pilots' jargon and slang
Thread Starter
Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 35
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From: Moscow
Thanks everyone for more bits of banter! Everything is being put down meticulously in my nice little file.
Could you guys clear up some of the slang I've come across:
1) Home itus - is this some sort of a feeling a pilot has when close to his home airport and it can sort of obscure his judgment during approach making him land just because he is so impatient to get home even though it could be dangerous? "Itus" is something Latin or some perverted English word? Could not fugure it out.
2) FOQA, CPDLC - was not able to figure out these two acronyms.
3) Front office - is a slangy synonym for the flight deck?
4) coffin corner - have no idea what that could be.
Could you guys clear up some of the slang I've come across:
1) Home itus - is this some sort of a feeling a pilot has when close to his home airport and it can sort of obscure his judgment during approach making him land just because he is so impatient to get home even though it could be dangerous? "Itus" is something Latin or some perverted English word? Could not fugure it out.
2) FOQA, CPDLC - was not able to figure out these two acronyms.
3) Front office - is a slangy synonym for the flight deck?
4) coffin corner - have no idea what that could be.
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 26
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From: A
"Fish bowl" : TCAS display,
"Keep the blue side up", good advice, unless you are flying airbatic.
" Freight dog", you'll find them at Atlanta Harstfield, at around 4 AM near a 20 series Lear or an MU-2 carrying a bunch of checks.
" Vampire flight " organ transplant flight, usually in the middle of the night. This one I credit myself for.
Credit to Wikipedia:
"The coffin corner or Q-Corner is the altitude at or near which an aircraft's stall speed is equal to the critical Mach number, at a given gross weight and G loading. At this altitude the aircraft becomes nearly impossible to keep in stable flight. Since the stall speed is the minimum speed required to maintain level flight, any reduction in speed will cause the airplane to stall and lose altitude. Since the critical Mach number is maximum speed at which air can travel over the wings without losing lift to flow separation and shock waves, any increase in speed will cause the airplane to lose lift, or to pitch heavily nose-down, and lose altitude. The "corner" refers to the triangular shape at the top of a flight envelope chart where the stall speed and critical Mach number lines come together. Some aircraft, such as the Lockheed U-2, routinely operate in the "coffin corner", which demands great skill from their pilots."
"Keep the blue side up", good advice, unless you are flying airbatic.
" Freight dog", you'll find them at Atlanta Harstfield, at around 4 AM near a 20 series Lear or an MU-2 carrying a bunch of checks.
" Vampire flight " organ transplant flight, usually in the middle of the night. This one I credit myself for.
Credit to Wikipedia:
"The coffin corner or Q-Corner is the altitude at or near which an aircraft's stall speed is equal to the critical Mach number, at a given gross weight and G loading. At this altitude the aircraft becomes nearly impossible to keep in stable flight. Since the stall speed is the minimum speed required to maintain level flight, any reduction in speed will cause the airplane to stall and lose altitude. Since the critical Mach number is maximum speed at which air can travel over the wings without losing lift to flow separation and shock waves, any increase in speed will cause the airplane to lose lift, or to pitch heavily nose-down, and lose altitude. The "corner" refers to the triangular shape at the top of a flight envelope chart where the stall speed and critical Mach number lines come together. Some aircraft, such as the Lockheed U-2, routinely operate in the "coffin corner", which demands great skill from their pilots."
Joined: Mar 2008
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From: UK
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 638
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From: South Oxfordshire
XD, the term "-itis" is derived from Greek and means "inflammation" in medical terms. For example Tonsilitis is an inflammation of the tonsils.
It is often applied incorrectly as a suffix to made-up maladies (like "Get-home-itis") to make them sound like genuine medical disorders, or to describe something (as in this case) which would take a whole sentance to explain otherwise.
Of course, in this case it would translate as' inflammation of the get home', which makes no sense. However, although technically incorrect everybody understands to what Get-Home-itis refers....the desire to land and get home overrides potentially more sensible decisions.
No-one's mentioned "donkey" yet (or "donk" for short). I'm no expert, but I understand this to mean an aircraft engine. The engine is also referred to by my instructor on single engine a/c as the "air conditining unit" because when it stops mid-flight everyone on board immediately starts to sweat.
It is often applied incorrectly as a suffix to made-up maladies (like "Get-home-itis") to make them sound like genuine medical disorders, or to describe something (as in this case) which would take a whole sentance to explain otherwise.
Of course, in this case it would translate as' inflammation of the get home', which makes no sense. However, although technically incorrect everybody understands to what Get-Home-itis refers....the desire to land and get home overrides potentially more sensible decisions.
