Whats in a name?

How about the Skyray as Ford. Douglas hung sky on as many birds as they could. Lockheed named theirs after stars and constellations. Vought navy for swashbuckling, ( Corsair, Pirate and Cutlass). I never heard a good or bad name for the 130's in my squadrons.

Cessna T-37 "convertor" Converts jet fuel to noise
C-5 Galaxy "Fred" F%$&*@$ Ridiculous Ecomonic Disaster
Stoof with a roof was the E-1B Tracer aka "Willy Fudd"
EC-121K Warning Star aka Willy Victor (Navy)
T-39 Saberliner aka Tinkerbell
C-124 Globemaster aka "Old Shakey" & "Aluminum Overcast"
B-36 Peacemaker aka "Big Stick" or "Aluminum Overcast"

I am pretty sure that the A-10 was referred to as the Devil's Cross by the Soviets when they were still on the other side of the wire. I heard this from a "leg" who was statioined in Germany in the 80's and from my uncle who was a crypto type guy in the Airforce for a long time. Also if you read Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising" i believe that the A-10 is referred to by that name also. Some referrence to the Russian Orthodox church if i recall right.

In regards to "Hoovers", the S-3s nickname has more to do with its sound than any proclivity to suck things up. Especially on approach with the pilot making throttle adjustments, it made a sound very much like a vacuum cleaner going back and forth....

But in the spirit of airplanes sucking things up, I believe the A-7 was nicknamed the "people eater."

We referred to the F-4 as the "Bent wing, Broken Tail, Coal burner, Ace maker".

F-16 "Electric Jet"
F-21 "Kfir"

or how about Vultee Vindicator or the Douglas Devastator?

I always liked the Army designations for its helicopters, named after American Indian tribes:
AH-56 "Cheyenne"
OH-13 "Sioux"
H-19 "Chickasaw"
CH-21 "Shawnee" (aka 'Flying Banana')
CH-34 "Chocktaw"
OH-6 "Cayuse"
UH-1 "Iroquois"
CH-37 "Mojave"
AH-64 "Apache"
or even the YH-41 "Seneca" (ten were built)

Some of those NATO combloc designators are interesting, too...
my favorite is the Sukhoi Su-7(-17/-20/-22)"Fitter"

FITTER out

F-117 "Shaba" Arabic for ghost.
F-14 "Flying Tennis Court" for the large flat area on top of the aircraft.
E-2 "Hummer" for the sound of thier engines.
F/A-18 "Lawn Dart" for it's limited range.
A-1 "SPAD" because it's propeller driven.
A-4 "Scooter" because of it's size.

Claymore68:
I can't remember the exact designation on the "Flying Banana" but I do know it was one of the Piaseki twin rotor helicopters.

Anything with low intakes will be a vacuum cleaner. Have you ever seen the footage where a guy gets sucked up by an Intruder and actually lives? Somebody interviewed him about it about a year or so after the incident.

Surprizingly enough, the C-17 could also earn a vacuum cleaner nickname, I saw a picture of one at a British airshow with a stream of water from a puddle on the tarmack leading up to one of its engines!

J-Hulk:

I suspect the Luftwaffe had any one of a number of nicknames in the vein of "widowmaker" for some of its aircraft. From all I've read, the Me-163 Komet would probably have the bulk of them, You'd trully have to have nothing to lose before thinking to climb into one of them.

For the post war Luftwaffe, the only one I know for certain was that they called the F-104 the Flying Coffin.

The Tomcat is just next in Grumman's series of "cats". Wildcat,Hellcat,Tigercat,Bearcat.

One of my fave plane names is the "Spitfire". I wouldn't want to be too close to something spitting fire would you?

Referring to my earlier question (axis power nicknames for their own birds), did they have any derogatory nicknames for their own difficult-to-handle aircraft? (Like "Widowmaker," etc)

I've heard the F/A-18 refered to as the "Plastic Fantastic" and the lovely F-4 as the "Mach 2 Bent Wing Bug Sucker".

WWII British planes named after weather were cool, but so of the names they came up with...

