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Pilot Callsigns

The web's largest collection of callsign stories

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The Three Rules of Callsigns

  1. If you don't already have one, you will be assigned one by your "buddies".
  2. You probably won't like it.
  3. If you complain and moan too much about 1. and 2., you'll get a new nickname you'll like even less!

So, how do you get a callsign?

Do something stupid or have it fit with your last name. Obvious examples, 'Crash' or LT 'Cheese' Kraft. Sometimes it's based on a physical appearance thing like 'Carrot'. After you've earned the respect of your buddies, you'll get a more 'heroic' callsign.

Add your callsign to the list

Submit a Callsign - and don't forget the story!

Most recent additions

Our callsigns list contains 1693 callsigns. Here are the latest additions:
RIOT
 (added: 27 Feb 2024)
Dutch Viper driver who misidentified the target and accidentally strafed the control tower at the Cornfield range. Rolled In On Tower - RIOT.

Miraculously nobody was injured, despite multiple direct hits to the control tower.

BBS
 (added: 2 Mar 2024)
He loves boobs, so we call him BBS stands for BooBieS
Romeo
 (added: 2 Mar 2024)
Young man who flew L-39's for airshows and would always stop by to say hello to his group's maintainers whenever he could, ended up being good friends with most of them. Maintainers would always see him stopping at the security post talking to a young blonde security guard almost every day, but he denied any sort of romantic interest. Fast forward to a Top Gun movie night, where the one of my buddies, much to the young man's embarrassment, caught him making out with the security guard behind a storage shed. From then on, he was deemed "Romeo". And no, Romeo and Juliet never did work out.
Crybaby
 (added: 2 Mar 2024)
Guy flies EA-18Gs in the Navy. His first cat launch, he forgot to put his head back on the seat and slammed it. He was weeping on the radio and we came up with it on the spot.
TONIC
 (added: 28 Feb 2024)
Religious Dutch fighter pilot, who on his first flight at his new home base, was cleared to enter a crossing runway to subsequently enter and backtrack the active runway for take off. Instead, he entered the active runway at the intersection and took off without backtracking from about midway on this already ‘short’ 7800ft runway. TONIC - Take Off Numbers are Irrelevant to Christ
Suárez
 (added: 28 Feb 2024)
Viper driver who has a tic where he tries to bite his shoulder. Named after the (in)famous soccer player Luis Suárez who was notorious for biting other soccer players in the neck/ears/privates(!) during matches.
SWAGGIN
 (added: 28 Feb 2024)
Dutch Viper driver who was named Sybian due to a noticeable tremor in his hands. A day after the naming, his PC commander decided Sybian was ‘too offensive’ and ordered a renaming. After initial refusal by the squadron bros, he was eventually renamed while on TDY. His name became SWAGGIN - Sybian Was A Godd*mn Great Initial Name.
TOBI
 (added: 9 Oct 2018)
During my first operational depployment on baltic QRA, we got scrambled, I jumped into the jet trying to get the engine started. when this didn't work I quickly took the spare only to realise then that I had forgotten to turn on the battery in the primary aircraft. Turn On the Battery, Idiot was given to me at the next naming ceremony...
Rico
 (added: 2 Nov 2018)
CH-53E pilot on advance logistics det to LHD for an exercise. By the time we made it from Pearl to SoCal, I was always chatting with all the women in the Wardroom, so short for 'Rico Suave'
Gandhi
 (added: 6 Jan 2024)
Fellow pilot that would always sit cross-legged in chairs and spoke really camly. Also a really skinny guy
ANTIFA
 (added: 11 Jan 2024)
Had a buddy who was a Navy pilot but couldn’t stand the Hornet community. So we named him ANTIFA (Anti-Fighter Attack)
007
 (added: 7 Jan 2024)
We called him 007.
0 motivation
0 skills
7 shit breaks
HotHands
 (added: 4 Dec 2023)
During rifle training, I held the bare barrel of an SA80, instead of the barrel cover.
Hawaii 5-0
 (added: 2 Dec 2023)
Not a pilot but work on hovercraft called LCACs with the Navy. Basically we went on an exercise in Hawaii called RimPac or Rim of the Pacific for those unfamiliar. One night I went out on the town, as the Navy does all too well, with a friend from my command, long story short I black out and somehow found my way to the beach and decided to take a nap in the sand. A few hours later I came to as I was being handcuffed and put into the back of a cop car. They took me to the military hotel in the area and i wasn't in the handcuffs for too long but had to call people from my unit to come pick me up. Henceforth known among my crew as "Hawaii 5-0". Pretty tame and not the worst callsign one can be called so I lucked out in the end.
Goldfinger
 (added: 4 Dec 2023)
USN Flight Surgeon assigned to a tenant command on USAF base Misawa Japan. Known for never omitting any portion of the flight physical. Worked with three USAF flight surgeons. They gleefully recounted the story to his own pilots when a rubber glove broke on him during the sensitive portion of a physical exam. Callsign followed almost immediately
Koko
 (added: 11 Dec 2023)
A man of very few words, often he just pointed at something he wanted you to pass to him and often answered questions by nodding or shaking his head and grunting.