No-one's mentioned "donkey" yet (or "donk" for short). I'm no expert, but I understand this to mean an aircraft engine. The engine is also referred to by my instructor on single engine a/c as the "air conditining unit" because when it stops mid-flight everyone on board immediately starts to sweat.
Last edited by Blues&twos; 5th August 2008 at 13:17.
PPRuNe Handmaiden
Joined: Feb 1997
Posts: 4,914
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From: Duit On Mon Dei
Front office = pointy end = best view in the house = cockpit/Flight deck.
Metal or aluminium tube = aeroplane.
Burning kero = burn fuel. Kerosene aka Jet A 1.
Thumped it in = heavy-ish landing.
Carved my initials on the runway = heavy-ish landing.
Burn holes in the sky = holding pattern.
Top of Drop = Top of Descent.
Box = FMS or radio units.
Mark 1 eyeball = your eyes.
SLF = Self loading freight = passengers.
The opposite to "Climbs like a homesick angel" is
"Descends like a homesick brick".
Rattling clouds = Thunderstorms
Sparking clouds = Thunderstorms
Solid clouds = Hail
Clouds with ice = Hail
Chucking it down = Raining heavily.
CB = Cumulo Nimbus. Big fat tall thundery type of cloud.
Cumulo Granitus = fake latin for terrain. Cumulo = type of cloud, Granitus = granite, a type of rock.
Hope this helps.
Metal or aluminium tube = aeroplane.
Burning kero = burn fuel. Kerosene aka Jet A 1.
Thumped it in = heavy-ish landing.
Carved my initials on the runway = heavy-ish landing.
Burn holes in the sky = holding pattern.
Top of Drop = Top of Descent.
Box = FMS or radio units.
Mark 1 eyeball = your eyes.
SLF = Self loading freight = passengers.
The opposite to "Climbs like a homesick angel" is
"Descends like a homesick brick".
Rattling clouds = Thunderstorms
Sparking clouds = Thunderstorms
Solid clouds = Hail
Clouds with ice = Hail
Chucking it down = Raining heavily.
CB = Cumulo Nimbus. Big fat tall thundery type of cloud.
Cumulo Granitus = fake latin for terrain. Cumulo = type of cloud, Granitus = granite, a type of rock.
Hope this helps.
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 725
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From: Australia
B717/MD-95 performance is exceptional -- it climbs like a fart in a bathtub.
Once flew a Cessna 210 without weather radar into a tropical cumolonimbus. The turbulence had it shaking like a dog sh!tting pinecones.
Once flew a Cessna 210 without weather radar into a tropical cumolonimbus. The turbulence had it shaking like a dog sh!tting pinecones.
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 557
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From: .
If that bad boy (CB) moves close enough to the strip (airfield) to make our arse's twitch (concern us) we will throw it away (discontinue the approach/or go-around) and go and burn the profit margin (hold till its passed) then have another crack (before returning for a successful approach and landing) then taxi in for tea and medals (complete post flight paper work).
I am going positively fly this onto the gound - we are late and I want to make the high speed turn-off!
Turn em and burn em - starting number 2.
just fly the needles - Oh cr*p the FMC has packed up, just fly a raw data arrival/departure
Capt's weather - CALM CAVOK
FO's weather - 35G45 across, +RN,
Engine room/pointy bit - flight deck
Best dirty her up - think you need gear and or flaps!
Punchy approach - bit fast and high!
Puddle jumpers - light singles
Is that change legal? - please don't give me that duty as i think i might die from exhaustion!
I am going positively fly this onto the gound - we are late and I want to make the high speed turn-off!
Turn em and burn em - starting number 2.
just fly the needles - Oh cr*p the FMC has packed up, just fly a raw data arrival/departure
Capt's weather - CALM CAVOK
FO's weather - 35G45 across, +RN,
Engine room/pointy bit - flight deck
Best dirty her up - think you need gear and or flaps!
Punchy approach - bit fast and high!
Puddle jumpers - light singles
Is that change legal? - please don't give me that duty as i think i might die from exhaustion!
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 1,420
Likes: 1
From: AEP
Aero Slang
Hola Xolodenko - Privet
xxx
Zdrasvuitye... Ochen priyatnya - sorry - no Cyrillic alphabet here.
I see you have been giving and receiving a lot of slang words or acronyms...
xxx
Be aware that there are notorious differences between UK and Yank aviation slang.
I have lived 25 yrs in the USA, so my aviation English is from Yankistan.
xxs
With my airline in the US, sure, there was "George" for the autopilot...
But sometimes we also joked - saying -
"A German approach" - (for "coupled approach") using the "OTTOpilot"...
