For another thorough resource on this –ahem– important subject,

check out the Tailhook Association's page at: http://www.tailhook.org.

For general Navy slang enjoy: http://goatlocker.org/resources/nav/navyslang.pdf



Naval Air types: To suggest additions or revisions to this collection send me a note.

All text on this site © H.Paul Lillebo

The installation some decades ago of steam cats, which apply force fairly evenly throughout the stroke, was a blessed relief for pilots – back when men were men, etc. – who had been beaten black and blue by the all-at-once whammo of the former hydraulic cats. The initial G force back then was off the chart.

AA / AAA Or "Triple-A". Neither an auto club nor a 12-step program, but Anti-aircraft artillery. See also "Ack-ack" below, and Flak.

A/C 1. Aircraft. An aircraft may be called an airplane, but never a "plane".

2. Air conditioning and pressurization system.

3. Anti-collision light. 'Blinker.' (Blinking red light.)

Ack-ack Anti-aircraft artillery (AA, AAA, "triple-A," flak). An unfriendly reception when going downtown. The term comes from a slang phonetic alphabet used on the western front in WWI, that began: Ack, Beer, Charlie...

ACM Air Combat Maneuvering. Informally "Tactics". The traditional essence of fighter pilot training.

Acute In formation flying, if a wingman is forward of his proper position in the formation, he's "acute." (Those who paid attention in Geometry might object that in this case the angle he makes with the flight is more obtuse, i.e., less acute. I say don't worry about it.) If he's too far back (more acute angle) he's "sucked." Don't laugh; these are the actual professional terms!

ADF "Automatic Direction Finding," an obsolete piece of VHF radio direction finding equipment. The needle points toward whatever station you've dialed in. When you pass above it, the needle goes nuts. Big deal. You turn up the volume and the Morse code dits'n'dahs are supposed to tell you what station you've got, if you actually remember your dits'n'dahs. Which you probably don't.

Afterburner (Also A/B, Burner, Blower, Heater, and (Brit) Re-heat.) The go-fast mechanism that makes fighter planes unique. The 20 feet of flame shooting out the back on a night take-off. Simple in concept, but tricky in design and execution, the idea of burning hot air and fuel in a jet exhaust made supersonic flight possible. The afterburner is basically an extension of the jet engine exhaust pipe. You "simply" spray fuel into the hot exhaust gas (while providing back-pressure protection for the engine) and you get yourself a mess of thrust. You can get twice the power of the basic engine, but you'll use 3 times the fuel. In a tactical environment the 'burner will be selected for short bursts of acceleration or climbing power, because fuel management is always critical. If you run out of fuel, you may as well have been shot down. (Of course you'll use the burner as needed in a dogfight. If you're shot down, you might as well have run out of fuel.)

Aileron These ingenious flight control surfaces on the trailing edge of the wing were invented by birds. (Don't write me about pterosaurs being first–they flexed the whole wing to bank, though the principle is the same.) When a soaring bird wants to turn left, it lowers the trailing flight feathers on the right wing, which increases the lift on that wing and raises it relative to the left wing. At the same time, the bird raises trailing feathers on the left wing, which spoils the lift there and lowers the left wing. These two coordinated movements are exactly copied by an aircraft's ailerons when the pilot moves the stick to the left, thereby putting the aircraft in a left bank, resulting in a left turn. (This is not going to be a lecture on aerodynamics, but the only effective way to turn an aircraft is to bank it. Because the lift vector generated by the wings is always perpendicular to the plane of the wings–i.e., straight up when you're level–when you bank left the vector points up and left. The left-pointing vector component drives the aircraft–or the bird– to the left.)

Airway The air equivalent of roads and sea lanes. Airways are defined by TACAN fixes (radials and distances), and keep commercial traffic organized. Anyone (including military aircraft) flying above 18,000 feet in the U.S. flies under air traffic control by FAA, and is normally on an airway. High altitude (jet) airways are designated with a "Juliet," as J-22, while low altitude airways are designated with a "Victor," as V-20. Aircraft fly at an assigned altitude, and you can check your airline pilot with this hint: Eastbound traffic (above 18,000 feet) fly at odd thousands plus 500 feet (say 27,500'), while westbound planes fly at even thousands plus 500 (say 28,500'). So there's 1000 feet of vertical distance between planes in opposite directions. (See "Flight Level" for a fine point about altitudes.)

Alpha The letter "A" in radio comm. In squadron and aircraft abbreviations it stands for "attack"; e.g., aircraft such as the A-1 Skyraider, the A-3 Skywarrior, the A-4 Skyhawk, and the A-7 Corsair II. In squadron designations, together with the letter "V" (meaning fixed-wing) it designates attack squadrons, e.g., VA-81, VA-83, etc. Also useful in common naval shorthand such as "The new skipper's an Alpha-Hotel."

Altitude You wouldn't think there would be any dispute about this; it should simply mean how high you are. But there is a small problem: Standard altimeters work by measuring barometric pressure. Before taking off, the pilot adjusts the altimeter to the altitude of the take-off airfield. And why does he have to do that? Because the local barometric pressure has changed since he the aircraft landed! This means that all the aircraft in the sky could be operating with different altimeter settings, depending on the barometric pressures at their many departure airfields. And that means that my reading of, say, 10,000 feet may be widely different from another aircraft's reading of the same altitude. When you're flying IFR that can easily lead to disaster. If you're an American Airlines jet with passengers walking in the aisle it's unpopular to be making constant violent avoidance maneuvers, so the FAA has come up with the idea of standardized "Flight levels" at higher altitudes, to solve the problem. So when entering the high altitude system, all pilots pretend the pressure is 29.92 inches of mercury pressure and set their altimeters to that reading. I guess it does solve the problem of "midairs", though tossing a few passengers about in the aisle now and then used to keep a little excitement in flying.

Angels 'Altitude', in thousands of feet. As in an air controller's: "Gruesome Five, Elevator Angels three zero" means: "Gruesome Five (callsign), climb (or descend) to altitude 30,000 feet." But see also Angel (which is not simply the singular).

Angle of

attack The angle between the plane of the wing (yes, the plane of the wing of the plane) and the relative wind as the aircraft flies. At low speeds, a higher angle of attack is needed to give enough lift, and the aircraft will fly with a nose-high attitude. To avoid landing in that attitute, we extend flaps and slats to increase the lift from the wing, and level the aircraft's attitude, allowing the pilot better visibility for landing. (The most drastic measure to achieve this was perhaps that of the nonpareil F-8 Crusader, where the pilot would pivot the wing up–or the fuselage down, actually–to be able to see to land.) On final approach, naval aircraft use Angle of attack as the primary indicator of proper landing speed. (See "indexer lights" for the pilot's traditional "heads up" display of 'AoA'.) Its advantage over using the airspeed indicator is that the correct angle of attack for landing does not vary with the aircraft's weight, whereas the landing airspeed varies with fuel load. So the pilot flies a constant 14 units, say, of angle of attack on every landing pass. The aim, rarely realized, is routine repetition–as in bowling.

Attitude Not the pilot's but the aircraft's. Refers to the pitch angle of the aircraft; nose high or low. On a carrier landing, the LSO, a man of few words, may transmit the one word: "Attitude!" to mean "Raise your nose!" Again, the aircraft's, not the pilot's.

Auger in To drill a hole in the ground (or the sea) with your airplane, while still in it. Unfailingly fatal, and it rarely happens where a hole needs to be drilled.

Autothrottle

(APC) A system that's nice to have when it works, but can lull the pilot into complacency. On final approach to the carrier, the pilot engages the autothrottle ("Approach Power Compensator"), which will keep a constant angle of attack (i.e., speed control) while the pilot controls rate of descent with the stick. Problem is, when the APC isn't working right the pilot has to revert to a manual approach, which means controlling speed with the nose attitude (i.e., with the stick) and rate of descent with the throttle, an opposite procedure. The Air Wing or squadron requires their pilots to regularly make "manual" approaches, to maintain a level of proficiency. You just won't be as proficient. Every silver lining has a cloud.

Bag 1. n. The Poopy Suit.

2. n. The Instrument Hood.

3. v. To bag an enemy aircraft is to shoot it down. You try to avoid getting bagged yourself in the process.

Balanced Being balanced is a good thing. And in formation flying, being balanced makes the flying a little easier. The term refers to a four-plane cruise or parade formation where the No.2 aircraft has crossed over to the port side. In a parade formation, this result in a "finger four." The reason it's easier for wingmen (and especially the section leader) to fly a balanced formation is that four aircraft in echelon is always stressful. It requires much more constant correction and fine control of the formation, which takes its toll. And therefore the balanced formation is more relaxing for the flight leader as well. A good flight lead doesn't keep a 4-plane in echelon longer than necessary.

Balbo A huge formation of aircraft, organized for some non-operational purpose, such as to impress dignitaries or scare the enemy. (After Italian general Italo Balbo–a sometime buddy of Mussolini– who led a daring, and unquestionably impressive, flight of 24 Italian "Savoia S55X" Flying Boats from Rome to Chicago and back in 1933. He became so famous and popular in Italy that Il Duce packed him off to be Governor of Libya.) The balbo at right (I count 44 a/c) was to impress NATO brass visiting the Independence in the Mediterranean in 1968, in connection with NATO turning 20. (Taken from the Shangri-La, which was part of the celebration, sort of. Don't think any of the bigwigs visited the Shang, though. Pity; the brass never gets to see things that don't work.)

Bandit An aircraft positively identified as enemy.

Banner The air-to-air gunnery target, also known as the "rag". You arrive at the squadron (this is a shore-based exercise) to find out that on your first hop of the day you'll be the tow pilot for an air-to-air gunnery flight. You try to think of what you've done to the Flight Schedules officer to tick him off. There isn't much you hate about flying, but towing the banner (you're known as the "tractor") is right up there. (See the Gunnery link.) So you brief with the flight and find out that it's a year since any of them did this, one of the most intricate and hazardous exercises in the fleet. You launch first as the tow. You meet the Ordnance crew at the end of the runway, where they have laid out the approx. 8' by 35' nylon banner (which weighs a bunch as it's weighted and stabilized with metal bars) and the 1200 foot cable that you hope will keep the bullets at a distance. The crew hook up the cable to your tailhook fitting, you take up the slack, and you're off–in afterburner to clear the area quickly. But you can't go over 250 knots to avoid fraying the banner or tearing it loose, so you're nose sky-high staggering through the air with this non-aerodynamic contraption dragging behind you. You hope the banner doesn't fall off (that's happened); it could kill a few folks. A chase plane from the flight has launched with you to discourage other aircraft from driving into your cable. Arriving at the gunnery range you spend 30 harrowing minutes watching the would-be gunners struggle with the pattern. The pattern's important because if the shooter comes in "sucked"–from too far aft–you'll be seeing bullets flying by the cockpit. It's not unheard of that the tow plane gets hit. Now the banner needs to be recovered because it's scored: Each shooting a/c has bullets painted a different color, and the color can (usually) be distinguished on the frays around each bullet hole. So, back at the field you line up over the grass strip next to the runway, and on the signal "Drop" from the tower you lower the hook. The idea is that the weight of the hook breaks the fitting that holds the cable, and the banner falls free. Usually that works, but if it doesn't you have an emergency. You're flying around, probably over civilians, with a weakened fitting, to try another drop. You could try to drag it off in the bushes... And if eventually you may have to land with the banner dragging... well, let's not talk about it. All in all, a flight where everything can go wrong.

