F-35 Unofficial nickname

What about Cerberus?

Each head of the dog can represent the A/B/C variants respectively as one of the 3 heads of the mythological creature!

Serious?

What self-respecting fighter pilot would get caught dead with such a cerebral nickname?

Besides... you can't pick up chicks as a Cerberus driver! The Super Duper guys would clean up, and you can't have that!

(I give you points for something original, though...)

If the F-35A is being called the Panther and the F-35C the Reaper, what are they calling the F-35B?

https://www.popularmechanics.com/milita ... s-panther/

PANTHER Olde Schoole Axial Deck Landing with crowded deck: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a557665.pdf (1.4Mb)

“A Grumman F9F Panther jet lands on Essex (CV 9). The athwartship barrier is up, but from the pilot’s view he’s landing into a deck full of aircraft”

Brainiac? Nerds rule the world anyway...

Lightning is a pretty decent name, IMO. What say you that if the powers that be had just stuck with Lightning, and left the silly II off the end, that everyone would have been happy?

If memory serves, the Brits are not referring to it as the "Lightning II," but just as the "Lightning." Or so I thought I had read.

There is even US precedent for leaving off the II -- when the Chance Vought F-4U was named, it borrowed Corsair from an earlier aircraft of the same name in the 1920s. No one called the F-4U the "Corsair II" -- just the "Corsair."

Has anyone come across any recent confirmation if Panther is in fact the "unofficial" nickname for the jet?

I could see the Navy boys still going for Reaper and the UAV pilot wannabees be damned...

I still kinda like Killer Bee or just Bee for the fan jobbee. Although that one Marine General called it a Velocipraptor. That's a mouthful, though. Maybe just Vello for short?

VELLO? Too much like VELLOtape - check it out.

VELLO? Too much like VELLOtape - check it out.

<sigh>

Well... one could shorten velociraptor to verap, pronounced "vee-rapp"... but probably getting off too much into linguistics land for poor flyers that just want to land on the Lizzie, swill ale, and bomb & strafe baddies... and knock down the poor sod that challenges them in the air (whilst keeping a rifle strapped to the 'jexshun seat.)

VRAP? Now we into MRAP country - now that is a BAD RAP.

Need to get back to the ale swilling theme...

How 'bout Verp, then?

I can still get, kinda, velociraptor out of verp... but velch stands no chance...

VERP? BURP for the ALE SWILLING innit.

Hmmm... upon second thought...

That kinda goes along with that 25mm BRRRRRRRRTTTT....

Aaah - ye olde BURP Gun - son of a gun.

While Killer Bee has been suggested and used occasionally around here for the F-35B, maybe BumbleBee as a nod towards the Transformer character. She has lots of moving parts and shor does “transform.” Plus BumbleBee was pretty badass in those movies — movies that kids who will be flying her grew up with.

Wait. What?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... eHIRES.jpg from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumblebee_(Transformers)

The F-104 was the Zipper...

So, since the Lightning is even more of an electric jet than the Viper, kills everything it sees (zap... zap... zap) and may eventually get a “Laser”...

Is it not obvious the pilots should call it the Zapper?

Panther...