Forum: Air Force Life

With the amount of pilots, all throughout the military branches, is it possible that more than 1 pilot can have the same callsign?

And if they do have the same callsigns, what happens then? Does one of them change to something else, or do they keep it?

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Fight until death....

Cylon

Yeah...arena cage match outside the O club. Laughing

(CAUTION: Speculation to follow!) But with the diversity of names and exploits (two admittedly dubious deciding factors in getting your callsign) the instances of duplicate callsigns is fairly low but does occur. There may be a mutual agreement (Cylon's idea notwithstanding) based on seniority that one guy uses a different one while at home but can use the original one when deployed.

I can't count the number of "Doogies" out there. I think every squadron has one... We had THREE at one time!

Cylon

Ah geez..."Doogie." The name always reminds me of some skinny, egg-pale (or freckle-faced), just out of college, never-learned-how-to-shave, 2 LT. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's gotta be it. I knew a pilot who had the callsign "Screech" for the exact same reason. Razz

The ones I get tired of (and this leads me back to a previous page) are the guys who have the names of pilots in movies. I've seen more than one "Iceman" at Tyndall, and I cringe everytime I think about it. Mad

The previous page I'm referring to is the beer payment page. I think people who have movie character callsigns like that should be on permanent "Buy the First Round" status. I realize you can't pick your own callsign (at least not usually) but don't go changing it later down the road to something from a movie, like "Iceman" or "Goose."

Agreed. "So it is said, so it is wriiten, so it shall be done....."

LAST CALL!!!!!

Cylon

Last edited by Lieven on Aug 20, 2004 - 05:55 PM; edited 1 time in total

TC wrote:

The ones I get tired of are the guys who have the names of pilots in movies. I've seen more than one "Iceman" at Tyndall, and I cringe everytime I think about it.

Sorry to cross-promote our own articles, but your remark reminds me of a little story we have on the <a href="http://www.f-16.net/varia_article1.html">'Tactical Callsigns' page</a>:

Quote:

'Slush': Right after Top Gun came out there was a "new guy" who wanted (pleaded) to be called Ice. The rest of the squadron decided he wasn't cool enough to be called Ice... so they named him 'Slush'.

And remember, the three rules of nicknames are:

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

Cheers,
Lieven

Yeah, I printed <a href="varia_article1.html">that page</a> out and posted it on my wall. Real good to read when I need a laugh. I've almost got the callsigns in that article memorized.

But I wonder, does anyone have any callsigns to add to that list? We might get a few more ha-ha's in...

Yeah!

Cylon

Okay, sorry if this was asked before, but how did the pilots in this forum get their callsigns?

Start spillin'!

I used to read Tailhook and they would always print the pilot callsigns with their names. The one that always made me laugh was the callsign "Tripod"...

Ugh...I read the list and EVERY FREAKIN Top Gun callsign is on there!!! Er...well, all except for Merlin, but he was only in the flick for a couple scenes anyhow. Other than that, a funny list. Some good ones I've known personally...

Pappy - Oldest Guy in the squadron
MoGas - Nearly ran out (see "Tank")
Agony - A man named Payne
Coma - A very slow talking Southern guy
Stallion - An Italian-American guy (think Rocky)...which leads me to...
Rocky - Guy's last name was Stone
SlyPig - Last name Cunningham (I'll let you think about it for a sec)
Rattler - Guy was a FAMU grad, so it just worked out naturally...

Beers and MiGs were made to be pounded!

While at a promotion party a couple of years ago a young Canadian Hornet driver had just got back from doing a viper tour with a squadron in the states. He spoke "at length" about the difference between Boom and Drogue refueling. His opinion was that he preferred drogue because- without getting to vulgar- it had simularities to the biological male function. He felt uncomforatable with the boom technique because it made him feel more "ladylike".

He was a young "hot shot" captain, and all the other drivers were older and often rolled their eyes. When he left to tell others what his Viper exchange was like I asked who was that guy. An old driver said, oh you just met "<b>Jammer</b>." I asked why was he called that, and the response was - well did you hear anyone else say anything?

One thing I've noticed is that Many Helo Drivers that I've seen have Some kind of serpentile callsign...

Snake
Viper
Rattler
Cobra

heck even Hollywood's gotten the gist of the idea

In "We were Soldiers" the Senior Huey Driver's Callsign was
Snake Sh!t (played by Greg Kinnear)

Kinda strange, lol...

But I too have heard my share of diverse Callsigns...

-Lt. Don "Bun-Bun" Parker (Never let your wife call you by her term of endearment, especially when any JO in the squadron can hear it)
-Maj. "Oh My" Gaud
-Lt. Kyle "Marsha" Brady
-Capt. "Jesus" Kleist
-Lt. "Combat" Bob Spath (just saying it makes me giggle like a 12-year old)
-Lt. Dave "Smooth Money" Selander (Caught ironing dollar bills in his stateroom)
-Lt. Brian "Bluto" Rich (Looks exactly like Bluto from Animal House)
-Capt. John "Carnie" Kirby (Came from carnivals having different freaks that do crazy and weird stuff. He fits that mold and being one of the hairiest people most folks ever have seen makes the name stick)
-Lt.Col. "SLAW" Kelly (Shops Like A Woman)
-Lt. Andy "CLANG" Carnell (CLueless Arrogant New Guy)
-Cdr. Al "Fatal" Krause, USN (Checked into VF-154 as XO. He was a large man who had collected the call sign "Fat Al." The skipper thought that name was less than dignified for the XO of a squadron, so he was re-branded with a contracted name.)
-Cdr. Dave "Digger" Wirt, USN (An XO with a portfolio that included ownership of at least one cemetery.)
-LT Greg "Perp" Siuta (Short for "perpetrator." Security stopped him while walking to the barracks from the o'club. Perp thought he was evading the enemy, so while hiding in the bushes at the golf course, he sanitized his flight-suit patches and refused to talk.)

Oh yeah...

Some really funny 'rest of the story' stories about the tactical callsigns.

Got mine after several generations.

iteration was something like "20 mouth mouth", "Lightning Lips", then "Gatlin' Gums". Finally "Gums", once my real ones finally went bad, heh heh.

Our scheduler was "Book'em". But he got the callsign because his first name was Dan, and Hawaii Five-O's "Danno" was told by Jack Lord, "Book'em, Danno".

Gen Horner of Desert Storm fame was "animal"......... Don't ask.

Another guy was 'tank', and was about 5 foot 8, weighed 220 pounds or so, but ZERO body fat, no gut, huge arms and neck - was like Ahhhnold.

'cruiser' was this young stud, and, well .......

'max clues' was a hoot. A Colonel came up to him in the club to calm down our party and addressed him after looking at the name tag - "Major Clues, please get control of these guys". we laughed our butts off.

Some of the best callsigns I have seen are the ones the players have in "Warbirds", the online WW2 flight simulation. Must be 6 characters, with only alpha, no numerals. In early days, we could use numbers, so we one guy with "No.6", after the mysterious guy in the sci-fi TV show, "The Prisoner". He is now "bcnu", and you have to say it to get the impact.

Nowadays we have some funny ones like "idunno", "bbgun", etc. and some related to real life as mine is, plus a guy called "crutch" - he's only got one leg.

out,

Forum: Air Force Life

Pilot Callsigns