Fighter Pilot Lingo Explained 

Just wanted to say a big thank you to this channel! I report to OCS November 3rd this year with the Navy. Once that is done I go to Pensacola for flight school. Anybody who is trying to become a military pilot should definitely watch this channel. I used your advice and tips numerous times. The best advice I received was to MAKE THEM TELL YOU NO! (multiple times)

"They misuse the Queen's English a lot" You're Goddamn right. *Sips tea furiously*

Thank you now I know what my wingman is saying to me in DCS. Awesome videos as always man!

I spent a career as a C1 30 flight engineer one of the terms we used a lot was” ‘wing-off light’Which meant exceeding aircraft performance envelope

It’s really funny hearing the Air Force and Navy lingo and comparing it to our own lingo in Army Aviation.

The best call I ever heard was a flight lead in a flight of 4 coming to the merge against another 4-ship: "No Visual, No Tally, No Clue. Blow Through!"

I went non-current 26 years ago after 23 years of daily use. Nice to see little has changed. These terms become so part of you that you some times inadvertently use them in current situations (totally mystifying those listening).

One of the maintainers sayings that I liked - Pilot writes up something in the forms, specialists spend hours troubleshooting and finds nothing. Maintenance Chief asks, “How did you sign it off?” “Could not duplicate, Short between the headsets”. Another great video Mover. (Bill from Slidell).

You should cover some of the more basic ones for fighters. Fox 1, Fox 2, Fox 3, Rifle, Magnum, RTB, MadDog/Pitbull, Bug/SuperBug, etc. Love your videos, Mover. Keep it up.

"hey are you with that other F-16 out there?" "Yea we're holding hands..." daawwwww

One of the best calls I've ever heard was from the lead of a 4-ship approaching the merge with another 4-ship. The call was "No visual, no tally, no clue, blow through!"

Mom: clean the dishes! Me: unable Mom: you like having gas in your car?? Me: Copy that. WILCO.

*Wife:* _stop binge watching Mover vids and pay attention to me_ *Me:* _unable_

Thanks for your service, Mover! I'm an ex-wingnut (B-52 AMMO) and my previous next-door neighbor is an Eagle wizzo who flew with the Navy Growlers. It was interesting (to say the least) to hear him describe the differences between how the AF and Navy operate. Be good, brotha!

I last flew in late 81 in the F-4 and it is good to know that I can still understand the lingo. BTW, I know a guy whose call sign was Nordo.

The DCS event was a lot of fun to watch and I really enjoyed the running commentary. Well done!

Great video that brought back memories when flying in fighters with the USAF a hundred years ago. Surprised that lingo still is used. One of my all time favorites and still use it quite often 'WAG, for wild ass guess. Thanks for the video I enjoyed it.

Hey Mover, great channel, brings back a lot of good memories!

I am really impressed how pilots/controllers can understand each other with so fast-speaking one-word exchanges over the radio... I would probably have to ask you to repeat half a dozen time. I understand the need to be terse though, nothing worse than having people blabbing over and over.

Imagine a bunch of fighter pilots picking up girls in a bar being like "tally target visual friendlies"

Just for fun, I think I'll try to start talking like this regularly with my student pilot friends. But seriously, this was a great video. It would be awesome if you did a part two and beyond on this topic. I know many of us, your audience, would love to watch that.

all the stuff on your wall is exactly what my dads house looks like haha he flew f-16s all while i was growing up until i entered high school. i love your vids man, keep it up!

Another pilot euphemism I like is, "Temporarily uncertain of position" = Lost.

Great episode! I sure hope for a follow up. Best greetings from Germany and a successful, healthy and peaceful New Year 2020!

Great video!! I would love to see a Part 2 with things like Commit vs Engage.

I love the fighting falcon! Big laugh over here from that joke. Thanks for doing this video Mover!

Gracias! This is unique, hard to find and generally not easily searchable on the net. Am glad you choose to cover it. I foresee bewildered faces during my conversations in the coming weeks. Do you plan on a follow up or Part 2 video on this topic? Disclosure - A similar endeavor of mine to include Scuba Diving Lingo in everyday conversations ended up as a DUD.

Mover, completely professional presentations, highly informative, loose but lucid, and more than a bit entertaining, bloody good job!. One question though. In my 21 years in the R.A.A.F. I found the answer why so few non-fighter service personnel were not able to score a ride (a 'jolly) in a two seat fast mover, and it all boils down to the the 'Four P's'. If a person was not Pilot, Press, Politician or Pussy, your chances were close to zero...just sayin'.

Thanks! I'm now less clueless.... I do believe this was the first topic I messaged you....

Thanks for the tighten-up!

Hi Mover, It was a pleasure to meet you at DFW! I really enjoy you videos and thanks for the smooth flight to OKC! -Mark P.

Learnt some of this in dcs f15c campaign recently for mock dog fighting so calling frag and fence in bfm etc... Love ya vids mover.

for A/C status in the Navy it's also referred as Up/Partial/Down status and after Opcheck ground turn we say shutdown Alpha (up) or shutdown Victor (down)

Mover, using this as a concise explanation for my friends who always call me out on the mil pilot vernacular.

