A friend of mine got me thinking about what we used to call some of the aircraft we were associated with in the AF. Please add to the list.

Of course the A10A Thunderbolt II is the Warthog.

F-105 Thunderchief - Thud

F-104 Starfighter - Widowmaker

F-111 - Aardvark

B-52 Stratofortress - BUFF (Big Ugly Fat Fu Fellow)

F-16 Fighting Falcon - Lawn Dart

0-2 Skymaster - Pushme Pullyou

Off the top of my head

A-6/EA-6B = the fighting drumstick

F-14= Turkey

S-3 = Hoover

A-4 Scooter / Heinamann's hotrod

SB2C-2 = Beast

A-7 = SLUF (Short Little Ugly F'er)

B-1 = Bone (B-One)

F-15E = Mud Eagle

F4U = Ensign Eliminator

F7U = Gutless Cutlass

F2H = Banjo

P-47 Thunderbolt--the Jug

The "fighting" drumstick?

Or was it just the "Drumstick"?.....




Casey

C-5 Galaxy= The Fred
For if I recall, F'king Ridiculously Expensive Disaster.

hey Allen, why was it called the "drumstck" ?

its one of my favorite aircraft, so i am curious.

Hey! It's my logbook. It had other names too, doubly ugly and the queer (because of the VA"Q" squadron designation back when it denoted special mission and Electronic Warfare was still black.)

The first time I ever heard "drumstick" for the EA-6 was on this site(by Pugs, I think)
I was like, "hey, that is exactly what it looks like!"

Yep, you can see one of my wingmans sleek grey beauties distinct shape hooking up with our friends from the RAF on the way into Northern Iraq for a Northern Watch mission circa 2000.

Nice picture, Pugs.
I forgot that your refueling gear was compatible with the Brit's stuff.
I could see where that would be quite convenient!

What kind of pistol were those pilots packing

Martin B-26 - "Flying Prostitute" - no visable means of support from original short wing span.

Post ODS we carried the M11 (Sig P228) in 9mm which is a decent caliber for..... Oh crap, I've done it now haven't I?

F-100 was the "Lead Sled" because of it's propensity to drop like lead if it lost power.

Tarheel

Uh oh, Pugs, now you've done it.
Now Lee24, the designer of every combat aircraft of note
Will be on your case!

UH-1 Hughie

CH-47 S..t Hook

OH-6 Loach

I have it on good authority that they pack Ruger Bearcats in 22lr. Issued to them by the treasury department.

Well, it's always fun to see what he comes up with next, I'm always amazed.

No doubt.
He is entertaining(I guess that is the word for him??)

So what's the nick name for my favorite aircraft, the SR71?

I always heard Habu (a snake native to Guam, I think) or The Sled

If you look hard on the ridge below you can see Lee flying both planes from remote.

Since i've never flown anything larger than a bicycle i think the Habu snake is from Okinawa? When i see'em getting ready to do a flyover i always think back to the 2 nicknames i heard in my youth "Run!" and "Bad Trouble"

You're likely right it's Okinawa and not Guam Dave since that was the deployment site for the overflights of VN.

I never did get to see a SR-71 airborne, dang it.

Supposed to be quite a sight.

When I worked the Tower on the JFK, we had the following:

Tomcat" Turkey
Hornet: Lawn Dart
Corsair: Fruit Fly
Viking; Dirt Bag
Prowler: Station Wagon
Hawkeye: Hummer

Can't think of what we called the Intruder, it's been so long
jorge

Geesh you would think I'd remember the snake as I have the offical history book on the SR71. The snake was the patch worn by all SR71 ground personel. Dang old age is a b!tch.

The sled also sounds familiar.

I had a chance to see an SR71 up close and personal as well as a fly over at ground level what an awesome plane.