Barberpole Traditional cockpit indicators of the status of landing gear, flaps, etc., show "UP" when the gear is up and locked, "DOWN" (or "DN") when it's down and locked (are you following this?), and a hash-mark indication, similar to the classic barber pole, when the gear is in transit. Most aviators will at some time experience seeing a barberpole when the gear is supposed to be down and locked for landing. It may just indicate a sticky sensing switch in the wheel well, but it may equally well be an unsafe landing gear. Procedures when you get a barberpole include cycling the gear, jostling the a/c with various G loads, and getting a visual inspection of the gear from a wingman or the tower. Landing with an actually unsafe gear is a genuine emergency, which is multiplied if landing on a carrier. Aviators may refer to a peer whose legs are less than fully operative (like after a few hours in the O'club) as having barberpole main gear.

BarCAP "Barrier Combat Air Patrol." See "CAP".

Barf-bag Just as some concert pianists never get over stage-fright, some fighter pilots never get over barfing. They're still great pilots.

Basic engine The jet engine without the afterburner. The basic engine performance is shown in the cockpit on a tach (RPM gage) as percent of the rotor's rated full speed, so full basic engine power is shown as "100%." We call this "MRT" (Military Rated Thrust), in contrast to "CRT" (Combat Rated Thrust) which is full afterburner power. No matter how powerful your basic engine is, once you've felt the kick of afterburner power, it somehow seems pretty wimpy.

Basket The Air Force has a good method for aerial refueling. The Navy doesn't. The Air Force's stabilized tanker boom, guided to the refueling probe by an airman on the tanker aircraft works fine if you have a tanker the size of a mid-sized building. Since the Navy's tankers have to operate off carriers, they're small, no room for a boom or boom-crew. So the system leaves the onus of maneuvering on the pilot of the receiving aircraft. And on a black-ass night in the middle of the ocean with critical fuel state, that'll raise the pucker factor. The fuel hose extends some 30 feet aft of the tanker, ending in a padded cone (the Basket–also evocatively known as the "beaver") designed to receive your probe and guide it to a successful coupling. This whole business results in one of the trickiest maneuvers in aviation. Never mind that the basket is dancing around the cockpit (a hit on the cockpit plexiglass could ruin your whole day), the pilot has to hold steady until the basket settles down, then add power–if you're lucky, your probe is in the beaver, uh, basket. Thrust drives the probe tip deeper in and completes the coupling. (Enough...this is beginning to resemble an overwrought romance novel.)

Bearing 1. The direction of some object from your position, given as a magnetic direction in compass degrees. A pilot may hear an air controller report, "The bogey bears one five zero at three niner miles." Translation: "The unidentified radar contact is on a bearing of 150 degrees on the magnetic compass from your position, at a distance of 39 nautical miles." (Note, a bearing is not a heading, silly, but it could be the required course.)

2. The proper military bearing is never far from the mind of the Naval Aviator.

(Click on thumbnail for aviator attempting proper military bearing.)

Beaver In addition to any other slang meanings of this term, it's an aviator's endearing appellation for the inflight refueling basket, which see.

Bird An OK word for airplane.

Black-out Loss of vision, soon to be followed by loss of consciousness, as a result of high G maneuvering. Check the hazards of the high G environment at "tunnel vision" and "grey-out." Ignoring the warning sign of "grey-out" may take you to this next step on the slide toward unconsciousness. It's just a brief step from loss of vision (black-out) to loss of consciousness. If you lose consciousness while you're pulling 7 G's the aircraft may depart controlled flight as the pilot's grip is lost from the control stick, with possibly violent and unpredictable effects in the cockpit and on the airframe. The G-suit is the pilot's primary aid in combatting these effects of high G loads.

Blower "A dear child has many names." Here's yet another for afterburner.

Boards Speed brakes (or "air brakes", a Brit term not used in the U.S. but which makes a lot more sense. I mean, what kind of brake isn't a speed brake? What else would you brake but speed??). One or more drag-inducing panels on the fuselage, tail, or wings that are hydraulically raised into the breeze to add drag and reduce airspeed. Effective enough at high speeds to throw the pilot forward in the straps. The boards can be hung almost anywhere on the a/c, as you can see below:



F-8 Crusader

A-4 Skyhawk

A-6 Intruder

F-15 Eagle

F-16 Falcon

F-18 Hornet (model) (And here's an extra bonus factoid: On final approach to landing, many models of jet aircraft are flown with the boards out, intentionally adding drag. (Obviously not the models where you'd land on the speed brake, like the F-8!) Why? you say. In order to get full power more quickly in case it's needed for a a wave-off. Jet engines take a second or more to spool up to full RPM, and the power always lags that much behind the throttle movement. By flying the approach with a higher power setting, in case of a sudden need for power you'll get to full power faster. The speed brake is controlled with a thumb switch on the throttle, and you snap them back in hydraulically in a fraction of a second as you add full power. So now you know that. You're nearly ready for your check flight.)

Bogey A UFO in a sense; that is to say, an unidentified flying object, seen either on radar or visually. Probably an aircraft, but it could be a weather balloon or a flight of geese.

Bravo The letter "B" in radio comm. The phrase "Bravo-Sierra" (BS) is a common and useful expletive, while "Bravo Zulu" is a courtesy.

Break 1. As a verb, this means to roll the aircraft at a high rate of roll to a near 90° bank, and pulling a hard turn, like "break right" or "break left".

2. "The Break": The traditional VFR (visual) flight approach to a Navy field, now surviving mainly on the carriers and at airshows. The flight screams down the duty runway at an impressive rate of speed, in right echelon and shortly beyond "the numbers" (the runway designation painted at the end of the strip, like "24L" for the left of two parallel runways in the direction of 240°, as at Miramar–"Fightertown USA"–God this is a long parenthesis) the leader rolls (breaks) hard left to nearly 90° of bank, closes the throttle, extends the speed brakes, and pulls enough Gs to slow the A/C and set up downwind at 600' altitude. Wingmen follow suit with several seconds between each break. There are variations on this traditional break: In the "fan break" the initial roll rate is less, but the entire flight breaks together. The lead pulls max Gs, and the following wingmen use a progressively lower G loading. This produces separation on the downwind leg. Another variation, pretty much limited to the carrier landing pattern, is the pitch-up break. You come screaming in at water level, and the hard break to port is accompanied by a climb to the downwind altitude of 600 feet. For extra effect it can be combined with the fan break into a pitch-up fan break. Potentially spectacular, but when tried by the unpracticed it's guaranteed to instead produce a humorous effect. Another break, the tuck-under, involves a 270° roll to the right, resulting presumably in the aircraft in a 90° left bank. The less said about this the better. If it doesn't result in an accident it will probably result in discipline. See also The Pattern for more on landing patterns.

Brief Fooling around in the Ready Room before a flight. No, actually, this is sometimes taken pretty seriously: the flight crews gather for a pre-flight briefing by the flight leader. In war-tme the AIO may attend and amuse the flight crews with what the politicians want them to believe about the mission. The brief covers stuff like radio frequencies or radio silence procedures, bingo field and bingo fuel, and a detailed preview of the upcoming flight: Rendezvous point, mission, target procedures, recovery, and the Emergency of the Day.

Buddy

store The external fuel tank from which an aiborne tanker feeds fuel to a thirsty customer. When you're short of fuel, the tanker is your best buddy!

Buffet Not a cafeteria line, and not pronounced like one. (Good, solid "t"; two t's if you want: "Buff-ett.") Even though modern fighters have all sorts of artificial stall warnings (see "depart"), it's hard to beat the feel of what the actual airplane's doing when you're flying close to the edge. And one thing it will do before the wing stalls is to buffet; you pull G's to near the stall point and the airframe literally shakes, rattling your teeth. Flying the buffet to the max (the edge of the flight envelope) without departing the aircraft takes experience and guts. Each airframe buffets differently. Some, like the F-4 Phantom, have a wide buffet range; you expect to be in heavy airframe buffet in every high-G tactical turn. You have to learn to distinguish the point of no return. Other airframes have a very narrow buffet range, meaning it comes on quickly immediately before the stall. In either case you need a well-trained stick hand. These guys spend lonely months at sea. Plenty of time to exercise their stick hand.

Bugout As a fighter pilot, your mission is to a) win the dogfight, and b) live to fight another day. When "a" isn't working out, i.e., you're about to get hosed or you're running out of fuel, you turn your attention to "b". You need to "bug out," to get the hell out of town. The way you do it is your "bugout" maneuver. We leave that to you. (For the grammatically inclined, it's both a verb and noun, as you see.)

Burner Short for Afterburner, which has altogether too many syllables.

Buster Radio command to advance engine power to 100% basic engine, (i.e., "MRT"), without afterburner . When used by the flight leader: "Buster ... now" brings everyone in the flight to full power simultaneously. (The leader may then come back a percent or so as necessary to keep everyone onboard.) Used by an air controller it means proceed at maximum basic engine speed.

Button A radio channel. No matter what the radio selector looks like, a preset channel is known as a "button." A flight leader will brief, "Primary frequency will be button five, back-up button four." A pilot at home may be heard to say, "Honey, you got the remote? Let's check the race on button eight."

Buy the

farm To get killed, preferably while flying. A lot of Navy pilots have been southern farm boys. The modest government insurance money might pay off the farm mortgage; that is, buy the farm.

Cage

(your eyeballs) To an airman "caging" the gyro means resetting and spinning up the artificial horizon (or "attitude") gyro instrument (there's usually a "push to cage" button) if the instrument goes crazy during sharp maneuvers, like aerobatics or a dogfight. Fighter aircraft, though, have gyros that can handle pretty much any maneuvers and recage themselves if they get confused. On a catapult shot from a carrier, the G force is such that your eyeballs (which look a lot like little attitude gyros) seem to get "uncaged" like they're just floating there. It takes the better part of a second after you're airborne before you can focus again. So the expression "cage your eyeballs!" means "focus!" or "pay attention." If you're coming out of a high-G turn where you've greyed out and had tunnel vision, it'll also take some milliseconds before your eyeballs cage up again.

