# fighter pilot nicknames

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighter-pilot-nicknames/88949>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 22, 2001, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighter-pilot-nicknames/88949 "2001-10-22T21:13:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Monkeypants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Monkeypants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monkeypants)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2001, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighter-pilot-nicknames/88949/1 "2001-10-22T21:13:35Z")

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[http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011022/od/names\_dc\_1.html](http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011022/od/names_dc_1.html)

What’s Andy’s last name? I bet it’s Yerkak.

note to knee-jerk fuckos: we’re not really trying to figure out what his name is.

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**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2001, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighter-pilot-nicknames/88949/2 "2001-10-22T21:30:47Z")

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“Yerkak?” WTF? Doesn’t make sense but for some reason it makes me think of Frank Zappa’s album _Shiek Yerbouti_

It’s like screen names, all the good catchy ones are taken anyway. I was in an F-14 squadron in the early eighties and we did have a skipper who went by “Wild Bill” but there are few that cool. His successor was unofficially called mild bill until one day he catapulted off the Connie with the parking brake set. From then he was called “boom boom.” We had an “Ice” Berg, but he was far from the Val Kilmer type. There was a big galoot of a RIO (radar intercept officer, a back seater) who kind of looked like Shultz on _Hogan’s Heroes_ with a big walrus moustache. His call sign, which he hated with a passion, was “Chumley.” I honestly think he tried to bust me down because I was the only enlisted man who would call that to his face.

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**Author:** ![Monkeypants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Monkeypants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monkeypants)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2001, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighter-pilot-nicknames/88949/3 "2001-10-22T21:35:57Z")

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quote: “Andy, a pilot from Santa Barbara, goes by the name Stroke because when put together with his surname it makes a phrase that makes the pilots smirk.”

What else could be Stroke \_\_\_\_\_\_ and make pilots smirk? Hezdik?

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**Author:** ![Payne\_N.Diaz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Payne\_N.Diaz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Payne_N.Diaz)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2001, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighter-pilot-nicknames/88949/4 "2001-10-22T22:14:25Z")

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how about “Knopf”

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**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2001, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fighter-pilot-nicknames/88949/5 "2001-10-22T22:52:37Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Monkeypants \*  
> \*\*note to knee-jerk fuckos: we’re not really trying to figure out what his name is. \*\*

This seems like a pretty unusual place to ask, then.