"A Mexican approach" - (for hand flown, manual) since MANUEL is common name in Mexico...
xxx
We used to remember QNH and QFE altimeter settings this way -
QNH was for Normal Humans (in the USA, standard procedure) -
QFE for "F*** Europeans" - landing with "0" on altimeter as you do in Russia -
xxx
Did you know that when we went to MOCKBA... if our traffic was a Ilyushyn IL-62, we would nickname them "Veecee-ten-ski", for their resemblance to the British VC-10... We would call the IL-76 "One-Forty-Oneskis" due to their resemblance to the Lockheed C-141... and the TU-134 was a Deecee-nine-ski, again due to their look. The TU-154 was a "Seven-twenty-seven-ski"...
I guess we could do same for the 757 with the TU-204...
Well, we did same for your cars, the LADA, we called it the "Fiatski"...
And a ZIL or Tshayka was a Lincolnski...
xxx
Before SLF was coined, we used to say "SOB" - not for souls-on-board - but son-of-a-bitch. I think SLF is nicer.
xxx
Hope that Trans-Aero is doing good with their old 747-200s... I am the pilot who delivered them to Domodedovo from their storage in the California desert in 2005... Nice bunch of pilots. I don't like vodka, but instead, we had a few "Baltikas" together in Moscow... I love Russian beer, hate Budweiser...
xxx
Tally-ho is indeed fighter pilot jargon for "target" (traffic) in sight...
No-joy, should you have missed (not seen) that target = miss the joy to shoot him down...
Douglas DC-8s were DC "late" as they were slower than the 707, or did not sell as good.
Also called the Santa Monica "cable cars" - due to profusion of cables to operate flight controls.
The little Learjet is called the "Fearjet" - as the old ones were sobering machines for some pilots...
The early Citations were known as "Slo-tations" - their cruise speed being slow...
We said that Citations need a weather radar in the tail - to prevent "bird strikes" from the rear...
The Mitsubishi MU-2 was the Rice-Rocket...
Here, we nickname all Embraer Jets, the "Samba Jets"...
Our presidential "air force one" plane in Argentina is a 757, "T-1" (Tango One) -
Quite appropriate that "T" is Tango = our national dance...
xxx
Dosvidanya -
Happy contrails
xxx
Zdrasvuitye... Ochen priyatnya - sorry - no Cyrillic alphabet here.
I see you have been giving and receiving a lot of slang words or acronyms...
xxx
Be aware that there are notorious differences between UK and Yank aviation slang.
I have lived 25 yrs in the USA, so my aviation English is from Yankistan.
xxs
With my airline in the US, sure, there was "George" for the autopilot...
But sometimes we also joked - saying -
"A German approach" - (for "coupled approach") using the "OTTOpilot"...
"A Mexican approach" - (for hand flown, manual) since MANUEL is common name in Mexico...
xxx
We used to remember QNH and QFE altimeter settings this way -
QNH was for Normal Humans (in the USA, standard procedure) -
QFE for "F*** Europeans" - landing with "0" on altimeter as you do in Russia -
xxx
Did you know that when we went to MOCKBA... if our traffic was a Ilyushyn IL-62, we would nickname them "Veecee-ten-ski", for their resemblance to the British VC-10... We would call the IL-76 "One-Forty-Oneskis" due to their resemblance to the Lockheed C-141... and the TU-134 was a Deecee-nine-ski, again due to their look. The TU-154 was a "Seven-twenty-seven-ski"...
I guess we could do same for the 757 with the TU-204...
Well, we did same for your cars, the LADA, we called it the "Fiatski"...
And a ZIL or Tshayka was a Lincolnski...
xxx
Before SLF was coined, we used to say "SOB" - not for souls-on-board - but son-of-a-bitch. I think SLF is nicer.
xxx
Hope that Trans-Aero is doing good with their old 747-200s... I am the pilot who delivered them to Domodedovo from their storage in the California desert in 2005... Nice bunch of pilots. I don't like vodka, but instead, we had a few "Baltikas" together in Moscow... I love Russian beer, hate Budweiser...
xxx
Tally-ho is indeed fighter pilot jargon for "target" (traffic) in sight...
No-joy, should you have missed (not seen) that target = miss the joy to shoot him down...
Douglas DC-8s were DC "late" as they were slower than the 707, or did not sell as good.
Also called the Santa Monica "cable cars" - due to profusion of cables to operate flight controls.
The little Learjet is called the "Fearjet" - as the old ones were sobering machines for some pilots...
The early Citations were known as "Slo-tations" - their cruise speed being slow...
We said that Citations need a weather radar in the tail - to prevent "bird strikes" from the rear...