(Suggested by Ray Rivera.)

Canter Radio term for "proceed at normal cruise speed." Not much used, since it's a default speed. But if the pilot has previously been given a "buster" command ("proceed at maximum basic engine setting") from the air controller, "canter" will tell him to resume cruise speed. A similar command is "saunter," meaning "use fuel conservation power regime."

CAP Combat Air Patrol. The most common type of CAP is BarCAP (barrier CAP), in which a flight of fighters fly a pattern at an altitude, distance, and direction from the carrier task group that places the fighters between the task group and the threat. The CAP aircraft use their onboard radar to supplement the ship's radar in searching for bogeys. Other forms of CAP are TarCAP (target CAP) which involves flying fighter escort for a strike group and clearing enemy fighters at the target site; and ResCAP (rescue CAP), to suppress enemy activity and support SAR (search and rescue) efforts to extract downed aircrew from a combat zone. On board the carrier, if the degree of hazard from enemy activity is low–as in peace time–a "ready CAP" watch may be maintained on deck rather than airborne during non-flying hours. The degree of readiness can vary from "hot CAP," where the A/C on watch are manned on the catapults and plugged into the start carts, to a "30 minute CAP" watch where the pilots are in the ready room. (Every salty Navy fighter pilot has had the experience of sitting the hot CAP in miserable weather. It's a pretty lonely feeling, strapped in on the port cat on a dark night, the ship's bow regularly burying itself in the waves, alternating with the sea coming over the bow, rain and salt spray covering the cockpit. You're praying–increasingly toward the end of your 2-hour watch–not to hear the air boss' voice over the flight deck loudspeakers: "Launch the ready CAP!" You know you'd never make it back aboard in this weather. . .)

CAVU Weather "Clear And Visibility Unlimited." (Pronounced "cavoo".) Ideal flying weather.

Chaff A World War II defense against radar that's still in use. It wasn't long after an effective ground-based anti-aircraft radar ("RAdio Detection And Ranging") was achieved by the Brits that some bright soul reasoned that since radar mainly detected metal, let's confuse it with irrelevant metal bits. The solution was (and is) to drop short strips of metal foil (i.e., "chaff") from the aircraft, which gives confusing or multiple returns on the radar operator's screen. It's still effective against radar-guided anti-aircraft missiles. The Brits, who were also first with perfecting this concept, called it "window", and that's still the not-so-secret code word for actuating the chaff.

Charlie 1. Charlie time: The precise scheduled time of an aircraft's arrival at the carrier (or airfield) for landing. If you're in a holding pattern, you may hear, "Your Charlie 14:45" (translation: Be at the break at a quarter to 3 pm), or "Your signal Charlie," meaning get in the landing pattern now . It's the flight leader's responsibility to get the flight to the carrier at Charlie, to avoid gaps in the landing pattern and a corrective talk with the skipper or the Air Boss. See also Final Charlie.

2. The letter "C" in radio comm. And the letter C has a few meanings: In ship designations it stands for "Aircraft Carrier," which see. In aircraft designations it means "cargo or passenger A/C," as in "C-45" (the military version of the old "DC-3") or "C-130," the Hercules. In squadron designations it means "composite," as in VC-7. (The "C" of Composite is identical to the former "U" for "Utility," as in "VU-7," once the squadron name.) A composite (or utility) squadron flies various kinds of aircraft, carrying out duties such as ferrying A/C, flying as intercept bogeys, towing air-to-air gunnery targets (banners) etc.

Cherubs Those who remember their Bible studies will know that cherubs are a little lower than angels. So, since "angels" is a code word for altitude given in thousands of feet, it makes sense that "cherubs" is a code word for a lower altitude. And in fact "cherubs" indicates an altitude below one thousand feet above ground level, given in hundreds of feet. Used more by helo pilots than fighter pilots, a radio report like "holding cherubs four" would mean, "holding an altitude of 400 feet above ground." [Thanks to Kent (Eagle) Ewing for suggesting this.]

Chevron On the indexer lights, a high green chevron means your landing speed is slow (actually, your angle of attack is too high), while a low red chevron means you're too fast. A doughnut means your speed is just right. You'll understand this after you look at this indexer lights link, with illustration.

Chocks The wood or steel blocks that keep the wheels (and the rest of the aircraft) from rolling when the a/c is parked. See "Pull chocks" for associated creative language. As a verb, you chock the aircraft when you put the chocks in place. After you pull chocks the a/c is unchocked.

Church This code word was all you might hear if you asked about the outcome of a flight accident. The simple meaning: "There will be a memorial service."

Clean Landing gear & hook up, flaps & slats retracted; A/C configured for high-speed flight. The way the airplane was meant to fly. Clean, not Dirty

Cockpit A Pit for ... uh, a pilot.

Combat

spread A pre-engagement or patrolling formation by a section of two aircraft. In this formation the two A/C fly abeam one another with several thousand feet of lateral separation. The point of the formation is both offensive and defensive. On offense, the lateral separation decreases the chance that an enemy aircraft will visually pick up both A/C, leading to a great advantage for the section. Also, for any engagement commenced by one of the section A/C the other will be in good position to maneuver to advantage. Defensively, the combat spread formation allows each A/C to check the other's six to a great distance, and in any attack on the section one A/C should come out of the first defensive turn with a good chance to pressure the attacker.

Compass The simple, unpretentious magnetic wet compass, anomalous in the modern high-tech cockpit, is still the final directional back-up in case of failure of GPS, Inertial Navigation, electric Radio Magnetic Indicator or whatever else the pilot has available. And for its rare use it gets an inordinate amount of attention. The aircraft gets taxied to the Compass Rose (see below) from time to time to calibrate the error ("deviation") induced by metals and electromagnetic fields in the A/C. Once the compass has been calibrated, to find the True Heading from the Compass Heading the pilot or navigator simply adds or subtracts the Compass Deviation, which gives the correct Magnetic Heading, and then adds or subtracts the published Magnetic Variation at the specific point on the Earth where the aircraft is located. Voilà! You've arrived at the True Heading. Only, whether to add or subtract depends on whether the Magnetic Variation is "east" or "west" variation. A mnemonic is in order. Pilots use this to convert from True to Compass headings: "True Virgins Make Dull Company–Add Whiskey." Which means, going from True heading through Variation, Magnetic heading, and Deviation, to Compass heading, you add "West" variation (implying you would subtract "east" variation). The mnemonic for the opposite procedure, going from Compass heading to True heading, is the less flamboyant "Can Dead Men Vote Twice At Elections?" We'll leave the exercise to the reader.

Compass

rose A good-size circle with precise magnetic headings painted on the tarmac in a lonely spot of the airfield, supposedly far from magnetic influences, used to calibrate the wet-compass. A J.O. is given the pleasure of taxiing an aircraft to the Compass Rose to "swing" the compass. As he lines up the A/C on various headings he reads off the indicated compass heading to the maintenance crew, who compile a table of compass deviations for the purpose outlined above under "Compass." Swinging the compass is hot work on a hot day (and it's cold work on a cold day...) and nobody's favorite job.

Con(ning) Noun and verb. A contrail (see below), or to leave a contrail behind the aircraft. A fighter pilot fears 'the cons' like the plague; his position there is visible for miles. A flight member will warn another if he's 'conning'. (Alternative terms are 'scratching' and 'marking'.) A slight decrease in altitude is usually enough to get out of the cons.

Contrail This trail of ice crystals( no, it isn't smoke) forms behind the aircraft from water vapor emitted in the engine exhaust. Contrails ('cons') form under certain conditions of temperature, pressure, and water content, usually at 30-some thousand feet. Climb high enough (or descend) and you're out of the cons (see above).

Course So what's what? "Course, heading, bearing, track..." It can be confusing. You're flying a track over the ground, and your present course is the direction (usually magnetic) of that track at the present moment. If there's no cross wind, your heading will be your course. If you're going directly to a stationary target, such as an airfield, your bearing to the target will be the same as the course to the target. But if your target is not stationary, such as another aircraft, your course toward an intercept will not be the same as the present bearing to the target (unless the target is on the same or opposite course). So there you have it. Course, heading, bearing, track. Plain and simple.

Crab 1. An airplane goes where it's pointed, except when there's a cross wind (which there almost always is, so the airplane hardly ever goes where it's pointed). In a cross wind you have to "crab"–to head (or point) partly into the wind–in order to get the course you want. Landing on the carrier, you essentially always have to crab to starboard, because you're not flying the same course as the ship is holding, since the angle deck is offset 10-12° to port. So even if the wind is straight down the angle deck the ship is continually slipping away to the right, and makes a 'virtual' relative wind. To fly the pass without a crab the wind would actually have to come from port relative to the angle deck; you'll grow old waiting for that day.

2. (Constructed as plural: Crabs.) Damnable and persistent arachnid evidence that the naval aviator was not as morally upstanding as naval aviators are theoretically expected to be, in that last port of call.

Cross-

country A nice tradition. Navy pilots need instrument training. You get instrument training by flying cross-country flights. You're stationed in San Diego, and the fresh Maine lobsters are in Maine. You "instrument train" on a hop to Maine. You bring back lobster for a squadron party. A nice tradition. And of course good instrument training.

Cross-over The move a wingman makes to cross to the other side of the flight leader in a formation. The lead gives a hand signal by raising a fist toward the top of the canopy on the side where the wingman is flying. The wingman then reduces power to pull just aft of the lead, dips down a few feet, and crosses under –that's under, not over! the flight lead to the other side, then moves up and forward to take the proper position.

CRT "Combat Rated Thrust" or "Maximum Thrust"–full power in afterburner. This is all you've got. You ain't got no more.

Cruise 1. Or "free cruise." A more relaxed flight formation than "Parade." Wingmen have somewhat more separation and are stepped back farther from the flight lead, and fly on a more flexible gouge.