Where did my post go?
The S-3 had a habit of finding any thing on the flight deck the crew missed and the A-7 also sucked up people if given a chance (my brother saw it happen once). Also, the F-117 couldn't fly without the computer.
Can't forget the "Flying Bannana" even though I forgot the designation.

The F-111 and F-105 also got the "Fighter" designation though they were nearly exclusively used in the bombing role.

Hi everyone ... great thread ...

I have always found the sometimes used nick-name for the F-117 Stealth Fighter... which is "wobbly gobblin" a cool handle.

It's all black, it flys mostly at night ... it is said that without the computer assisted flight surfaces ... it would be very "wobbly". The nick-name makes sense to me!

Oh, and what's up with the "Fighter" designation ... seems to me that this a/c is more of a "bomber"!

Yeah, its like the British names for their fighters in the interwar and WWII period, all named after particularly vicious weather patterns:

Hurricane
Typhoon
Tempest

Good to see that fighter naming tradition carried forth postwar in such aircraft as the EE Lightning, Panavia Tornado and now the Typhoon II as the Eurofighter was officialy renamed.

Aircraft named after Mythological characters are also great:

Avro Vulcan: named after the Roman god of the forge and smithing. Any better way to tell someone the hammers coming down than to name your bomber that?

Of course McDonnell Douglas will be best remembered for naming their fighters after things mythological:
Phantoms (both the original and the II)
Banshee
Demon
Voodoo

What else: Lockheed Hercules, Canadair Argus, Lockheed Orion/Aurora, Shorts Scyla, DeHavilland Vampire, Martin Mars, Lockheed Neptune, SAAB Grippen (Griffin), SAAB Draken (Dragon).....

I doubt thats all, but its what stands out in my mind

I just like the whole Grumman family of names. The Tomcat, Hellcat, Wildcat, Bearcat, etc. Just sound so cool.

This web site could also be called history lesson.com

Not only can I learn a new tip. I can also learn that Movie Actor SO and So flew this aircraft, or this famous person helped us save fuel. Not to mention this subject. Or my buddy knows a pilot that flew with Boyington. Where in this world can someone find this kinda of information for free.

Thanks

P.S. The F-16 was also notorious for trying to suck unsuspecting Crew Chiefs into the intake

Well S-3 drivers didn't care to have their Vikings called hoovers, with there low slung
engine pods, sounded just like the vaccum cleaners as they taxied along the flight deck.

Splash one bandit!

Just happened to think of another one - Navy blimps used for ASW during WW2 were known as "poopybags" ! Hear that Goodyear ?

While we're thinking of the WW2 Navy, both the N2S and N3N biplane trainers were called "Yellow Peril".

Jim

Oh yeah, how could I forget? In the 8th AF (as well as others), the universal name for fighters and bombers came to be "Little Friends" and "Big Friends".

Fade to Black...

The Germans often times used the variant suffix of a given aircraft as the basis for a nickname. Anything that was an "A" model would be called "Anton" (ie; Ju 87A).

A "B" model would be referred to as "Bertha" (Bf 109B, Ju 87B), I forget what the name for "C" was. ("Clara" I think) "Dora" was a D-model, "Emil" an "E", "Friedrich" "F" and so on. These names were derived from a German phonetic alphabet.

There were also specific names given to specific aircraft:

Do 335 officially called the "Pfeil". (Arrow) But it was also known as the "Ameisenbär". (Ant Eater)
Ju 88 was known as the "Dreifinger" (Three Finger)
Fw 189 was "Das Fliegende Auge" (The Flying Eye)
Do 17 was "Der Fliegende Bleistift" (The Flying Pencil)
Hs 129 was "Der Fliegende Büchsenöffner" (The Flying Can Opener)
Bv 138 was "Der Fliegende Holzschuh" (The Flying Clog) & "Mausiflugzeug" (Mouse Catcher Plane)
Me 262A-2a was the "Sturmvogel" (Storm Bird)
Me 262C was called "Heimatschützer" (Home Defender)
Ju 87G was the "Kanonenvogel" (Cannon Bird) & "Panzerknacker" (Tank Smasher)
Fi 103 or V-1 was a "Kirschkern" (Cherry Stone)
Me 163 was a "Kraftei" (Power Egg)
Ar 234B-2/N Nightfighter was "Nachtigall" (Nightingale)
Fw 190F was the "Panzerblitz" (Tank Lightning)
He 111H-22 + Fieseler Fi 103 was "Parasit" (Parasite)
He 162 "Volksjäger" (People's Fighter) & "Spatz" (Sparrow)
Ju 52 was "Tante Ju" (Auntie Ju)
Fw 190 "Würger" (Butcher Bird)

