Swanwick Mil this is Trouser formation
 

Jaguar and Su-22 Fitter flew over just now this afternoon using TROUSER as the callsign.
They were up again this morning with 1 Jag leading 3 Su-22's.

Got to be one of the best callsigns ive heard in a long time.

Must admit, I do like the 493rd's 'CHOSEN'

They were following Cresta...It's frothy man!

You can't beat the C/S GIMLET - Oxford Dictionary definition is 'A small boring tool'

Think it was a Jag C/S a while ago? More suited to harrier jockeys me thinks.:cool:

I went downbird with an oil leak once - The PAN call as 'Booby Leader' went down well!!! Apparently it's a large sea bird....

Callsign Abuse

Recall that during Allied Force those nice folks at Vicenza got to decide on national callsigns for singletons on airtests etc (the fighting callsigns being allocated by the ATO). Much effort was expended on making things funny by the addition of 'One' Hence:

Chosen One

Givva One

Holin One

Happy One

there must have been more ..........

Don't forget "Slipper" :E

Always beware Squadron Bosses going through the obscurest reference books to find 'themed' callsigns...

SPANK from the 48th FW was a good one.... Unfortunately they don't tend to use single numericals, so it was SPANK 11 or higher.

Believe it was to do with a fluffy monkey they had and the arsehole of the week had to fly with 'Spank' in the cockpit.

On a recent deployment to Poland I was leading a formation of Sea Harriers across Germany to our first refuelling stop. We were using our Squaron callisign of 'Vixen' formation and I could not work out why the German controllers were laughing every time we checked in on their frequency. One controller even said on the radio 'you don't want to know what that means in German!'
None the wiser we landed at Wunsdorf for a refuel and one of our formation, a fluent German speaker suddenly remember that vixen (or wixen as they would say it) meant wan*ing in German. No wonder there was so much mirth as we checked in as Wan*ing 2, 3, and 4 across the German airwaves.

Reminds me of an exercise over northern Australia a few years back (possibly a Pitch Black).

The visiting FJ teams from the USMC, Thailand, Singapore were all using snake related callsigns, e.g. Cobra, Taipan, Python etc...

Apparently the RAAF 707 tanker crews thought it would be funny to play along with the game, so they dubbed themselves "Trouser". :E

I hear it had to be explained to the Thais! :}

Magoo:ok:

Black N Yellar,

there was an occasion some years ago at Fighter Town when a certain "F" diverted a whole squadron to Valley due weather.

They were furious and wanted to come back as "Big fat ba**ard who lives next to Wings formation" but they had to make do with "Axewound" formation.

What does that mean? Why was it so funny?


:E :E :E :E :E :E

208 at Valley use OBI.

Kind of falls down after 1 though.

Recovered after Trouser who were all fuel priority and couldn't resist a gag about these trousers not having the legs.

Trouser 1 had to inform Ops "Trousers down in 10 minutes"

Arf.

Black 'n Yellar, apart from having an obscure local meaning they also cannot pronounce it.

Back in the days of the large US contingent in the UK the A10s from Bentwaters and Woodbridge used to use some very strange callsigns. In addition the 2 bases had their IAFs named after females.

It was not unusual to have Willy calling for immediate penetration on arrival at Karen.

an old favourite formation callsign was "Potato"... checking in as "Potato 1, Potato 2, Potato 3, Potato 4...

A10s when based in the the UK used pig related callsigns... when Sausage Formation where inbound for a practice approach and overshoot (go around)... the controller asked them if they would be prepared to roll from the approach... for controller training

Truth was it was simply becasue he wanted to make the liaison call to Tower... "10miles Sausage Roll" (doesn't work with phraseology "touch and go" though?)

I'm sure there are hundreds more...?

Once upon a time in Deci, there was an ANDOVER formation. The check-in went something like.......

Andover, Legover, Bendover etc. The Italian controller at Frasca did not find it amusing.

When the Jags were at Gioia they would use 'callsign 1' when on an airtest or local wazzing about (like a very memorable airfield attack - the Italian Airforce Spada batteries couldn't train the launchers down far enough!). Replace 'callsign' with 'Givva' or 'Slippa'. Don't think the locals caught on ...... ;)

Once heard a rotary formation bell up ATC announcing themselves as Hobbit formation. Confused ATC replied, "Was that 'Hobble' formation?".

Straight back with,"No mate. Hobbit. As in a small dwarf-like creature with furry toes."

Made me laugh.

Pierre.....Think you'll find that the correct check in for Potato formation is....

"One potato, two potato, three potato, Four"