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Since I am a civilian, I cannot claim that my nickname/callsign came from any feats accomplished in the style of of those who have served our country. But, through no fault of my own, I ended up with a nickname and callsign that took years to finally fade away.
My birthday is very late in the year, so I was always the youngest in my class. Upon graduation from high school, I was sent to Sacramento City College to attend A&P school. One of my first instructors was a gentleman who was retired USAAC/USAF and had flown B-17's in the 8th AAC. On the first day of class, he was walking around getting to know everyone and finally worked his way over to my bench. He looks at me, and asks "how old are you, son?" Almost 18, Sir! Then in front of all the other students, laughs and says "you look like you still could be suffering from diaper rash!" Well, from then on it was never Mark it was always "Diaper Rash" which of course got shortened to just "Rash"! I cannot tell about the delight that my instructors and classmates took in walking up to me when I was chatting up some fair maiden, to say "hey Rash! what is going on?"
We had a flying club at the the school, so my call sign when on the school freq was always "Diaper Rash"! And, as we all know aviation is a small world so it always seemed to follow me.
 
With the last name 'Esther', I was called 'Poly' all through college. In Air Force UPT (pilot training) I begged the guys not to name me Poly. Instead someone came up with 'Mole' (reference the last name). That's what I've been called since. It pays to keep your mouth shut! :eek:
 
My nephew is an F-18 pilot, currently flying off the USS Eisenhower in the Persian Gulf (he's been flying in support of the operation in Helmand province.

anyway, I was searching around google and found this article he wrote for the Navy Safety Center.

He'd forgotten to raise his tailhook when he switched landing ( because of low fuel) from a carrier to NAS Oceana and what subsequently happened.

His call sign now is HUDA -- For "Hook Up Dumb A**"
 
Ah, yes - those "cool sounding" nicknames. Little do unsuspecting civilians realize that they are NEVER for, shall we say, our best moments?

I was actually rather fortunate in that my handle of "Axeman" was not actually for one of my genius moments. Instead, a jokester friend snapped a photo of me early one Saturday morning coming off "Alert" looking anything but (hair disheveled, rumpled flight suit, and looking somewhat hung over even though it was just lack of sleep due to a snoring Colonel).

He then proceeded to replace my photo on the Squadron Board showing the entire Squadron arranged by chain of command just inside the building entrance (remember those days? Now I'm sure such a thing would be considered a "security threat"), and replaced my legend of "Snacko" (lowest job in the squadron, always applied to the most junior Lieutenant and in this case only Lieutenant in the squadron) with the legend:

"Axe Murderer - Slays Six"

:D
 
I got mine from a hobby that got out of control and turned into a nice business, I was a paintball player for years before starting a high pressure air services company that handled the air supply for paintball fields and tournaments. Whenever I rolled onsite to an event in my big air supply trailer, everybody would say "The air guy is here" - they never knew my name, just my company logo on the trailer. It wasn't long before people were just calling me "Airguy", and I knew better than to fight a good marketing gimmick, so I ran with it.
 
Got my name "Stitch" in while stationed in Korea in 1992 (long before the Disney movie hit the streets) by smacking the top of my head on the trailing edge of the forward canard on an AIM-9 missile that was loaded on the wing tip of an F-16 . Ended up going to the clinic and getting seven stitches in my head but not until after we finished up uploading the wing pylon, TER and BDU-33s on the jet!

"BLUENOSE" and proud of it! You earn this honor by crossing the Arctic Circle on the ground.

Didn't know that, made that trip several times between hunting trips and visiting family members while living in Alaska.
 
Windsock or Sleepy?

Upon landing at an unfamiliar grass runway that appeared to be nicely groomed, expecially the middle of the strip, I came in a little hot over trees but picked the bright green, cushy looking center of the wide strip. It turned out to be where the owner of the private field placed his windsock. I didn't spot it until the last second, just in time to make a radical turn avoiding a straight-on hit. I however damaged the right wing leading edge. Since the mishap I've been aptly labeled "Windsock". Prior was "Sleepy" due to my abhorrence for an early wake up call for the 0700 takeoff time for short breakfast flights. Not sure which negative will stick but I'm trying to "get over it." Reading these many hilarious confessions helps.

Bill Cary
RV6 N55BC
Kansas City (KLXT)
 
Socket!

These posts bring back some memories!

I was a weapons loader in the Air Force from 1984-1994. (462 as well, Stitch!) I once lost a 5/8 socket inside a gun bay panel on an A-10. It fell out the following day, much to the surprise of the crew working the aircraft at the time. Needless to say, my nickname from then on was "Socket".