2. Six to nine months at sea with all the comforts of Alcatraz prison.

Crusader

(F-8) Ah, the Crusader. Fighter pilot Nirvana. "The last of the gunfighters." One of those few airplanes that linger in the minds of its pilots for decades as the ultimate bird. Introduced in the US Navy in 1957 to replace a bevy of subsonic fighters used by the US Navy (F9F Cougar, FJ Fury, F4D Skyray, F3H Demon, and F7U Cutlass), it immediately raised the bar. The first US Navy fighter to accelerate to supersonic speed in level flight, first production aircraft of any type to exceed 1000 miles per hour, the Crusader set a slew of time-to-altitude and speed records, including the coast-to-coast speed record–averaging supersonic speeds, including air refueling times–(with Major–later Astronaut/Senator–John Glenn, USMC, at the controls). Built by Chance-Vought (later "Vought," then "Ling-Temco-Vought" or LTV), the 'Sader (or 'Gator) was originally a pure day fighter, with limited radar and all-weather capability. In time the airplane was updated with longer-range target acquisition and mapping radar, a radar altimeter, and a more powerful Pratt & Whitney J57P20 engine. A unique feature of the Crusader was its variable incidence wing, mounted at the top of the fuselage, which was swivelled up 7° (from a hinge at the back end of the wing) for takeoff and landing in order to increase lift with a flatter fuselage attitude, allowing the pilot to see the landing area over the nose, and incidentally but importantly, to avoid scraping the tail. The Crusader (and this is written with a 'Sader driver's passion) was a near-perfect dogfighting platform, handling a high G environment smoothly. (OK, it could have used another 5K lbs of thrust, and you could wish for more warning of spin-outs, and its slow-speed handling characteristics ... well, it never cared for slow speeds. But it was one handlin' machine!) The US Navy retired the last active duty F-8 fighter in 1976, the last F-8 reconnaissance bird in 1982, and the last reserve squadron F-8 in 1987. The French Navy finally retired the last Crusaders in active service anywhere in late 1999. In addition to the small pictorial tribute to the Crusader on this web site, check Dave "Fireball" the home page of the Crusader Association at www.f8crusader.org. Click here for a small sample of the 'Sader at work. For more, enter "F-8 Crusader" at YouTube.



Dead

reckoning Dead reckoning, DR for short, means, essentially, navigating without electronic instruments. It is navigating by means of map, compass, and a watch, with some clue about your speed, and if you're flying, hopefully about the wind. Some skill at DR can save your life when the instruments fail, as they inevitably will if you fly long enough. How many times hasn't an aviator's wife said, "Honey, shouldn't we check a map?" only to hear, "We're fine, dear. I'll get us there by DR."

Deadstick A "deadstick landing" is a landing with a dead engine. This works nicely in Cessna and Piper light planes and in the Space Shuttle, but forget it in a jet fighter. The basic problem is that your average fighter doesn't "glide." It falls. It has to do with "wing loading." The NATOPS manual says it's something you try if you're unable to abandon the aircraft. In other words, if this doesn't work you die. Usually this maneuver involves showing up right above the touchdown point of a runway at about 8,000 feet above ground level, then executing a precision power-off maneuver to a landing which you have never practiced, because NATOPS forbids practicing it. It doesn't help that you're on backup electrical power and partial instruments and flight controls. You don't do this if you can help it.

Debrief The most critical part of the flight, even though you're back on Earth (or sea). You see, whatever happened up there didn't really happen until it's been said and admitted on the deck. If you were on an "air combat maneuvering" (=ACM, =dogfighting) training hop against another pilot, you never know how the flight will transmogrify in the Ready Room debriefing. Some of the squadron's other pilots will be listening. You're just going to have to outshout your opponent: "On my six, my ass! I Fox'ed you out of the first turn and you know it." And two entirely different versions of the hassle get replayed, using the hands as aircraft. ( Do see the link.) Oh well. Not much has changed in this area since the first fighter flew.

Delta 1. The letter "D" in radio comm.

2. "Delta pattern": An airborne holding pattern. If there's suddenly a fouled deck on the carrier, you may hear, "Your signal Delta." You proceed posthaste to the carrier's standard overhead holding pattern, where each squadron has its assigned altitude.

3. A word needed to say "Delta Sierra," one of the most useful epithets in Navy lingo.

Depart 1. The aircraft "departs" from controlled flight when it enters a spin or other out-of-control state. A departure most often happens in a high-G maneuvering environment, like a hassle, as a result of the wing stalling. (An aircraft can theoretically stall at any speed if the angle of attack is increased sufficiently by back pressure on the stick. But at high speeds you'd pull the wings off the A/C before stalling it.) Typically, pulling too much G at the slow-speed top end of a vertical maneuver (perhaps helped by a little rudder input to asymmetrize the wing lift), or too much G for the speed in a rolling maneuver, are favorite ways to lose control. At the moment of departure the A/C may snap rapidly out of control, or at slow speed may "wash" into the stall. A departure can be a serious business in swept-wing jets. Most don't just fly themselves out of the condition, but require positive pilot actions, like activating various combinations of drag chute, speed brakes, slats, droops, crossed stick and rudder input, etc. All this while the cockpit is behaving like a washing machine agitator. After a departure, it can easily require 5-10,000 feet of altitude loss to recover. Fighters also don't typically enter a neat predictable spin. They may enter flat spins, inverted spins, "falling leaf" maneuvers, and variations where both nose and wings gyrate unpredictably up and down through 180° or more. In other words, almost anything can happen. A departure is a high pucker factor moment. 2. A "departure" is of course also a published route to be followed after take-off from an airfield. These are often a pain-in-the-butt to a fighter pilot, because they make him fly slow and they prevent flathatting, both of which go against his grain. (Actually, just about any prohibition goes against a fighter pilot's grain.) The only authorized departure route suitable for a fighter pilot was a high-performance burn-out at NAS Miramar, San Diego (back when that was still "Fightertown USA"), briefly described as: Afterburner takeoff, stand the aircraft on its tailpipe, and disappear straight up.

Diamond One of the parade formations of four aircraft. Wingmen No.2 and 3 fly a parade wing on either side of the flight lead, while No.4 tucks just below and behind the lead's tail. It's especially exciting in single-engine A/C, where No.4 ("assman") is a few feet from the tailpipe of the lead.

(Illustration of VF-11 F-8 Crusaders credit: Michael Couture.)

Dirty Landing configuration of the airplane. Everything's hanging out: Landing gear, flaps, slats, droops, hook (at sea), wing swept forward (F-14) or raised (F-8). Man, you're dressed to go slow. And you're just not Clean.

Ditch Landing the aircraft on the water. Only thing is, jet fighters don't land on the water. They crash into the water. It's not pretty. It's deadly. As the NATOPS manual says, you do this if you're unable to abandon the aircraft. Call home base first, and they'll get a head start on arranging the memorial service.

Division A flight of four aircraft flying as a unit. A division, under a division leader, may be part of a flight of several divisions, under a flight leader. The Division is divided in two Sections of two aircraft each, and in combat will normally operate as Sections.

Dogfight A term not much used by naval aviators, who prefer "hassle." If the fight is described as a "dogfight," it was a real DOGFIGHT!

Doublenuts A Navy squadron's aircraft carry two-digit tail numbers. From 01 to however many there are, say 15, they also carry the names of the squadron pilots on the canopy rail, in seniority (or "rocket number") order, starting with the skipper on no.01. But in addition there's tail number "00", fondly called "Doublenuts." (I leave the etymology to the reader.) Doublenuts carries the name of the Air Wing Commander (CAG). Actual flight assignments don't have much to do with the names painted on the A/C, though when CAG wants to fly a hop with your squadron it's considered good form to give him Doublenuts if it's available. (VF-53 Doublenuts at right):

Doughnut A "doughnut" on the indexer lights means you're on speed for landing. A "chevron" mean you're fast or slow. See the indexer lights link for explanation and illustration.

Down

(status) An aircraft is "down" when it is not safely flyable. (Otherwise it is of course "Up.") Some criteria for down status are listed in the Navy's maintenance manuals (e.g., fuel pressure out of limits), others are more subjective (pilot reports: "the stick was sticking"). But some gripes are in the grey area. And there's conjuring involved: If the Skipper needs sorties to meet the squadron's quota, a Down A/C can magically become an Up A/C without any maintenance work at all.

Downtown "Goin' downtown": An airstrike aiming for the center of the enemy's position, such as a capital city, where a warm welcome usually awaits. Fireworks and everything.

Downwind In addition to the obvious (I hope) meaning of position and direction indicated by this term (we've all been downwind of something we'd rather not have been downwind of–the Jacksonville paper mill comes to mind), this has a special meaning in the landing pattern. There it means the "downwind leg" of the pattern, that is, the position where the aircraft is at about 600 feet above the touchdown point and about a nautical mile abeam, heading in the direction opposite the landing direction. (Heading downwind, that is, heading in the same direction as the wind.) You're ready to start your 180° turn toward the landing point, and when you get there you will of course be pointed upwind, i.e., against the wind, prepared to land.

Drag Drag is really a drag, it's your enemy as a fighter pilot. It prevents you from going faster. As you punch a hole in the air with your airplane, you're pushing molecules closer together than they like to be. Can't blame them for pushing back. Flying is always a battle between thrust and drag.

Echo The letter "E" in radio comm. In aircraft designations, E stands for electronic countermeasures aircraft, such as the E3 Hawkeye, the EA-6 Intruder, and the EP-3 Orion. (Echo is otherwise sadly underutilized. There aren't any graphic expletives starting with E.)

Echelon In formation flying, 3 or more aircraft in a straight line angled back from the flight lead. Like the right half of a flight of honkers. (Good illustration at "Blues".)

Eject To activate the ejection seat to escape from the cockpit. The normal ejection handle is a "face curtain" at the top of the seat, which is pulled down over the pilot's face. An automatic sequence is started which jettisons the canopy and fires the rocket and/or explosive charge that powers the seat up the seat rails and out. The sequence continues with drogue chute, seat separation, and main chute deployment. (Where there's a flight crew of two, it gets trickier. Some recent a/c have an ejection capsule that essentially ejects the entire cockpit intact. But where 2 seats need to fire individually, they are sequenced so that the pilot's seat fires a fraction of a second after the other crewmember.) Modern ejection seats have a "zero/zero" capability: the pilot can successfully eject sitting still on the deck (zero elevation and zero airspeed). Pilots put a lot of trust in the guys in the Seat shop and "Parachute loft" who maintain the seats and maintain and pack the chutes, and usually take care to treat them well. A few bottles of 12 year old Chivas Regal may change hands after a successful ejection. Credit for saving thousands of lives through successful ejections goes to the hyper-reliable Martin-Baker company of England, which first developed ejection seats in the early 1940s, and has supplied most military needs globally since then, including essentially all U.S. seats.

Elevator At least 3 important uses:

1. A verb used by air controllers meaning "Change your altitude to", as in "Elevator angels Two Zero," meaning "Climb (or descend) to altitude 20,000 feet."

