[mustangdriver]

B-17 Flying Fortrress- the name was actually given to it not form Boeing, but from a Seattle newspaper man, who was seeing it for the first time.

A-6 Intruder Just a cool sounding one.

[Shawn 507]

How about Jabo for Allied fighter bombers. I've always liked the P-40 nicknames too. I wonder what the Japanese called the Hellcat, not that many survived to record it. On jets, Phantom, Intruder, Prowler are good. But nothing beats the F-86 Sabre!
- Shawn

[SKUNKY]

Originally Posted by Shawn 507

I wonder what the Japanese called the Hellcat,

I believe they usually referred to it as "Ohhhhhhhhhh f.. !!!

[Nimrod48]

Its the ones you dont see or hear that get you so its "Whispering Death" for me.

[skysurfer808]

Originally Posted by Shawn 507

How about Jabo for Allied fighter bombers. I've always liked the P-40 nicknames too. I wonder what the Japanese called the Hellcat, not that many survived to record it. On jets, Phantom, Intruder, Prowler are good. But nothing beats the F-86 Sabre!
- Shawn

Don't know what the Japanese called it but one of the Hellcat's Nicknames was the Grumman Rocking Chair. And who can beat Iron Works for Grumman itself.
The Dauntless was tagged as the Speedy Three for the SBD-3 (more ironic then real) and SBD was said to have stood for Slow But Deadly.
The Corsair was nicknamed the Hog by its pilots, while Vought came up with the rather lame U-bird as a company nickname...never caught on as nicely as Hog.
You gotta love the Thunderbolt's moniker Jug, though nothing beats a pair of jugs....which happened to be the callsign of one of the Navy's first female Aviators.

The Germans tended to nickname aircraft types after letters of the German Phonetic Alphabet, hence a Bf 109G was a Gustav...something we do with our Phonetic Alphabet to distinguish different models today.

The Zero was actually a nickname, as it was the Type 00 Naval Fighter, from the year of the Japanese calendar when it entered service, hence it became the Zero. And of course there were all the other code names for Japanese types, but Zeke never caught on as well as Zero.

I like the Phantom's nicknames...Double Ugly springs to mind as does Rhino...which has been retaken by the Super Hornet and is actually used on the radio net to distinguish it from a plain old Hornet.

Then there's Grumman's famous Tomcat, known in the fleet as the Turkey thanks to all its moving parts when the thing came in on the glidepath. Iraqi pilots in the Gulf War were known to have called the Tomcats by their number in Arabic, F Arsh Ahsara, followed by Yalla Yalla..."Oh my God, Oh my God."

Not many nicknames beat the Warthog, but the Huey came about from the original designation of the Huey...HU-1. Meanwhile the good old EA-6B was nicknamed Queer, thanks to its gold plated canopy...and the fact that Navy electronic warfare squadrons were designated VAQ. You can't beat the Spad for the old A-1, and the electronic warfare version was a Queer Spad. The Crusader was the Gator, thanks to its gaping jaw, while the A-7 Corsair was the SLUF (Short Little Ugly F<>>er , as opposed to the great B-52 BUFF (Big Ugly Fat F::::er.)

Incidently on the Russian side, Russian Mig 29 drivers have been known to use the Nato Codename Fulcrum to describe their mount, sounds way better than Mig Dvatcet Dyevit....though I don't picture them using Fishbed to describe the Mig 21.

Skysurfer808

[Ara1]

Yeah MD, Flying Fortress is a great one.

[mikeb1958]

Originally Posted by Nimrod48

Its the ones you dont see or hear that get you so its "Whispering Death" for me.

...or "Me not gonna do good after this"

[Epapazian]

Originally Posted by Shawn 507

How about Jabo for Allied fighter bombers. I've always liked the P-40 nicknames too. I wonder what the Japanese called the Hellcat, not that many survived to record it. On jets, Phantom, Intruder, Prowler are good. But nothing beats the F-86 Sabre!
- Shawn

Didn't the Germans call their BF-109s Jabos when they used them in the fighter-bomber role towards the end of the BOB and thereafter?

[Shamrock]

From what I can remember reading many years ago the B-17 was not called the 'Flying Fortress' because of later model's many .50 cal MGs. In fact the early models and prototypes were very much on par with their European twin motor counterparts regarding armament. Because of it's size bomb load, and range it was said it turned America into a fortress because the B-17 was deemed capable of defending it's four corners. If I'm wrong I'm sure I'll be corrected. Let battle commence!!

[Captain Eddie]

Originally Posted by Epapazian

Didn't the Germans call their BF-109s Jabos when they used them in the fighter-bomber role towards the end of the BOB and thereafter?

I could be incorrect, but I thought a Jabo was what you did, not what you flew.