Since it rhymed with my last name anyway, it wasn't all that bad...:)
 
I was a weapons loader in the Air Force from 1984-1994. (462 as well, Stitch!) I once lost a 5/8 socket inside a gun bay panel on an A-10....

Ahhhh the joys of lost tools! While working Hogs myself up AK way we had a guy send a dogbone ratchet for an incentive ride on a TER once. :eek: Luckly the way he had it wedged in the "tighten" mode it stayed there the whole time. Not many tools get to log a 3.5 on the Hog! I'm just grateful it wasn't my load crew. :D
 
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Lost in Translation.

Ahhhh the joys of lost tools! While working Hogs myself up AK way we had a guy send a dogbone ratchet for an incentive ride on a TER once. :eek: Luckly the way he had it wedged in the "tighten" mode it stayed there the whole time. Not many tools get to log a 3.5 on the Hog! I'm just grateful it wasn't my load crew. :D

Okay let me see if I have this right:

Hogs refer to A10, correct?
Up AK way is in Alaska, correct?
Get to log 3.5 on a Hog is fly 3.5 hours in an A10, correct

What is a dogbone ratchet and also what is a TER?

Because I was born in England, a previous German girlfriend of mine called me "der Inselaffe" which means island monkey.
 
when you think your wingman is launching on dawn patrol after month 5 at sea and you believe you hear the sound of the launch from your stateroom below the flight deck and decide now would be a great time to exercise some personal ah hmmm TLC, you might get a callsign of "Spanky" when your wingman actually canx the flight due to foul weather and walks in and turns on the lights....after 24 years of Naval service I still cannot shake this one (no pun intended) :)

Spanky
 
Mofo

I earned my callsign at an EAA breakfast. I was on base and about to turn final when the RV-9 on short final decided he was going too fast to land and needed to perform a 360. I thought this was rather stupid but I knew how to do a go around. I start to go around and he is still too fast and doesn't land. Now he is under me, climbing and I can't see him. Needless to say I had a few choice words for him on the radio and on the ground a few minutes later.

From then on my callsign has been Mofo.
 
Fester

We had a guy in my F16 squadron that was burning leaves in his backyard and didnt know about the poison ivy that was mixed in with the pile of leave. He was covered with poison ivy.

That was grounds enough for re-namage.

Now he's called Fester
 
Out for a $100 burger and one of the guys in the group makes an unusually big deal out of specifically getting his sweet tea... OK - "Sweet Tea" it is!
 
Ahhhh the joys of lost tools! While working Hogs myself up AK way we had a guy send a dogbone ratchet for an incentive ride on a TER once. :eek: Luckly the way he had it wedged in the "tighten" mode it stayed there the whole time. Not many tools get to log a 3.5 on the Hog! I'm just grateful it wasn't my load crew. :D

I wasn't going to rat on anyone else's call sign, but this reminds me how one of my crew chiefs in Germany earned the nickname "Snoopy" for a similar incident. I arrived for an early morning flight to find him looking very tired (he'd been up all night), and with well over 100 write-ups in "the book" confirming all the places on the airplane he had searched for, and failed to find, a missing screwdriver-type-thingy referred to as a Snoopy (because it looked like a profile of the cartoon dog). During my walk around I slapped the inside of the speed brakes where I always did, only to hear the sound of metal bouncing. Obviously he had been sitting on the floor working on something else, and absent-mindedly set it down on a convenient ledge...
 
... Germany .... missing screwdriver-type-thingy referred to as a Snoopy.... (because it looked like a profile of the cartoon dog). .... absent-mindedly set it down on a convenient ledge...

Bitburg Air Base, Germany 1985ish, Working the mighty F-15C Eagle, another load crew did something similiar. After several jobs they finally do a tool inventory (like they're supposed to do after EVERY job) they noticed their "snoopy" missing. Looked all over, they jets they worked on, everywhere. No luck. They report the lost tool to the Pro Super who has a stroke since the jets are already flying for the day. Once the jets are back the fleet gets grounded until the lost tool is resolved. Late that night another crew locates the snoopy. Wedged between the bottom of the wing and the station 2 wing pylon. Seems one of the crew members sat the tool down for a second on top of the pylon then proceeded to load the pylon on the jet. The tool was trapped and wasn't going anywhere so no worry of a dropped object or it migrating in the flight controls or anything just really poor tool control and a HUGE pain the in butt for everyone involved. The "best" part? The snoopy isn't even a required tool for uploading a wing pylon on to the Eagle!
 
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