We all know how much the military loves our acronyms. I work at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, where we develop new aircraft and systems for all aspects of Naval Aviation. We routinely get e-mails from the Admiral in charge, where he talks about different programs that are being worked on around here. Today, his e-mail was trumpeting the success of a new system for landing planes on the deck of an Aircraft Carrier. The system is called “Maritime Augmented Guidance with Integrated Controls for Carrier Approach and Recovery Precision Enabling Technologies”. Yes that’s right, pilots land on a carrier with the assistance of the “MAGIC CARPET” system. And the sad thing is that some poor junior officer was probably locked in a room for 3 days until he came up with something.
Two of the teams I work with are ACE System Support and Computer Use Management. I don’t think they really thought that those through…
I thought this was going to be about the Navy’s abbreviations of other things.
When I was a dependent, I had a sticker on my motorcycle for Fleet ASW Training Center Pacific. FLEASWTRACENPAC.
I think it’s pretty awesome 
I wonder if it will become widely known??
Which reminds me of one of the ways to refer to one’s spouse when in the Navy: I have to run that through COMNAVWIFEPAC.
My guess is that the junior officer was probably the program acquisition officer, and he was locked in the room with the contractor-side marketing manager.
As pointed out elsewhere, a genuine Navy abbreviation would consist of dropping the last half of each word, misspelling what’s left, and mushing it all together. Like German, with extra misspelling. 
Whereas that kind of abomination smells very specifically of “working very hard to sell this program to Congress and the press, so it doesn’t get cut.”
DoD acquisitions is a nasty game that way.
It’s about 17 years too late to ask dad, but this just occurred to me: Do they use the first three letters to come up with the shortened name? For example:
[ul][li]FLEet ASW TRAining CENter PACific = FLEASWTRACENPAC[/li][li]COMmander SOUth PACific = COMSOUPAC[/ul][/li]Wait… It doesn’t seem to be that way all the time. CINCPAC has four, or ‘1-2-1’ depending on how you refer to the Commander in Chief. COMHAWSEAFRON used four letters from the last word. In any case, it seems they abbreviate so that people can figure it out, as opposed to using straight acronyms.
I worked with a guy who claimed that he was one meeting away from naming it the Financial Accounts Receivable Tracking System.
Regards,
Shodan
I worked on a SPAM project.
I think the rest speaks for itself.
Oh, and the one before that was easily modified to BASSOMATIC.
A couple of the made up ones I recall:
COMNAVFUCKITRON
COMNAVCINCPACSUKDIK
Yes, we were juvenile at times.
The abbreviations of which you speak are Plain Language Addresses, as used in message traffic. They hearken back to the days when messages were transmitted by Morse Code, and it was a lot easier to send out COMNAVAIRLANT than Commander, Naval Aviation, U.S. Atlantic Fleet.
Programs and weapons systems always have regular acronyms. Some of the ones I work with include ATABS, ALFS, and AMNS, and they go on forever. A recent phenomenon is that of Acronyms that actually spell out words. The first one I remember is DECKPLATE. I know it starts with DECision Knowledge, but I don’t know what the rest is. This MAGIC CARPET just sounds like they put more thought into the name than is necessary, but you are probably right, it is there to sound nice to the Congresscritters.
The basic military abbreviation format is the first 3 letters of each word. But many programs and systems do have regular acronyms. They’re easier to remember if the acronym can be pronounced as a word. I remember some paper going around referring to Special High Intensity Training.
To all indications it works really well. So soon enough it’ll be a standard part of at least newer ships and aircraft. So it’ll become well known amongst naval aviation circles.
What does the lay populace “know” or think they know about carrier aviation now?
Exactly. Squadron becomes RON, Group becomes GRU, Atlantic is LANT, etc. No real rhyme or reason to it that I can see.
Marines use fewer letters. My wife is simply the CO.
A former-military friend of mine who was the Deputy South-Pacific Regional Commissioner for Northern California of Clan Donald called himself the DEPSOPACREGCOMNORCAL.
Maria Hill: What does S.H.I.E.L.D. stand for, Agent Ward?
Grant Ward: Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.
Maria Hill: And what does that mean to you?
Grant Ward: It means someone really wanted our initials to spell out “shield.”
The only thing missing from “Maritime Augmented Guidance with Integrated Controls for Carrier Approach and Recovery Precision Enabling Technologies” is and Retractor Indication Designator Equipment."
Yeah that’s right, MAGIC CARPET RIDE.
Gotta let you know if your tail hook is down or not.
As part of our training for Armed Forces Radio and Television Services, we were warned never to actually say “ay-farts” on air.
And to beware of acronym double entendres like the headline “Nurse Voted Best in SAC.”
Bob Stevens cartoon from There I was… flat on my back from Air Force magazine: An exasperated Air Force officer is on the phone (to his wife?). ‘No, I’m not in bed! I’m in SAC!’
Way back in '85, I went to work at the Naval Air Rework Facility in Jacksonville, FL: NARFJAX. For whatever reason that I no longer remember, the powers that be decided NARF was no longer a good name, so the search was on. Naturally, a popular suggestion was Fleet Air Rework Terminal.
The chosen rename was Naval Aviation Depot, which led to proposals of cheerleaders chanting Go NAD!!! No such luck - we became NADEP.
And when the F/A-18 was shiny and new, I was a shiny, new ensign working with the Captain who was the program coordinator in the Pentagon. Classy place. I recall a discussion about the designation of the aircraft variant that would be the Fighter/Attack/Recon Trainer. Yes, flatulence amuses sailors of all ranks.
Stupidest one I ever personally witnessed, tho, was my last assignment at the Joint Warfare Analysis Center. One of the command’s logo items was a knight chess piece. A special committee came up with an on-the-spot award - a “chalice” that looked oddly like a plastic cup - with KNIGHT spelled out… well, just look at it. My boss gave me one just before I retired. He thought he was funny - he heard me mocking the silly things for years!!
I miss working around the Navy.