2. An elevator is also a flight control surface on the horizontal stabilizer, but not many fighters have distinct elevator surfaces any more. Most are designed with a "flying tail" (or "UHT"–unit horizontal tail) where the horizontal stabilizer moves as a unit to provide vertical control.

3. And there are huge aircraft elevators on a carrier, that move a/c between the hangar deck and the flight deck.

Envelope Tactical performance graphs show altitude and speed restrictions for an aircraft. Add drag index lines and G limits and you wind up with a graph with criss-crossing lines that resembles an envelope, which is what it's called by pilots: The Flight Envelope. When you fly the aircraft near its operational limits you're "pushing (the limits of) the envelope." Next time you hear someone other than a pilot use that term, remember: he/she has no idea what it means. Now you do.

Fan break A fancy way for a 2- to 4-plane formation to execute the break when entering the landing pattern at a field or at the carrier. The effect is (or should be) the flight of four smoothly rolling into the break together and beautifully separating in the turn to the downwind leg. See the break link for more.

Feet dry Flying over land.

Feet wet Flying over water.

Fighter What's a fighter? An aircraft with an "F" in its designator? Hardly. A fighter is an aircraft made for close-in fighting against another aircraft, and one that can fight. It's nimble, powerful, and fast. It lives to get to the enemy's 6, and it usually does. And to get the job done, it's got a fighter pilot trained for the job and the weapons to finish off the enemy. Back in a time that now is history (say the late 1960s), the quiet protest decal at the right was literally true. We, the last fighter pilots, were flying the last of the fighters, the incomparable F-8 Crusader. It was soon to be retired, and no further fighter aircraft were planned, the fighter pilots' skills were to be shelved and forgotten. Then the Viet Nam war happened and awoke the sleepy brass at the Pentagon. Entering the Viet Nam war may not have been the smartest thing this country has done, but it served to remind the Pentagon that you can't command airspace without fighters and fighter pilots. So today there are again good fighters in the inventory, and good fighter pilots to fly them. The beat goes on.

Final In the final portion of a landing approach you're "on final".

Finger Four A balanced "parade" formation that looks like the four fingertips of your right hand (fingers straight & together, palm down): Flight lead ahead (middle finger); wingmen #2 on the left and #3 on the right equally spaced, and #4 on the right extending the line from the lead to #3.

Flak If there's one thing aviators hate, it's catching flak, whether in the air or in the skipper's office. Long before it became the common English word for a chewing, it was the German common abbreviation for their anti-aircraft artillery: Flugabwehrkanone (also, for the etymologically curious, reported as Flugzeugabwehrkanone and Fliegerabwehrkanone). To the aviator, flak was the bursting AA shells that, even if they didn't hit the aircraft, laid down a deadly dense rain of near-invisible fragments. Catching flak was more than just embarrassing. Not one of the favorite missions for fighter pilots is that of flak suppression – going in ahead of the main air-to-ground attack to take out the flak sites. Talk about catching flak!

Flame-out When a jet engine quits, it "flames out," the fire is gone. A suspenseful situation, especially if you've only got one engine. All multi-engine aircraft are designed to fly safely with the loss of one engine. If you're multi-engine, you'll have bleed air and electrical power from the operating engines to help restart the quitter. If you're single engine you'll probably be extending the emergency RAT (Ram Air Turbine) package into the air stream to give electrical (and perhaps hydraulic) power. The aircraft's airspeed is counted on to turn the engine, and if you have fuel, this should do it. The usual causes of flame-out are compressor stalls, or slow-speed high throttle setting situations where the engine isn't getting enough air, or of course running out of fuel.

Flathatting The time-honored practice of a pilot scaring the bejeebies out of innocent civilians on the ground by swooping as low and as fast as possible, preferably over an unsuspecting outdoor assembly, in an ad hoc individual air show. A popular target is always one's parents' farm. Less public, but still a lot of fun, is back-country flathatting, or terrain-avoidance flying. The occasional residence that pops up to be terrified adds satisfaction.

On the other hand, the occasional po we rl in e!...

The origin of the term is uncertain, but it may have come from the threat of early barnstorming aerobatic pilots to flatten top hats among air show bystanders.

(A) Flight While "a flight" may mean simply the event between a take-off and a landing, in this specialized meaning a flight is a coordinated unit of any number of aircraft flying under a single flight leader (see next entry), as in "the flight is approaching the break." Most operational flights of Navy fighters are flown as flights of two (a "section") or four (a "division") aircraft. Other types of Navy flights, e.g., anti-submarine (MAD) patrols, are commonly flown as a single a/c flights.

Flight Lead Every Navy flight (see entry above) has a designated flight leader. The flight lead is normally the senior aviator in the flight. The lead calls the shots (literally and figuratively) in the air. Basta! See Wingman.

Flight Level A kind of formalized definition of altitude, which see. For some reason, the controllers of the FAA have a problem with aircraft reporting their altitude on the basis of their varying local barometric pressures. The scenario of two aircraft assuming they're at different altitudes while actually being in the same piece of sky seems to bother them. They clearly don't have the adventuresomeness of the naval aviator. So to make the FAA (and similar world-wide air tyrants) happy, when we venture into space above 18,000 feet, we reset the altimeter to the barometric standard 29.92 inches of mercury, and we report our altitude as "Flight levels", which, to confuse everyone, is reported in 100's of feet! Thus if we're at 24,000 feet (with a standardized altimeter) we're at "Flight Level 240". That way everybody's altitude reporting is consistent, and airline passengers will live a lot longer. Maybe that's worth the bother.

Flight Ops "Flight operations", of course. For cyclic flight ops on the carrier, see "Cyclic Ops".

Flight suit Pheeuu ... these things stand upright by themselves after a couple of weeks of sweaty flights aboard ship. You start with this neat, new, fireproof Nomex coverall, then gradually impregnate it with a variety of corporeal exudates. There's usually neither mother nor wife aboard ship to remind a young pilot to wash his flight suit, so after a few weeks of wearing it all day every day it more or less becomes one with him. Has anyone tested the fire resistance at this point? We doubt it; we've experienced flight suits where the BO itself was about at the flash point. During a cruise all the pilots descend together into a communal olfactory coma, where no one offends anybody anymore. What's the problem?

Fly-by-wire An important flight control innovation at one time. Used to be that the stick was directly connected to the flight control surfaces (ailerons, elevators) by cables and pushrods–as in light planes even today. There was direct feedback to the stick from the aerodynamic forces on the flight surfaces. In the 1950s, as a/c got heavier and faster, and aerodynamic pressures increased, hydraulic lines replaced cables in flight controls. Feedback to the stick was lost, and was replaced by artificial "feedback" through variable spring tensions on the stick. The hydraulics were also much heavier, and more vulnerable to combat damage (it's easier to disable a 3000psi hydraulic line than a multi-strand steel cable). Therefore dual hydraulic systems became the norm, which were heavier still. In the 1970s, "fly-by-wire" became the new rage: though the flight surfaces might still be actuated by hydraulics, the connection from the stick was now strictly through electrical wiring to the actuators. Lots lighter; lighter even than steel cable, but vulnerable to disruption of the electrical system. The coming thing is "fly-by-light," optical systems which are lighter yet than electronics and are not affected by electromagnetic disturbances.

Flying tail No, no, no! Here you're already thinking this is another of a pilot's terms of endearment for a stewardess. Not at all. We're talking about horizontal flight members here. Hm, that didn't help ...

Sometimes known as "UHT"–unit horizontal tail. Fighter a/c have largely abandoned the "elevator" flight control surface on the horizontal stabilizer, which provides vertical flight control, in favor of a solid horizontal stabilizer ("flying tail") that moves as a unit. Using the entire stabilizer as a control surface gives the potential for more rapid control response, but you pay for it in having to prevent overcontrolling. It may also increase the hazard in a runaway flight control problem.

FOD (Rhymes with "god.") Originally "Foreign Object Damage" (to engines or airframes), now usually the redundant "Foreign Object Debris" (i.e., debris that can cause damage). Jet engine air intakes can have enormous suction, and are notorious for swallowing up whatever gets in their way, from sailors to birds to nuts and bolts left on the deck. Both ashore and aboard the carrier, a "FOD walkdown" of the flight line or flight deck is staged daily to pick up "FOD."

Formation A flight of two or more aircraft are always flying in a defined formation. "Parade" formation (such as echelon, "finger four", or "diamond" is used to look good around the field or the public; Cruise (or "Free Cruise") formation is similar but more relaxed with more spacing, both laterally and fore-and-aft, between the A/C, and "Combat Spread" or "Loose deuce" and other formations may be used in combat, etc.

Fox The radio call for firing a missile. (Duh...no, we don't call the enemy before firing a missile!) Used in training hops and debriefs. A useful verb in dogfight debriefs: "I fox'ed you out of the rolling scissors."

Foxtrot 1. The letter "F" in radio comm.

2. In aircraft and squadron designations, F indicates "fighter." The F-4 Phantom, F-8 Crusader, and F-14 Tomcat are examples. (The designation of the F/A-18 Hornet makes the claim of being both a fighter and attack aircraft.) In squadron designations, F is combined with "V" (meaning fixed-wing) to indicate fighter squadrons, for example, VF-51 and VF-53. Also commonly used in such quaint Navy sayings as "Foxtrot Uniform." (Of course this frequently fulsome fricative appears without its "foxtrot" garb in such universal acronyms as SNAFU and FUBAR ("FU Beyond All Recovery"), but such linguistic esoterica takes us far beyond our Navy focus.)

Furball A dogfight with more a/c than you can keep track of, especially one in close quarters, reminiscent of a cartoon cat fight.

G (force) From what I hear, gravity is everyone's enemy. Not least the fighter pilot's. We all normally experience a gravitational force of +1 G on the Earth. (The "plus" sign indicates "positive G," i.e., in a direction toward your feet. If no sign is shown, the positive direction is understood.) Fighter aircraft are designed to subject air crew to 6-9 times the force of gravity. This happens as the aircraft turns (the turn is always made in the plane of the wings–in other words the aircraft always pulls "up" from the perspective of the seated pilot). The tighter the turn, the higher the "G" loading. At +7 G–routine in today's fighters–a 200+ lb pilot (counting gear and helmet) weighs over 1500 lbs. A lot of that weight compresses his spine, and he'll pay for it later in life. While flying, the air crew are kept from passing out or losing vision (see tunnel vision) at such G loads by wearing a G-suit which inflates air bladders around the lower torso and legs, physically restricting blood from draining from the brain and pooling in the lower body. The G-suit can add up to 3 G to a pilot's G-tolerance, though of course it doesn't do anything about spinal damage. An aircraft can also experience "negative G" or "zero G," though they don't like it a lot. Nor would you.

