Military Aircraft

Some of the names that are applied to military aircraft are pretty amusing.

I don't mean the given name. I mean the names that the aircrew and maintainers call them.

Take the B-52 in the post a bit farther down, for example. Officially it's called the Stratofortress, the last in the line of mighty Fortresses begat by the B-17 Flying Fortress, but it's affectionately known as the BUFF (Big Ugly Fat F**ker).

The F-14 Tomcat was called the Turkey, and if you have ever seen one land on an aircraft carrier you know why. The tail is way down, the nose is way up, and the whole aircraft waddles in the air as the pilot corrects it's glideslope.

The A-7 Corsair II was known alternately as the Sewer Pipe or the SLUF (Slow Low Ugly F**ker). The S-3 Viking was called the Hoover because of the sound of it's engines. The A-6 Intruder was called the Dump Truck because it could haul more payload than the B-17. Anything with a pointed nose has been called a lawn dart at least once.

The A-10 Thunderbolt is called a Warthog, the A-3 was called the Whale, and I don't really know what it's official name was. All of these aircraft have served, or are serving, their country faithfully and well. Their aircrew and maintainers will staunchly defend them, no one is allowed to talk trash about them except for those who are associated with them.

I'm sure that if you talk to a military aircraft aircrew or maintainer they will have a name that isn't very politic or polite about the aircraft they were associated with.

And that's where this ends. If you were looking for a point here, there isn't one. I just thought it was funny.

Picture by Rex Nelson, USN