My favorite was always -- "Make a play for the deck"

Thanks for sharing this! As a writer I find it so helpful!

Awesome videos! Especially this one! But boy, I’m glad I fly C-5s lol. Can’t spill that coffee! Cheers brother!

Love it, do another with more, please sir!

What up bro? It's Mouth from the Air Guard!! Long time brother!! Great video. I knew it was someone from New Orleans when you said 'the Saints won'... I'm still there bro. Give me a shout when you can!!!

Oh god as soon as i heard "code 1" starting having memories of the spam of code 3s on fridays

Good video, fun to talk lingo when flying DCS. Just ordered Spectre Rising, first non-clancy techno thriller for me!

Love the Makos paint scheme! Saw the plane at their airshow a few years ago. 🤙

"sensitive new age pilots" lol

Sir, such a good video, so many thanks🤟👏

Love the term "Helmet Fire"

example of low SA and No SA I said to Hollywood : Where did the go? And Hollywood said "Where did whooooo gooooooooo?"

Entertaining. Knowing this slang helped me to follow parts of the Spectre book.

Great info! Thanks man!

One of my most favorite calls in a SES, "Miller time Miller time"

That last one “See You Next Time” is a very important one!! 😲

That was great. I can see how it becomes standard when used all the time. That may not be many of us.

Fun! Enjoyed this stuff. Thank you!

Excellent ! That was about a 3 way split for me. 1/3 new, 1/3 confirmed/clarified and 1/3 Yup understood that already. I'm a former NORAD Weapons Controller and it's interesting to compare with the terms used in the old SAGE environment. We had a sometimes useful automated ystem of guiding our primary interceptors (F-106) to targets using datalink and my 2 favorite terms were "Follow Dolly" (Telling the pilot we are sending them a target to attack via datalink - follow that guidance. "Judy" The pilot would call that when he didn't need any more voice guidance for the target (Shut up and let me get this kill) That also meant we were no longer responsible for getting them in behind the target (Almost every intercept was stern conversion where we drove them to the point where they had about a 30 to 45 degree angle off the nose of the target and we were to guide them to turn and roll out behind the target at about a 1/2 to 1 mile range. Of course that was in the benign intercept with no evasion permitted. Naturally that became more difficult to achieve when the target turned into your pilot. The one unique situation we often had was that we were often controlling planes over the great lakes region and in fall and early spring they hated going "feet wet" then. After the lakes totally iced over not as serious and of course in the short summer not a big issue. Many times we were directed to set them up on cap stations over the lakes and they were always unhappy with that. You'd get repeated calls of "Goliath LimaHotel 02 Feet Wet" Their meaning was - GET ME THE "H" over land NOW, stop having me orbit over water. Most times there was nothing we could do because our assigned MOA was mostly over water.

My 1st paying gig was flying freight and I heard DILLIGAF fairly often. Also, "Don't worry about the mule going blind and just load the wagon." DELTA was "Don't even leave the airport". There was Scare Air aka US Air. Here in SC every other pilot flew 16s with KSSC and KMMT nearby. "I'm a dot" I always liked.

Most fun I had controlling was a 3v2 with British Harriers and Jaguars. The 3rd Harrier broke off just outside the Jaguars radar range. Both flights wanted close control to the merge becoming 3 flights when the 3rd Harrier broke off to sneak in behind the Jaguars. Former Navy AIC callsign Hyper.

Great video!

Good stuff. Look forward to Fighter Pilot Lingo part 2 should you decide to make it.

Macos!!!! HARB!!!! I was there recently! Never a quiet morning there and it’s awesome!

Let me tighten you up a bit regarding Up/Down. 1st off, I am old, .(The mighty F4J/S) so this may not apply anymore...also, I was in the Marine Corps, so the crayons may have NON-RFI'd my memory. We used two ups or two downs or a combination of both: Aircraft is up and up (GTG) Aircraft is up/down (Good airframe/engine, bad avionics/electrical) Aircraft is down/up (Bad airframe/engine, good avionics/electrical) Aircraft is hard down(inclusive) Keep up the good work and please stay safe. Regards.

Thank you sir for the video!!!

Clear as mud CW. I get all them phrases buddy 🇱🇷

"No impact/No idea" was our old Jarhead grunt equivalent of Cluedo. "Lost in the sauce" works too.

Same - My old fire department used that term. "Dixie Engine 1 will be en route to structure fire 64 west." "Dixie Engine 2 same traffic."

I haven't heard many of these terms since I left the USMC. Served as an enlisted aircrew on CH-46E. Really miss flying everyday.

Priceless. I probably would've been a solid fighter pilot if I'd been groomed to be one but I ended up being a professional limo driver.. which is badass in and of itself, at least to me, but I can relate to the focus, self discipline and calm demeanor of fighter pilots. Anyways.. I'm definitely adopting this lingo and will watch this video until I memorize most or all of it. I appreciate the insight into the FP lifestyle.

This is what i've been looking for

Push toward a part 2, go hot!