Named after Koko the gorilla that learned sign language.

Cable
 (added: 16 Nov 2023)

No, not from a carrier landing. It's from when I was off base, pulling out of a bar on my motorcycle and ended up getting clotheslined by the cable of a winch on a wrecker.

The bar was having a car towed, and this tow truck driver hooked up to it and was trying to pull it away from the edge of the lot enough to get in front of it. He just happened to be pulling it across the entrance and exit to the lot, and didn't see me pulling out, and threw tension on the cable...just as I was riding towards the exit. The cable stripped me off the seat of the motorcycle, in full view of two of my squadron mates.

Fifi
 (added: 15 Nov 2023)
July 1990 - Sitting in weaponeering class, which was part of learning to fly the A-6 Intruder.

One of my classmates turned to me and said “I heard you have a poodle”, in the same tone you would use if you caught someone in the middle of some deviant act.

I replied “so what?”.

He (a marine) was outraged. “It must be your wife’s dog, right?” Not being smart enough to see the dignified exit, I vigorously defended our little dog. Big mistake. He turned to the rest of the class and announced “Patrick has a fucking little Fifi poodle, and likes him!”

I’m now almost 60 years old, and my close Navy friends still call me Fifi.
NAFOD
 (added: 19 Mar 2018)

No Apparent Fear Of Death.

I was an Ensign in my first fleet squadron, The Golden Warriors (VA-87). We were doing carrier qualifications on either the Kennedy or the America, I can't remember which. It was 40 years ago. Lt Bob "Wimpy" Christiansen was my Landing Signal Officer (LSO) and nicknamed me NAFOD for getting 6 out of 10 1 wires in the daytime. The target is the 3 wire of 4 total. My night traps were fine but I was "spotting the deck" in Navy parlance during the daytime, which is not a good thing.

Sadly Wimpy was killed a few years later flying into the water. Great guy. Probably saved my ass. RIP

STOIKY
 (added: 5 Apr 2018)
Stop Talking Or I'll Kill You.... Ever debriefed a guy that has more to say than the IP?
Mayhem
 (added: 3 Nov 2023)
A mechanic working on F-16s. Anything he touched immediately had problems. Even when it had been checked and inspected, things still went wrong as long as he touched it.
Scooby
 (added: 15 Nov 2023)
Her last name was Woo
Ready
 (added: 16 Nov 2023)
Ready-Fire-Aim!

He never planned the work out all the way, causing it to be done over again.

Merlin
 (added: 16 Nov 2023)
First name, Erlin. Top Gun fanatic and could recite entire scenes. Always twirled a pen or pencil during sortie briefs and debriefings.
SAGOE
 (added: 5 Apr 2018)
Every squadron has a guy or two like this. Thinks he knows everything, will argue over how right he thinks he is.

Self Appointed Guru Of Everything.

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