The Mitsubishi MU-2 was the Rice-Rocket...
Here, we nickname all Embraer Jets, the "Samba Jets"...
Our presidential "air force one" plane in Argentina is a 757, "T-1" (Tango One) -
Quite appropriate that "T" is Tango = our national dance...
xxx
Dosvidanya -
Happy contrails
Thread Starter
Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 35
Likes: 0
From: Moscow
BelArgUSA, thanks a lot for your post! A mighty chunk of slang to add to my file!
1. Yes, I am aware that pprune.org is a UKish forum so most of the slang I will get here will apply to UK flight ops only. I've posted a similar thread on Airline Pilot Central, which is where US flying folks are hanging around but the response was great deal poorer than here. Anyways, I am really grateful to all who shared their stuff and I am actually kind of surpirsed that the response to this thread here was so hugely different from that on the APC forum.
2. We also have plenty of nicknames for aircraft up here in Russia but they are mostly for Soviet-made planes so they won't be of much interest for you. As for Western-made jets, generic nickname for Boeing is "Bobik" (has no meaning in English, just a Russian word which looks closest to "Boeing" and it's actually a popular name for a dog). Airbus is called "Arbuz" (Aarbuuuz), which is "watemelon". But again this is not because this plane looks like a watermelon, it's just a Russian word, which looks closest to "Airbus".
Then we have a couple of nicknames for specific models:
B 737 - "Little Boeing"
B 747 - "A humpy one"
B 777 - "Three axes" ("7" looks like an axe)
Nothing really ingenious, the nicknames for Soviet planes are much more witty but they just won't make sense if translated into English.
Soviet planes you've mentioned:
Tu-134 - Whistle (its engine makes a whistling sound), Fighter Jet (probably because it's pretty fast), Little Tupolev
Tu-154 - Fifty, Steam Engine, Big Tupolev
Il-62 - Log (Timber)
Il-76 - called a "Hump" too
Cheers from your strategic "friend" Russia, the home of vodka-drunk bears with their pawns always on the nuke launch button!
1. Yes, I am aware that pprune.org is a UKish forum so most of the slang I will get here will apply to UK flight ops only. I've posted a similar thread on Airline Pilot Central, which is where US flying folks are hanging around but the response was great deal poorer than here. Anyways, I am really grateful to all who shared their stuff and I am actually kind of surpirsed that the response to this thread here was so hugely different from that on the APC forum.
2. We also have plenty of nicknames for aircraft up here in Russia but they are mostly for Soviet-made planes so they won't be of much interest for you. As for Western-made jets, generic nickname for Boeing is "Bobik" (has no meaning in English, just a Russian word which looks closest to "Boeing" and it's actually a popular name for a dog). Airbus is called "Arbuz" (Aarbuuuz), which is "watemelon". But again this is not because this plane looks like a watermelon, it's just a Russian word, which looks closest to "Airbus".
Then we have a couple of nicknames for specific models:
B 737 - "Little Boeing"
B 747 - "A humpy one"
B 777 - "Three axes" ("7" looks like an axe)
Nothing really ingenious, the nicknames for Soviet planes are much more witty but they just won't make sense if translated into English.
Soviet planes you've mentioned:
Tu-134 - Whistle (its engine makes a whistling sound), Fighter Jet (probably because it's pretty fast), Little Tupolev
Tu-154 - Fifty, Steam Engine, Big Tupolev
Il-62 - Log (Timber)
Il-76 - called a "Hump" too
Cheers from your strategic "friend" Russia, the home of vodka-drunk bears with their pawns always on the nuke launch button!
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 8,266
Likes: 1
From: Berkshire, UK
<<" Vampire flight " organ transplant flight, usually in the middle of the night. This one I credit myself for.>>
Or "Offal flight".
CB = CumuloBumpulus
Window Job... Where landing aircraft are so close, all the radar controllers run to peer outside.
Or "Offal flight".
CB = CumuloBumpulus
Window Job... Where landing aircraft are so close, all the radar controllers run to peer outside.
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 2,003
Likes: 0
From: The foot of Mt. Belzoni.
Boeing 747SP = Sainsbury's chicken.
Typhoon = Eurof*rter.
L1011 = Lockheed T*rdstar.
C141 = Lockheed Shirt-lifter.
C17 = Thunderbird 2.
Holding-pattern = The perpetual dogfight in progress over the radio-facility serving the airfield.
Typhoon = Eurof*rter.
L1011 = Lockheed T*rdstar.
C141 = Lockheed Shirt-lifter.
C17 = Thunderbird 2.
Holding-pattern = The perpetual dogfight in progress over the radio-facility serving the airfield.