Gaggle Pilots like this word, used for a large flight of aircraft, especially a seemingly disorganized one. Unfair to geese, really, who usually stay pretty organized. See also "Balbo."

Gate A couple of good meanings:

1. Radio call for afterburner. The flight lead's call to select A/B is: "Gates in– now ." Deselecting burner: "Gates out– now ." (See–it's useful if the whole flight comes in and out of burner together. It avoids having them spread over miles of airspace.)

2. An approach pattern to an airfield or a carrier will often involve a "gate," a defined point on a radial at a specified distance and elevation. The pilot or flight leader is responsible for bringing his aircraft or flight to the gate with the appropriate heading and airspeed. On a VFR approach to a carrier, for example, Approach Control ("Marshal") may ask the flight leader to "report the eight mile gate," at which point the flight may be switched to the tower ("Pri-fly") radio frequency.

Gator An endearing name for our favorite aircraft and hero of this site, the always-hungry-for-blood F-8 Crusader.

Gear This obviously can mean a lot of things, but in naval aviation the context usually determines whether it's the ship's Arresting gear or the aircraft's Landing gear that's meant.

Glide slope (This term has little to do with gliding. For a jet fighter, a power-off "glide" is more like a fall.) Instead, this refers to the vertical angle of the final approach to landing. To provide a safe (who are we kidding?) hook-to-ramp clearance, Navy carriers use a fairly steep apparent glide slope: about 4°, though with the ship's movement taken into account the resulting angle is effectively about 3.5°, the same as at most land-based naval air fields. The mirror is the pilot's primary glide slope information in close.

Go One of many meanings is "launch" (take-off). For example, the flight leader may brief: "It'll be a burner go," or "a section go...", meaning the take-off will be in afterburner, or it will be a section take-off. Or "a section burner go..." (Guess what that means.) Illustration of F-8 section go, courtesy John Fitzgerald.

Golf The letter "G" in radio comm. (Also the aviator's favorite sport, since it only involves walking and can be practiced even if you're still faced from the night before.)

Grey-out Under high G loads, as blood drains from the brain, the first effect noted is tunnel vision. If too high a G loading is maintained, and/or if your G-suit isn't functioning or gets unhooked, in addition to the tunnel effect the pilot will lose color vision–he will "grey out." This is a good time to relax the G's, because the next effect is black-out.

Gripe An equipment/maintenance problem noted by the pilot on the "Gripe sheet" or "Yellow sheet". The pilot (or maintenance chief) determines whether the gripe is an "Up" gripe (meaning the A/C can still fly without fixing the gripe) or a "Down" gripe (meaning it can't). All Down gripes are supposed to be signed off (corrected or OK'd for flight) before the aircraft flies again. In the Crusader a few years ago, this meant that overstress cracks in the skin were circled with grease pencil by the maintenance crew and labeled "Crack." Then it was OK to fly. You gotta have faith.

Growl A sound signal transmitted from the heat seeking Sidewinder missile's seeker head to the pilot's earphones, indicating the missile is sensing the target. (It really sounds like a warning sound from a major feline.) With a good solid growl, range in the 1/2 mile to a mile range, G-load and crossing angle within limits, you fire. (If you have all that you probably have a hit.) The growl, by the way, ceases when the 'Winder leaves the rail. After firing (just like a fired bullet–though the 'Winder's a lot smarter) the missile's on its own, and doesn't communicate.

Grumman

Iron Works An endearing (sort of) name for the Grumman Aircraft Co., known for building good and VERY SOLID (and very heavy) aircraft like the F-9F Panther/Cougar. On the other hand, they followed that with the lithe and elegant F-11 Tiger, so . . .

G-suit At high speed an airplane can turn only one way: UP. To go left, you bank left and pull UP. So in every turn, there's upward angular momentum, or "centrifugal force," driving the pilot's body (and body fluids) down, down, down... The angular momentum is measured in "G's," or multiples of the normal force of gravity ("1G"). In a tactical environment, a pilot will pull 6-9 G's for extended periods. Unprotected, this would lead to unconsciousness through blood draining from the brain to the lower extremities. Thus the "G-suit" (formally an " anti -G suit"). This piece of gear, worn over the flight suit from the waist down, is a tight-fitting system of air bladders covering the belly and the back and front of the calf and thigh. An air hose from the G-suit is hooked up to a cockpit bleed air valve. A G-sensitive valve meters air pressure in the G-suit proportional to the G forces on the aircraft. Higher G's, more pressure. The effect is simply, by pressure in the G-suit air bladders, to prevent the migration of blood to the lower torso and extremities–physically keeping the blood in the upper body, like the brain! Wearing a G-suit effectively increases G tolerance (meaning you don't lose consciousness) by as much as 3 G, and makes effective operation of modern fighters possible. (Should we admit here that there is no material or engineering restriction that would prevent an airplane from pulling 20 G's? The weak physical link is absolutely the pilot.)

Guard "Guard channel." The emergency radio frequency–UHF 243.0 MHz–always monitored by Navy aircraft, no matter what primary frequency they're on. If you have an emergency you transmit it on Guard, and the world comes to help.

Gunfighter 1. Radio callsign of VF-124, NAS Miramar, with the proud history of being the fleet training squadron for the F-8 Crusader followed by the F-14 Tomcat, two great gunfighters.

2. "Last of the Gunfighters": Slogan for the beloved F-8 Crusader, the Navy's top dogfighter with guns at a time when guns were thought passé by Navy brass. (Let it be said that–while the slogan was appropriate for its time–even brass can learn, and guns are back on Navy fighters.)

Gunnery Air-to-air gunnery. Now, there are only four really difficult things that a Naval Aviator must master, and this is one of them. (The others, needless to say, are carrier landings, swimming, and leaving out expletives in polite company.) Air-to-air gunnery practice is one of the most intricate and diabolical evolutions in naval air, and is a popular wash-out point in the jet pipeline of the aviator training program. In brief, it works about like this: A target "banner" (which see) is towed about 1200' behind a tow ("tractor") aircraft, which flies straight & level through the gunnery range at 20,000 feet. The flight of 4 shooters enters a pattern around the tow a/c, where each shooter successively rolls in from a high "perch" about 7,000 above the target and 2 miles abeam. When the gunnery pattern is established, as "Viking 1," say, rolls in from the perch, Viking 2 is halfway up to the perch but ahead of #1 (the pattern keeps moving forward at the tow a/c speed of 250 knots), #3 has completed the shooting run and is close abeam the tow a/c pulling up, and #4 is just commencing the tracking of the banner. (Get it? No? Student aviators don't either.) It has the appearance of a strictly choreographed aerial ballet, when it's done right. Which it sometimes is. All of this is not without hazard, especially for the tow pilot, but see at "banner" for that.

Gunsight On modern–and not so modern–fighter aircraft, gunsight information is projected onto an angled glass plate in the pilot's field of vision as he looks straight ahead. While newer gunsights add radar lock-on information and greatly improve the accuracy of the sight, you don't always have a radar lock-on. Then you still have the classical non-radar gunsight, which is ingenious but simple in concept: It calculates lead based on G loading (which equates to rate of turn), altitude, airspeed, and bank, and shows the aim point as a floating "pipper", a small circle which is remarkably resistant to being placed on the target. All the pilot is responsible for is achieving steady-state tracking of the pipper on the target in the heart of the optimal firing range–say 1200-1500 feet–(did I mention that this requires outfighting the opponent and getting on his tail?) and if he does everything right, has a fair chance of a hit.

Hand

signals A necessity in formation flying. In close section (two-plane) formations, hand signals are usually used in preference to radio calls even if radio silence is not required. The lead will give the wingman specific hand signals for such actions as: Crossover, fall back to cruise formation, commence descent, turn left or right or level the wings, level off in a climb or descent, change radio channel or frequency and indicate specific channel or frequency, request and give fuel state, transfer the flight lead, and much more. It's surprising what can be done with just one hand. (All right, knock off the snickering there in the back row!) Even specific emergencies can be indicated by hand signals. If the wingman is back in a free cruise or other loose position, the leader will rock his wings to indicate join-up in parade formation. Some signals, like add or reduce power, or select afterburner, are given by head signals, so see that. (By the way, the way numbers are indicated is simple and practical, and deserves wider use. Numbers 1-5 are indicated as usual with 1-5 fingers of one hand held vertically (be sure to start with the index ). But since the pilot generally only has one hand available for signalling, numbers 6-9 are indicated by one through four fingers held horizontally, pointing forward. That is, to the number of horizontal fingers you add 5 to get the meaning. (Still not clear? You see, a seven is two fingers held horizontally...) Ten is indicated as two digits: a 1 followed by a closed fist indicating zero.) Hand signals are also used between the pilot and plane captain when starting the A/C and running post-start checks, by the Yellowshirt (flight deck director) to move the aircraft before launch or after an arrested landing, and by the cat officer to actually launch the aircraft.

Hangar You know what this is, right? It is, of course, the big open building ashore where maintenance is done on the aircraft, and where the flight squadrons have their spaces: offices, ready room, etc. But did you know how to spell it? It's not a "hanger"! And did you know that it comes from a northern French dialect, where it means "cattle pen"? Nuff sed. (The aircraft carrier analog to the hangar is the hangar deck.)

Hassle Noun and verb: A "dogfight," a tactical engagement with other aircraft. Near synonyms: "ACM" and Tactics. "Hassling" is the fighter pilot's bread and butter. It's all about getting on the other guy's six. Some years from now, when all weapons are launched remotely, pilots with the fighter spirit will still go up and hassle.

Heading This is really too easy. It's just the (usually magnetic) direction that the aircraft is pointed. The only reason to include this is to point out that a heading is not a bearing, nor a course, of course. In case you thought it was. If you're flying to someplace that bears, say, 080° from your position, a heading of 080 will only get you there if there's no wind. If there's a wind, as there usually is, you have to crab into the wind–take a heading to split the difference, so to speak. See, it's a matter of vector geometry. Or something.

Head signals When a flight is flying in close formation, the leader gives hand or head signals to his wingmen before every change of flight regime. Some hand signals are described above. But certain signals are given by head nods: "Adding power" is signaled by the flight lead's head nodding forward (he could also be falling asleep), followed immediately by the throttle movement. "Reducing power" is signaled by the head in a backward motion (and here, of course, he might be waking up again). A turn to the right (or left) is signaled by the leader's head making repeated motions to the right (or left). "Select Afterburner" is shown by a preparatory head move to the right, and then a quick head "slam" to the left. There's a combined hand & head signal for extending the speed brakes ("boards"): first the lead's hand makes a preparatory duck-quacking motion (to mimic the boards coming out), then a forward nod of the head says, put the boards out. If you miss the lead's signal you (as wingman) will go sailing by the leader, unable to keep the formation in order. [A personal protest: I always thought, as a wingman, that I ought to be able to signal back, say to debate the order. But alas, there's no signal for that. Well, there's one, but it's impolite.]