Many more as well, just can't remember them all! I'll see if I can come up with some German names for US aircraft too.

Fade to Black...

My Uncle, flying bomber escort in WWll in Europe called the B-17's "Big Brothers" and the B-24 "Slab Sided Barns". The BF-109 was refered to as "Messies" and I can't tell you what they called the FW-190.

He flew the P-51D 'Stang as he calls it.

Anybody know of nicknames the axis powers had for their own birds?
I'm sure with the tricky landing characteristics and weak landing gear of the Me-109, the Luftwaffe boys must have had a name or two for it.
Same goes for the unarmored and flammable Zero.

My all-time favorite - the P-47 Thunderbolt - was of course nown as the "Jug". It was also called the "seven-ton-milk bottle", and the "Repulsive Scatterbolt" ( and maybe a few others I can't recall right now ).

Some of my other favorites:

SBD Dauntless : SBD = "Slow But Deadly"
SB2C Helldiver : "The Beast" or "Big-Tailed Beast"
Beechcraft Model 18 : "Bug Smasher"
T-37 : "Tweety Bird"
F-100 Super Sabre : "Hun"
F8 Crusader : "Crud"
F7 Cutlass : "Praying Mantis"
A1 Skyraider : "Spad"
E2 Hawkeye ( which replaced the S2F "Stoof" ) : "Stoof with a Roof"

I also remember reading that when the first P-38's arrived at Guadalcanal, Marine F4Fand Army P-40 pilots referred to the Lightnings as "High-Altitude Foxholes".

Jim

Flying Boxcar was the C-119

I think the Helldiver was also called "The Beast"

Then of course there's the U-2 "Dragon Lady"

I heard a aircraft refered to once as "The Flying Steak Knife" but I can't remember what aircraft it was, the F-104 came to mind but I can't remember for sure.

OOPS! Yeah it should be F-104. I fat fingered the num pad.
"Moonbat" (XP-67 I think)
Helldiver was called the "Big Tailed Bird"
"Flying Boxcar", C-?
C-117 "Skytrooper"

My favorite? HABU!! The SR-71 was once based in Okinawa which is also the home of the Habu cobra snake. When the Blackbird was landing, the Okinawan's claimed the "hooded" appearance of the plane made it look like the Habu snake.

Hey upnorth's use of the phase "fly in a safe fashion" reminds me of another name/ nickname thing, but not for an airplane per se. This one regards the Navy's NATOPS program...

Officially, it means "Naval Aivation Training and Operating Procedures Standardization".

I had an instructor who said it meant "Navy's Attempt to Operate Planes Safely" and "Not Applicable to Our Present Situation."

Its interesting to see the F-104 and B-26 come up repeatedly, not surprizing though. Both aircraft required a significant learning curve to be able to fly them in a fairly safe fashion.

The F-104 was said to be increadibly unforgiving in snap rolls and overly sharp turns, while the B-26's difficult landing characteristics made it very unforgiving at probably one of the most critical points in any aircraft's flight envelope, bringing it down safe.

In response to Claymore 68's German nomenclature of the P-38, lets also not forget what they called the Shorts Sunderland flying boat "Schtackelschwien" (please forgive the spelling) Or porcupine in English, they were very nearly impossible to bring down because of excellent placement of their defensive gun stations and they could keep up a fight longer as they had the space and lifting power to carry more ammunition for those guns. It took team efforts from the Luftwaffe to bring Sunderlands down.