Recall the Hornet was also called the "plastic bug" or just the "bug" back when we had airwings made of iron airplanes. (Proud to have my Grumman Ironworks 1000 and 2000 hour plaques)

I loved the A-6 even though I never got to fly it. I always thought of it as the "Raison d' Etre" of the aircraft carrier air wing. I remember a business card one of my Intruder buddies carried:

A-6 Intruder Aviators. We get ours day or night, penetrate deeper and carry a bigger load. Ah for the good old days when Naval Aviation was a Warrior Cult and not the social experiment it's become. jorge

Yeah, the SR is called the "Habu" in the Air Force and it was Okinawa. Okinawa, Beale and Mildenhall were the SR's primary bases of operation.

F-4 = "Rhino"

F-16 in it's early days in USAFE was called "Lawn Jart"

F-104 = "widowmaker"

B-52's were BUFF's.

C-23A's were "Sherpas" though I forget if that was official or unofficial as we had the only squadron of them in the armed forces.

I ran across one the other day:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XF-84H

The XF-84H was possibly the loudest aircraft ever built, earning the nickname "Thunderscreech" as well as "Mighty Ear Banger." On the ground, they were reportedly audible 25 miles away.

The tips of the blades on the smaller forward propeller turned at supersonic speeds even at idle, producing a continuous series of square wave sonic shockwaves that radiated outwards from the propellers (relative to the blade pitch) for hundreds of yards, inducing severe nausea and headaches among ground crews. In one report, a Republic engineer suffered a seizure after close range exposure to the shock waves emanating from a powered-up XF-84H. After this incident the Air Force Flight Test Center directed Republic to tow the XF-84H out on Rogers Dry Lake, far from the flight line, before running up its engine.

Habu would be Okinawa.....no snakes native to Guam........they do have the brown tree snake introduced......Habu is a group of pit vipers loosely related to our rattlesnakes, copperheads and cottonmouths....

this is generally whats called the Okinawan habu

For those who wondered what a C-23 is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-23_Sherpa

Your picture did not come through for me, and that's just fine!

Sherpa's were tough little buggers, but slow as molasses. I remember taking a hop one time down to Rota Naval air station via Torrejon AB and we had a hell of a head wind, as the Sherpa was unpressurized our ceiling was 10,000' with passengers and we laughed as we watched cars on the French highways keeping up with us. I seem to recall it took us 8 hours from Ramstein AB to Torrejon AB, we could have driven.

We had the only squadron but they flew pretty much daily between the various USAFE air bases. which in the mid 80's there were quite a few. The delivered time critical aircraft parts from base to base.

I watched them (SR-71) fly in and out of Kadena AFB, it was very cool. I remember them being called Habu at that time.

Maelstrum AB up in Great Falls MT had an air show one time and an SR71 flew up to put on a show. When that pilot stood the plane on it's tail and went striaght up there were two blue flames coming out of the engines. Looked like somebody had turned on a couple of propane torches. The flame tail must have been 30 feet long at least.

Yea, I remember the rate of climb coming out of Kadena for the Habu's was quite steep. Seemed like the whole island shook.

A-10 "Warthog"

Pre-WW2 Torpedo Bomber,.....Bi-Planes,....wounded Bismarck.

......"Stringbag" ?

Talk about GUTS,.......attacking a Battleship in one of those crates.

GTC

Here's what we called 'em:

F-15: Rodan
F-16: Viper
C-130: Herk
C-141: T-tailed Bug Sucker or Star Lizard
C-5: Fred
C-17: The Pink Jet
F-4: Rhino
A-10: Hawg
F-111: 'Vark
T-37: Squeek
T-38: '38
T-1: T-1
B-52: Buff
B-1: Bone

Coast Guard Aircraft-
HH3F Pelican (or HOG HOG 3 Frog, Flying Pickup Truck)
HH52A-B Sea Guard (Bipty Two, Flying Volkswagen)
HH60J Jayhawk (Crackhawk)
HH65A-B-C Dolphin (Tupper Wolf)
HC130 Hercules (Four Cessnas and a dumpster flying in metallic formation) "Red Tail Air Freight"

O-2: Mixmaster (Cessna Super Skymaster)
OV-10 Bronco: Bronc (natch)
T-37: Tweetybird (instant headache if stuck on the ramp next to one at idle for more than 5 seconds)
T-33: T-Bird
F-102: Deuce

C-47 (R4D): Gooney Bird
S-2F: Stoof
EC121K; Connie
C130: Herky Bird
RA-5C Vigilante: I just called them awesome!