Holding

pattern Unlike helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft can't just park in space. When there's a need to wait–as for a ready deck on the carrier–aircraft will be sent to an assigned holding pattern. A multi-plane flight will hold together, usually flying a loose cruise formation. A holding pattern will often be defined by a point in space, given as an altitude and mileage on a TACAN radial from the carrier (see also "Marshal"). Each flight will get its unique holding point. The flight lead will hit the holding point going inbound on the radial, then commence a standard rate left turn for 180 degrees and head outbound for some miles, depending on the expected hold time. Turn again and repeat. In a holding pattern, fuel state is usually a concern; therefore the flight lead is eager to know his expected Charlie time, so he can plan his pattern. Aircraft use more fuel when in a bank, but level flight takes them farther from the carrier. In VFR conditions around the carrier, a fouled deck will send aircraft already in the landing pattern up into a holding pattern centered on the carrier, at predetermined altitudes. See "Delta."

Hood More generally "The Bag": The "Instrument Hood," a devilish device meant to confound pilots-in-training. It's simply a curtain fitted to the interior of the canopy that pulls over the student pilot (in the back seat of a two-seat tandem aircraft) so he cannot see out of the cockpit. The instructor will carry out the take-off, then turn the flight controls over to the hapless student who is overwhelmed by the idea of flying the airplane on instruments alone. Doesn't sound like much to a seasoned pilot, but the average student pilot fears flying under the hood like the plague. A common cause of "D.O.R."

Hosed Only one meaning for a fighter pilot, and as so often, grammar is everything. It's all about "active" or "passive". (I mean, look at the verb form! It's either imperfectum active, or past participle, isn't it! Fighter pilots have to keep this sort of thing in mind at all times. It isn't easy!) Anyway, if you've been hosed (this is the past participle), you've been peppered from behind with 20mm Vulcan cannon shot, and your dear airplane is on its way down with you in it. If, on the other hand, you just hosed the enemy, you've shot your load and he's on his way down.

Hot

(& Cold) Apart from their usual meanings, these terms refer to the state of aircraft armaments or a weapons range. At the bombing range, pilots may hear "The range is Cold," meaning no ordnance may be dropped. When the range is ready, the range master will transmit "The range is Hot," and the flight lead will order armament switches on. The radio call "Gruesome 4 is in Hot" confirms armament switches on as this wingman rolls into a bomb run.

Hot CAP "Hot Combat Air Patrol." (Rather a "deck" patrol than an "air" patrol.) See "CAP".

Hotel The letter "H" in radio comm. In aircraft, carrier, and squadron designations it means Helicopter, as opposed to the letter "V" for fixed-wing aircraft. But its greatest utility is in such useful phrases as "Sierra Hotel."

HUD In modern fighters, the Heads-Up Display, that magical evolution of the old gunsight. In looking directly ahead, the pilot looks through an angled glass plate on which is projected not only gunsight info but pretty much all the info he needs to fly and fight the aircraft: speed, altitude, G loadings, engine performance, radar contacts, etc. (In earlier days you had to look down on the instrument panel for all that, you actually had to work on your scan.) So it frees the pilot to keep his eyes out of the cockpit, but it's a monster to master–the pilot has to learn to manage potential information overload by filtering out what's not needed at the moment.

Hurrevac Here's some military shorthand that seems to make sense. Odd that it isn't much used elsewhere. When a hurricane threatens a Navy airfield, a "hurrevac" exercise (or "evolution" as the Navy would call it) springs into action. It basically consists of flying all the aircraft to a safe air base, early evacuation by ground of everything that needs to be evacuated, and closing everything else up tight. Of course, the military has several obvious advantages over the civilian world in this type of exercise: they're organized, they're using our money and they still get paid, no matter what.

Hypoxia Spooky and insidious stuff. A lowering of oxygen partial pressure in the lungs, blood, and brain from breathing high altitude air, as in case of cockpit pressurization failure and/or oxygen mask failure. Blues your nails, makes you tingle, puts you to sleep PDQ, kills you in the subsequent crash. (This can happen to mountaineers and air passengers just as easily as to pilots. The best-remembered case may be the death of golfer Payne Stewart and his party a few years ago when their bizjet lost pressurization and flew for hours on autopilot, with crew and passengers passed out, before crashing into a mountain.)

IFF The formal name for what's commonly known as a "Transponder". In typical DOD bureaucratese, the letters stand for "Identification–Friend or Foe". A black box ID transmitter (now used on both military and civilian aircraft) that transmits a pilot-selectable code to verify the A/C ID to radar controllers. Of course, it verifies your ID to the enemy, too. So in a real war you just forget about it and turn it off. (See also "squawk".)

IFR 1. Instrument Flight Rules. The FAA is now requiring IFR flight almost everywhere. Also an assessment of the flying conditions: "The weather is junk, it's IFR." Contrast VFR.

2."In-Flight Refueling. Tricky stuff requiring a lot of practice." Check at "Plug" and "Probe".

Inboard /

Outboard Not boat engines, but the location of something relative to the centerline of the ship or the aircraft. Or the centerline of the pilot. Such as, Did I put my shades in the outboard or inboard pocket of my flight suit? Naturally this transfers to civilian life. In teaching his daughter to drive, dad will of course say, "Remember, Jane, for 1st gear you pull the stick inboard, for 5th gear push it outboard." (Reverse that for countries that drive on the wrong side of the road.)

Indexer

lights Navy jets use the aircraft's "angle of attack" rather than airspeed for the proper landing attitude. But when you're flying the meatball to a carrier landing you can't be looking in the cockpit at the 'AoA' indicator. Fortunately, some brilliant engineer came up with the indexer lights, a "heads-up display" above the instrument panel, in the pilot's field of vision as he looks at the ball through the front left portion of the windscreen. (The indexers are actuated when the landing gear is extended.) This vertical row of shaped lights indicates "on-speed" (that is, on proper angle of attack) by the center orange "doughnut" light, "slow" by the top green "chevron," and "fast" by the bottom "red" chevron. The doughnut may light together with either chevron to indicate the regime between "on-speed" and fast or slow. The pilot sees the display peripherally, and reacts instantly to the color changes. (The illustration is from a mock-up of an F/A-18F Super Hornet. The appearence of all the lights lit simultaneously doesn't occur in real life – if one can speak of "real life" in carrier flying.) The indexers are repeated as colored lights on the exterior front of the aircraft, so the LSO can better judge the aircraft's speed.

Instrument

Parade A version of "parade" flight formation used specifically for instrument flying. Whereas in clear weather and daylight a wingman on the outside of a turn in a parade formation will rotate on his own axis to hold a position horizontal to the flight lead throughout the turn, when there's no visible horizon, such as at night or in the soup, this isn't possible because there's no way to know what's horizontal. So under such conditions a wingman on the outside of a turn must rotate on the axis of the flight lead, which means riding up and keeping the same visual "gouge" on the leader. When you're flying formation as a wingman through the soup or a black-ass night, you'll have no idea whether you're level or in a turn. And that's the idea. You just hang on.

Jink A flying butterfly is hard to catch, because it constantly jinks. Jinking is a standard flying technique for evading anti-aircraft ground fire. The idea is to rapidly and unpredictably jerk the aircraft in changing directions, to frustrate the gunners. (You still need to progress on your basic heading, if you're going to a target.)

Join-up One aircraft joining another in formation. Typical for a pre-planned join-up is that the lead is in a standard port turn, while the joining A/C cuts to the inside of the turn, gradually approaching on a collision course from the port quarter. In close the joining A/C slows the rate of closure, ensures vertical separation, and crosses under the lead to the outside of the turn, often to a cruise position. A more ad hoc join-up may occur if you've been vectored in to pick up another A/C who has a radio or electrical failure, and needs help to get safely back to the deck. You would approach from the inside of the NORDO's turn, or on his port wing if he's straight and level, using hand signals to take the lead, then standard NATOPS procedures to a landing.

"Judy" On a radar intercept, the pilot or radar operator calls "Judy" when they have a lock on the bogey and are taking control of the intercept from the ground controller.

Juliet The letter "J" in radio comm. Used in designating high altitude jet airways in the U.S., e.g., J-22, distinguishing these from lower altitude airways designated by the letter V ("Victor"), e.g., V-20.

Kilo The letter "K" in radio comm. Sometimes used in the unflattering appellation Kilo-Alpha, a kiss-ass. Yeah, they're in the Navy, too.

Kiss off Not at all an offensive remark. When a flight leader wants his wingman to depart the formation for some pre-briefed task, he will indicate that with a hand signal: Fingertips to lips (oxygen mask, actually), then "blow a kiss" to the wingman. The briefing might go, "After join-up, signal your state [fuel level] and I'll kiss you off to contact Approach."

Kneeboard Ought to be called a "thighboard," perhaps, this little notepad that you have strapped around your thigh, with emergency procedures and all kinds of good information on it. You've written down the outlines of the flight brief, with call sign, your aircraft number, radio frequencies to be used, and perhaps rendezvous points and marshal times. (In a war zone, of course you don't write down any of this.) A red light illuminates the kneeboard.

Knot A knot is a measure of speed. One knot is one nautical mile per hour. (If you thought a knot had something to do with ropes, you're right. Ancient sailing ships measured speed with a 'log-line' divided by knots into parts equaling 1/120 of a nautical mile (about 50 feet). The log-line was passed into the water, and the ship's passage of the line would be timed. Since a half minute is also 1/120 of an hour, a ship passing from one knot to the next in a half minute would be going at a speed of one nautical mile per hour, or one knot.)

Landing

gear The wheels, struts, shocks and actuators of the "Main gear" and the "Nose gear." Modern carrier aircraft use a "tricycle" landing gear system, with a nose wheel (or two) and two main "mounts." One of the most critical systems on the aircraft: failure in the landing gear system is one of the most common causes of landing accidents. And the most common failure is pilot-induced: A three-point landing, which see.

Lift In order of importance to the naval aviator, this means:

1. What a Maidenform does for feminine charm;

2. The mystical force that keeps an aircraft airborne. It works like this: When straight and level it keeps you up, in a bank it makes you turn, and when you're upside down it makes the stick work backwards. Of course this is pure magic, but engineers won't admit it.

Lima The letter "L" in radio comm. (Pronounced like the Peruvian capital, not like the bean.)

