How many of us haven’t wanted to be a pilot? Standing at air shows watching the — now sequestered — Blue Angels or Thunderbirds soar in to the wild blue yonder is a thrill, just admit it already. Top Gun may have spawned a generation of volleyball jokes but how many of us secretly harbor a desire to fly jets all day and serenade “You’ve lost that loving feeling” to the girl of our dreams at a bar without ridicule?
As long as there have been pilots there have been callsigns. However, unlike Top Gun where everyone has cool callsigns (well apart from ‘Goose’ and we all know what happened to him), the reality behind how you get your callsign can best summed up by what f-16.net — “the web’s largest collection of callsign stories” — calls the “Three Rules of Callsigns:”
- If you don’t already have one, you will be assigned one by your “buddies”.
- You probably won’t like it.
- If you complain and moan too much about 1. and 2., you’ll get a new nickname you’ll like even less!
What goes in to giving you your callsign? Well, back to f-16.net: “Do something stupid or have it fit with your last name. Obvious examples include, ‘Crash’ or LT ‘Cheese’ Kraft. Sometimes it’s based on a physical appearance thing like ‘Carrot’. Only after you’ve earned the respect of your buddies, will you get a more ‘heroic’ call sign.”
More often than not, the callsign assigned to you has something to do with something you’d rather forget but your ‘buddies’ won’t let you drop.
So, without further ado and in no particular order, The Daily Caller presents some of our favorite call signs all found on the aforementioned f-16.net:
“Hijak”
After a night of excess and closing down the Officers Club, The soon to be named “Hijak” ‘s wife wakes the kids, puts them in the car seats in their pajamas, drives to the club, pours the gentleman into his seat, drives him home. There, said gentleman realizes that maybe his night was a little too large. Hurled In-front-of Junior And Kids
“Electroman”
This guy was like electricity with the ladies: he took the path of least resistance.
“Pugsley”
Last name Adams; my wife called me by my pet name at a squadron picnic and the C/O overheard it.
Shotgun
Sitting in a bar off base with a few buddies, an irrate civilian mistook me for his wifes extramarital exercise partner. He came back to the bar brandishing a 12 gauge. After the story got back to base everyone thought it was funny to yell “Shotgun!” at the top of their lungs when ever I entered the room.
Bambi Killer
Some years ago a guy was in Gagetown learning to fly the Kiowa. The mission was to pop up from behind a hill and shoot at a target a mile away. It takes a few seconds for the bullets to travel downrange, and as one pilot was watching to see if he’d hit the target, a deer made the fatal mistake of leaping from behind cover at the wrong moment. For the rest of this fellow’s career in the Canadian Forces, he was tagged ‘Bambi Killer’.
Belly Flop
Coming in for a landing the chopper the pilot forgot to put the landing gears down.
Divot
Ejected from an F-16. Wreckage landed in a golf course in Belgium.
T-Bone
Dropped two 500# laser-guided bombs on cows in Kosovo.
P.E.
Premature Ejection – Pressed the ejection switch in an aircraft while still on the runway.
Krunch
The sound the landing gear makes when it rips off after landing short on the runway.
Omelet
A Dutch pilot wanted to be called bouncer because he used to be one at a club in Holland. Bouncer in dutch (“Uitsmijter”) also means grilled egg. The squadron decided Bouncer sounded too cool so called him omelet.
Trash
Last name is of course White.
Cruise
During SUPT I was constantly listening to Highway to the Danger Zone, Take my Breath Away, and always watched TOP GUN. I even tried to get my classmates to do the “she’s lost that loving feeling,” routine at the local bar.