A few years ago I bought a motorcycle magazine that had a sheet of stickers in it and one of them said "Mentally Unstable Load" and it kinda rang a bell, so when I registered here, I used it but in abbreviated form.
I also used to fly as crew in the back of an S61 doing undersling and hoist work and some slung loads were "unstable", so it was a nice parallel for me.

>On tankers we were rather proud of our position at the bottom of the social heap<

Surely the very bottom of the aircrew hierarchy is defined by Vigilant pilots on a VGS ;-) ACW599 was my callsign at 633 for a long time.

In the late '80s I spent too many hours sewing new Tashengurts (Tachengurts according to some) onto Phantom brake 'chutes to stop them squidding. Scarred me for life.

The main operational airfield in the RNZAF is Whenuapai (NZWP), where I did my only operational flying tour in the 1980s. The Maori name presented problems for foreign (ie US) aviators and famously it was pronounced by a visiting P-3 crew as 'when u r happy' rather than the more accepted 'ffenoo-a-pie'.

Plus it is rhetorical - any one who knows me well knows that I am rarely happy and often angry!

Likewise, not very imaginative, but shiny 10s. And, sorry ExAscoteer I didn't know that there was a name so similar when I joined the forum.

Arrived at RAF Halton, the College of Knowledge, in May 1971 (222 Entry). Signed on dotted line age 16yrs +2 days. Proud to have been part of a system which produced many luminaries, including Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle.

HB

When I needed to get an aircraft for a slot, ZH875 was a reliable bet. And as a reliable sort of chap I felt the moniker fitted. Would have been a name change required if I had chosen ZH876.

I notice OP has an interesting location, isn't that the airfield serving the Chiltern Hundreds?

...the black and yellow handle I was grateful to never have to pull!

If/when my current user name is banned, I hereby give notice that I will come back as GOM, or Grumpy Old Man, or similar. I have frequently been asked if I wrote the script, so I may as well live up to the repuation.

I own a company called Second Opinion Solutions Ltd.

Rgds SOS

Dear Courtney Mil,

Thank you for your query.

Having given the matter much thought, I decided to adopt as my nom-de-PPRuNe the nickname bestowed upon me by the 56(F) Sqn QWIN some years ago as I felt that it would perchance be more appropriate than my real name.

Rgds,

Lady Amelia Sheyd Haugh-Dawe

My barber's name is Ali and I live in the Middle-East (although a Neanderthal type English tourist on holiday did comment once that we must be very posh as everyone knew it was really called the East Midlands).

CM

If my memory serves me well (...I know, it's the start of a song - "Wheels on Fire") you told me in the billiards room in Akrotiri mess that your nickname was derived from the name of Lord Ware-Armitage's* manservant, Courtney* and suitably close to your real name to not confuse you when in drink (and did I remember correctly that you said your old man was a Gp Capt at the time ?). Don't worry if you can't remember, you were probably a bit dazed as a result of the fan-stopping game.

As for me, HTB is is an initialised reversion to an early sobriquet on a RAFG Tornado sqn (Harry the Barsteward); reversion caused by change of ISP with whom my Pprune name was Mister B and the name being disallowed by Pprune admin under the new ISP. Mister B arose because of an incident during an inter-sqn aircrew football game, when I made a robust tackle on a 33 Sqn pilot (JJ Burrows) which caused him to utter loudly "you dirty barsteward". Our QFI standing close by admonished this outburst with "that's Mister Barsteward to you son".

I have no idea why I attracted the "B" word - not because I was a forthright programmer with a hearing deficiency, or somewhat older than the average GR1 1st tourist with commensurate intolerance for rowdy children...:E

Mister B

*Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines - Terry Thomas and Eric Sykes

One of my first aerobatic manoeuvres in a JP5A - Simples!

It all dates back to a previous life as a socially overactive Phantom Phixer and a case of mistaken identity. In fact the 30 year rule now releases the case paperwork from the archives.:mad:

Having tried to spend the majority of my flying life on said Top Bunk in the real Albert, not the plastic lookalike, I think I must have tested most of them ;)

I shall set the scene... Remembrance Sunday about ten years ago... Drunken night out following post parade 'drinks' with the old and bold.
My oppo and I found ourselves in the company of two Liverpudlian 'ladies'...:uhoh:

I awoke the following morning in a star shape feeling the worse for wear... and I appeared to be in a strange house... :suspect:
At that very moment my esteemed colleague popped his head around the lounge door and spoke to an unseen female, who was now looking at me with some disdain from the sofa on the other side of the room.

He issued the following query to my new companion: "So... how did Zeus do last night???"

She replied in that coarse, vitriolic manner that is reserved for such occasions: "ZEUS?!? ZEUS?!? More like fuchkkkenn poose!"

It took months to out live this episode... :O

Perhaps it's because I'm not familiar with the Liverpool vernacular (although I've been working less than 30 miles from there for the last couple of weeks), or I'm schtoooopid, but I can't work this oune out!

(In Afrikaans it does make sense and is very rude!)

I chose my name because Mrs R is a staunch supporter of King Richard III. And it's easy to remember!