Loose deuce In two-on-one fighter combat, a flexible tactical formation that maximizes the section's advantage over the single bandit. While friendly "A" pressures the enemy, restricting his defensive options, "B" is free to use the vertical plane (in a way that he could not in a one-on-one situation) to position himself for an advantage. As he comes in, having gained angle on the enemy, "A" comes off, and is in turn free to work out of the plane of the fight to gain further angle. As the section aircraft relieve each other in a series of attacks, the bandit is never free to break off, and the section gradually gains advantage toward the bad guy's six, to be positioned for a shot. At least that's how it's supposed to work. (Of course, with new weaponry that can be shot in any direction from the fighter, you can forget all this; the fighter doesn't have to turn at all, and fighter-piloting becomes a quaint historical footnote.)

LOX Sounds like the salmon dish, but isn't. It's Liquid Oxygen, an explosive gas carried in the aircraft in a small, highly pressurized, LOX container. Navy fighter pilots breathe 100% oxygen (in the gaseous form, you understand) under pressure at all times while airborne. Usually that works out well, but for various ways to kill yourself if you tend toward stupidity see "Oxygen mask."

Lufbery

(circle) A stand-off between two fighters that are turning horizontally nose to tail in the same direction. If the flight characteristics of the two A/C are roughly equal, one may not be able to gain an advantage over the other. The Lufbery becomes as much defensive as offensive, and the circle can go on forever. Well, not really. Since it's hard to rendezvous with a tanker for in-flight refueling while you're in a 7 G turn, somebody will run out of gas. Or get bored, or need a nap. Being the first to break out of the Lufbery is usually not a good thing. You can't just fly off, or the enemy will be on your tail. So you try some purposeful maneuver, depending on whether you want to go home or fight on: If you have good power and slow-speed characteristics you can go nose high, which can make the enemy overshoot unless he joins you in a slow-speed fight; you can "split-S" or "high-G barrel roll" underneath if you have sufficient altitude–turning the fight in the vertical plane. You can run into the sun (this may confuse the opponent's eyes and heat-seeking missiles, but not his radar missiles), head into a cloud cover, or dive for the deck and run for home in the ground clutter. Ignominious, but if you're out of fuel... (Named after an American WWI pilot.)

Mach The speed of sound in a given medium is known as mach 1 in that medium, after the physisict Ernst Mach. Speeds greater than mach 1 are supersonic. In dry air at sea level at 32° F, mach one is about 742 mph, or 645 knots. At higher altitudes the speed of sound drops off considerably because of less dense air. The mach number is often used in aviation in preference to airspeed, especially at higher altitudes and speeds, because in those regimes it relates better to the aircraft's performance. The aircraft's speed gages read out both airspeed and mach number.

MAD "Magnetic Anomaly Detection." MAD gear is the heart and soul of anti-submarine reconnaisance. This ingenious gear is carried in a "MAD boom" at the tail end of dedicated US Navy ASW (anti-submarine warfare) aircraft, such as Lockheed's classic P-2 Neptune and their still-flying-after-50-years P-3 Orion. The gear measures tiny deviations from the expected magnetic field in the sea below, indicating the presence of a large metal body. (Parenthetically, the Navy P-2 Neptune's MAD surveys made great contributions to geology in the 1960s: While surveying the magnetic sea bed environment south of Iceland, US Navy scientists discovered proof of symmetrical magnetic reversals on each side of the mid-Atlantic ridge. This proved both the Earth's history of frequent magnetic reversals–the North and South poles flipping–and the theory of plate tectonics or "continental drift," by showing that the ocean bottom had spread–and is still spreading–from the mid-ocean ridge.)

Marking An alternative word for 'conning' or 'scratching', all meaning leaving a highly visible contrail behind the aircraft, always a no-no for a fighter pilot. If you're marking, you need to seriously change your altitude. [Thanks to Luft Pfeiff for the suggestion.]

Maximum

thrust See CRT for the synomymous "Combat Rated Thrust."

"Mayday" The international radio emergency call for aircraft in distress, equivalent to the SOS of Morse code. (Speaking of distress, that's probably the French reaction to this call, which is an anglicizing of the French m'aidez–"help me." And we know how the French love anglicizations of the sacred tongue.)

Midair You just need the one word to say "midair collision."

MiG-Master Name fondly applied to the US Navy's F-8 Crusader, which had the highest kill ratio against the Soviet bloc "MiG" (Mikoyan-Gurevich) fighters of any US Navy aircraft in the Viet Nam war. Braggadocious decal shown:

Mike 1. The letter "M" in radio comm. 2. The microphone. 3. Used in "Twenty mike-mike," for 20 mm gun ammo. 4. Your buddy Michael.

Mike-click Instead of a "Roger" over the air, a quick double click of the microphone button is the usual acknowledgement of a routine flight leader's instruction. The sound is that "Kh-kh" "static"-sounding thing you can make with the the back corner of your mouth. (If you can't make it, I can come and demonstrate, but I don't come cheap.)

Military

thrust Or "Military Rated Thrust." Not a uniformed sexual practice, though it does relate to performance. See "MRT."

MLP "Mirror Landing Practice", or Field MLP (FMLP). Practice for carrier landings, using the "Mirror." To hit the precise spot on the flight deck, Navy pilots don't flare to ease the rate of descent before touchdown, but drive the aircraft into the deck at a constant glideslope, usually 3½-4°. The touchdown is very hard, at a rate of descent of about 13 feet per second in the fast-landing Crusader (like sitting in a chair being dropped from 6 feet up–this is not good for the spine), slightly less in newer aircraft that land slower. (So the older pilot's bad back is not just from the several hundred carrier landings; it's also from the several thousand carrier-style landings ashore.) Carrier landings are extremely difficult, and MLP is to the Navy pilot what scales are to a piano student. Just as much fun.

Model The first version of a military aicraft to be delivered is normally known as model "A", as in F-14A. It's almost always a compromise, because some of the 100 or more manufacturers of components will always be behind schedule, so nearly-as-good components are put in in their place in the first version of the aircraft. The F-14, F-18, and F-111 are some of many examples where the desired engine was not ready for the first model. Thus, the "B" model is generally an improvement, but then you run into the desire of component manufacturers to develop and sell "improved" versions, as well as the Washington procurement brass who love the word "upgrade," and ... but see the entry at "Radome".

Morse code Navy pilots are still required to learn Morse code, which has some entertainment value, if nothing else. The theory is that when you're hopelessly lost and have no communication equipment except perhaps you can pick up the dots and dashes from a TACAN or ADF station, you'll be able to identify the station by its Morse code call letters and aim for it if that seems like a good idea. Not very useful for that purpose, but knowing the stuff always seems to impress girls. I still remember, in Pre-flite, introducing myself as Dit-dah-di-dit Di-dit Dit-dah-di-dit Dit-dah-di-dit Dit Dah-di-di-dit Dah-dah-dah. Catchy, eh?

Mount The landing gear, the wheels and struts. Fighter aircraft have a left and a right main mount, and a nose gear. If you're out driving with your hubby, the former ace Navy pilot, and he says "Drat it, honey, I've got a vibration in the port main mount!", you'll know he's bitchin' about the left rear wheel. If it were a front wheel he might say, say, "the starboard nose gear."

MRT "Military Rated Thrust"–100% power in basic engine. See "CRT."

NATOPS (Pronounced nay-tops) "Naval Air Training and Operational Procedures Standardization." The NATOPS manual is the naval aviator's bible. One of its great achievements is standardizing procedures to the degree that any Navy or Marine pilot in any aircraft can join up with another in an emergency situation, and through use of visual signals and understood procedures, guide a disabled aircraft to a safe landing or ejection and rescue. (See also "S.O.P."). Naval aviators drill daily on NATOPS emergency procedures, though of course they exercise their right to grouse about it.

Nautical

mile All aviation and ship activities measure distance in nautical miles. A nautical mile is about 15% longer than a statute mile (6,076 feet). There's a good reason for using the nautical miles in navigation: It works neatly because it equals one minute of arc of a nominal great circle, such as a meridian. Thus, one degree of latitude along a meridian equals 60 nautical miles. (90 degrees, the distance from the equator to the pole, is therefore 60x90=5400 nautical miles, and the Earth's circumference is 60x360=21,600 nautical miles– which is about 25,000 statute miles.) One nautical mile per hour is a speed of one knot.

Negative G The usual force of gravity on Earth, as well as in an airplane, is one "positive" G–acting toward the Earth or toward your feet. If you stand on your head you're experiencing "one negative G." If you flip your aircraft over in flight and fly level upside down you're also experiencing one negative G. Most airplanes (and almost all pilots) don't much care for flying in a negative G environment. As the pilot you're hanging in the seat harness, with your helmet up against the cockpit canopy and your butt off the seat. For the airplane, the fuel pick-up system must be designed to pick up fuel sloshing around on the top of the fuel tank. More of a challenge is designing the airframe to withstand negative G stresses. Generally, the designers count on the pilots' preference for the positive G environment, so airframes that may have a positive G limit of +9 G will not be stressed for more than perhaps -3 (negative) G. And in-between, of course, there's zero G.

The Ninety In a standard VFR landing pattern at the carrier or an air field, the point where the aircraft has 90° of turn left before rolling out in the groove for final approach. The normal altitude at this point will be about 450 feet above touchdown.

No joy "I don't see it." A radio reply to indicate that you don't have visual contact with whatever you're being asked about. The opposite of Tally-ho.

NORDO or

NORAD An aircraft that has inoperable communication gear. Help usually swings into action in the form of another aircraft of similar type who will lead the NORDO to a safe approach and landing, depending on standard hand signals for communication.

Notam "Notice to airmen." A time- and area-specific notice issued by civilian or military aviation authorities, often related to flight restrictions, runway closures, or other matters of immediate concern to pilots. If you fly, you'd better be familiar with the current Notams.

November The letter "N" in radio comm. "N" may be added to ship designations to indicate nuclear power, e.g., CVAN-65, the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (though lately the "N" has disappeared from carrier designations, since ... who isn't nuclear anymore?).

o'clock Pilots refer to relative direction by a clock code: 12 o'clock is straight ahead, 3 o'clock is due right, etc. Six is special. Fighter pilots have a phobia about their six.

One-eighty In the VFR landing pattern, the position downwind (i.e., flying opposite the landing direction, the runway or carrier about a mile to port), abeam the touchdown point on the runway or carrier, having "dirtied" the aircraft, where the pilot traditionally calls the tower (ashore only): "Tower, Gruesome 5, 180, gear down," and receives clearance to land. Altitude about 600 feet AGL (above ground level).

Ops Simply "Operations", usually flight ops to the aviator. Aboard the carrier,