My dad is a retired F-15E pilot (but he's flown Phantoms and Talons in his career). I feel bad because he would have these talks with me when I was 7, and I now have the context after watching this. Hope he will forgive me. :)

Terms I have heard listening on the scanner during Red Flag. "Bullseye" and "With Picture".

In the UK (I don't know about other parts of the world), the military have a term for a low-hours pilot - (I believe that it's "Tyro"). When flying solo as a student, we are supposed to prefix our callsign on initial contact with "student". If flying into a MATZ, a low hours pilot can use the prefix "Tyro" when qualified. I like that convention. I wish that civilian FIS would adopt it.

Hey Mover. Thanks for all your shared insigths. Really enjoy them everytime! I would be very interested in your thoughts on the DCS F16 flightmodel, as I know you have been good /fortunate enough to be in a real F16. Never had that opportunity myself, so purely enjoying DCS flavors...but is it close?

"as fragged" - comes from "fragmentary order". You have a published Op order - changes or additions are fragmentary orders to the original order.

In an old book from the 1980s there was a list of expressions that naval aviators used, and one of the few I can remember was "Sierra Hotel" for Shit Hot... Does anyone still say that?

As a fellow Sailor and Dep, and (assuming) Tom Clancy fan, I'm subscribing to your channel.

Moaning in the Royal Navy is referred to as ‘dripping’ as in the annoyance of listening to a dripping tap.

My favourite callouts on DCS are "Fox three pitbull" followed immediately by "Raygun"

Things must have changed, we used code 1, code 2, and hard down in the Marines in the early '80s. I was Phantom radar shop so we had a lot of code 2 stuff that didn't get worked on until after the last jet was on the ground or when it went hard down for something else, (and after that shop had worked THEIR gripes AND the jet wasn't needed for another hop right away). The saying was, "fuckit, flyit, fixit later." I just remembered, in the maintenance control shack they had a board for aircraft status, two columns with an arrow drawn in each block on every jet's line, up arrow or down arrow. First column was airframe status and second column was radar status. Up and up, up and down, down and up and down and down were the possibilities.

my fave is "nervous" which means terrified.

Have you ever done an in country SEAD mission? I was JFO qual'd and went to JTAC school for army soldiers. I only had to do one and that was during the invasion of Iraq.

Hey mover love your content, working on reading your books, as a Marine FO splash call is 5 sec till impact of rounds fired so FO knows when to look just fyi thanks

To my way of thinking, making your way to the bar when the beer light comes on is the most important push of the day.

Thanks! BTW Sully was asked if he wanted to go to Teterboro (KTEB), not Newark. Just threw that out since TEB is where I got my PPL over two decades ago.😆 Wise choice on his part, NO doubt! Any attempt to stretch a glide from where they lost both engines, to TEB would have likely ended REALLY badly! Nothing but several radio towers with guy wires all over that area, in close proximity to the airfield! Wires that you cannot see well, or at all sometimes.

Super interesting, thanks! So if you heard me over the radio saying, “Tally, 1500, low aspect, I’m Jester, turning hot” that’d make sense? Asking for the time I’ll never actually say that in real life 😅

Wanking: 100 sailors set sail and 50 couples come out!😂

"No joy" was referenced in Top Gun.

Even with your detailed explanations I'm still cluedo.

Hey Mover, I really enjoy your videos! I’ve submitted my pre-qual paperwork to the air force several months ago but haven’t heard a word back since. Does that mean I’m already out of the picture? I’m a CFI, CFII, and MEI right now and I’m fully prepared to do anything and everything to strap an A-10 (or really anything other than a 172) to my back but I don’t know where to go from here. Cheers and see you in the skies!

Ah, so fast movers use Fragmentary Order as well. In the Army we say "frago" For, well, fragmentary order. A small update/change to the OPORD - Operations Order. Thanks for the clarification Mover. Now get back to writing the next book of the Spectre series! :)

Lmao! @ “That’s ok though, they misuse the Queen’s English a lot.” Edit: We need a video two on this with whatever else was left out.

Awesome!

Tango Uniform... man...that really cracked me up.... :D

I work on the T-38C. Interesting bird.

It's interesting that you use the word quibbling just like we do.

A bit more detailed - FRAG/FRAGO = Fragment Order. Part of an overall operational or tasking order. FRAGs/FRAGO are more detailed part of the overall order. Overall order may not go into that detail or situation not originally covered. Your FRAG is a "Fragment" of the overall tasking. Back in the day followed 5 paragraph format.

Quibbling, So To Speak, and Standard are all used in the exact same meaning, in common conversation. quibble, if you will, but they're pretty standard, so to speak.

“In the Navy it’s the other way around so... they’re backwards” hahaha @ how you said that

I got one from offshore diving industry, 'left bottom' it means diver back to the bell or bell back to surface or somebody says he farted

I've wondered what bingo meant in relation to fuel, COD:MW uses it for aerial killstreaks like the VTOL Jet and the UAV

Lead, Trail, Saddle[d], Drag .... all cowboy / driver lingo from the eat-dirt-days. Never heard y'all use "Swing" (the side rider), do you?

nice sully reference!