Been a longtime and I forget the designation but the mail plane was the "COD"

that was the Swordfish you are referring to...read about how many times an entire squadron got wiped out trying to make an attack in those things...

speaking of bi planes and dealing with the RAF,
Italy sent a Squardron of Fiat CR42 Bi Planes to serve alongside the Germans during the Battle of Britain.. the Italians were using them as Fighters...

The RAF was vectored up to see all of these Bi Planes flying in formation towards the English Coast...
the RAF's pilots response was "WTF????"

They couldn't believe they were actually trying to be hostile toward Britain, with Bi Planes...

however, they were given orders to shoot them down anyway...

which they promptly did... all of them with no losses of course..

so ended Italy's 10 minutes of participation in the Battle of Britain...

As for A/C nicknames..

SBD Dauntless: Slow But Deadly..
SBC2 Helldiver: Son of a Bitch, 2nd Class...

of other notable trivia... by 1944, German's slang for new Luftwaffe pilots; "Dri Tag Flieger"... three day fliers.... that was about how many days they were lasting in combat...

C-130= Herky Bird
AC-47= Spooky or Puff
UH-1= Huey
A-1 Skyraider= Spad

That ain't an Intruder being refueled, its a EA-6B Prowler.

I remember an older friend of mine who was a crewman on a B17, WWII refering to the FW190 as Fuc***g Willies.

BCR

The B-26 Marauder was the original "Widowmaker" � earned due to early models' high rate of accidents during takeoff.

ECM-configured 111 - EF-111 -- Sparkvaark

F117s' nickname by their Desert Storm targets - Shaba - the ghost

FW190 - Butcherbird

I was once told the Martin B26A's and B's were "flying protitutes" with no visible means of support because of their short wings!

Other names: Hookie Two - H2 Seasprite
Egg beater - H43
HUP - H25
Bumble Bee - H13
Spad or Flying Dump Truck - AD or A1 Skyraider
Scooter - A4
Rhino or Smoker - F4
Sluff - A6 and EA6 (slow loud ugly fat "fellow")
General Dynamics Lawn Dart - F16
Buff - B52 (big ugly fat "fellow")
Stuf (stoof) - S2F Tracker
Stuf with a Roof - E2 Hawkeye
Squash Bomber - F105

C-130A,B,E,H: trash hauler or flying garbage truck

MC-130E,H: Black bird

C-130E's (no markings) flown out of Clark AFB Philippines or CCK AB, Taiwan: gray birds

Anything with Hillary Clinton on it: BROOM STICK

C-2 or C-1?

F100 = Hun
F16 = Viper (among F16 drivers; all others call it Lawn Dart)
F4 = Rhino
F102 = Duece

AC47 = Spooky

UH-60= Crash Hawk
MH-60= DAP Direct Action Penetrator

CH-46 Frog
CH-53 [bleep]
AV-8B Carolina Lawn Dart

UH-60 was the "lawn dart" when it had some trouble with the sink elevator going full down when the SAS computer went out.

The UH 1 was originally a HU-1. It was warped into the word Huey. It was later renamed by the military to the UH-1 but the Huey name had stuck. The word HUEY was molded into the foot pedals on later models. It's official name was Iroquis.

Where's my silver bullet's? Every president since Ronnie Reagan. kwg

An Air Force Reserve officer, whom I used to see now and then when he was disguised as a banker, finished his Reserve career as a Colonel flying C-130 Hercules transports. He referred to the C-5A as "Fat Albert" and "The Aluminum Overcast." He never used a nickname when he spoke of the C-130, an aircraft in which he had logged thousands of hours and which he loved to fly. He was very proud of his flight crew: he used to say that he had the best co-pilot, flight engineer and loadmaster in the Air Force! The only downside to his promotion to Colonel was that the Air Force Reserve required him to cut back his flying so he could do the things that a Colonel is paid to do.