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17 Wacky Naval Aviation Terms You Never Knew You Wanted To Know
1. Ease Guns to Land: As soon as carrier pilots hit the landing area, the engines are at full military power (full power without afterburner). This is because in case the hook misses one of the wires, the plane has enough power to take off and continue flying. Ease Guns To Land is when a pilot pulls the throttles back in an effort to help set the hook for arrestment. This is a big no-no, and results in a stern debrief and probably a mandatory break from flying.
2. “Taxi One Wire” written as “T1W”: The ship has four arresting cables (CVN’s Reagan, Bush and Ford only have three), with the most aft wire being #1 and the most forward wire being #4. The target wire (what every pilot is trying to hit) is normally #3. While catching any wire can be considered “good”, you want to avoid the #1 wire because it is the closest to the back of the ship. Hitting the back of the ship is not recommended. Taking that thought a step further, pilot’s who land well before the #1 wire and “taxi into it” are on a very dangerous path.
3. Tower Flower: During the launch and recovery of aircraft, each squadron has to send a Junior Officer (JO) up to the tower (called Pri-Fly, short for Primary Flight Control) to provide the Air Boss and his team with a liaison for their aircraft and any problems (or stupidity) that may arise. Unfortunately for the JO, the Air Boss is not always in the greatest of moods, so communication tends to flow in only one direction. The poor soul on the receiving end of the Air Boss’s wrath is the Tower Flower.
4. Greenie Board: Each pass at the carrier is graded by Landing Signal Officers (LSO’s). The results for each pilot are displayed using colored dots on a “greenie board” displayed in their respective ready rooms for all to see. The green color represents the highest grade a pilot can receive. A fair is normally yellow and considered an average pass. Red represents the worst and is referred to as a “cut pass” (such as ease guns to land). A Brown dot is used for a pass called a “no grade.” This pass is considered safe but certainly below average and affectionately known as a turd. A rule to live by: Avoid the brown.
5. Foc’sle Follies: At the end of each grading period for landings (called a Line Period), the awards for Top Hook and other accomplishments are handed out during Foc’sle Follies. The name comes from the location on the ship where this ceremony takes place (Ships Foc’sle) and where crazy, funny, and sometimes straddling the line of political correctness skits are performed. It is a great camaraderie building event and normally happens before a port call or just prior to the end of a long cruise—so spirits are high.
6. Roll ‘em: A Roll ‘em is a term used for showing a movie in a squadron’s Ready Room. Roll ‘ems can be very formal events with set doctrine and mandatory attendance. The events might include a Call Sign Review Board where a new guy is formally blessed with a call sign, a “Stoning” where someone is brought before the crowd and stoned with paper rocks for performing a mildly dumb act that day, and an attempt to guess the movie about to be shown using drawings of the movie subject matter—kind of like charades. Roll ‘ems include popcorn, sodas, and as much candy as can be purchased from the ship’s store.
7. Mid Rats: Formally known as Midnight Rations. It’s one of four meals served on the ship and one of the most popular because the grill is open for orders. If you are a nightly attendee to Mid Rats, you better have a good workout program in place to keep the extra pounds off.
8. Mr. Hands: The ship has closed circuit television that is piped through to nearly every space that has a TV. Two of the most watched channels at night are the PLAT camera—(Pilots Landing Aide Television or PLAT), which shows landings from the perspective of looking aft on the ship and the Mr. Hands channel. Mr. Hands is a real time depiction of traffic in the pattern using small pucks symbolizing aircraft that move around a board. It gets its name from the sailor’s hand (sometimes in white gloves) that would pick up the pucks and move them around, placing them at the proper location as aircraft made it around the pattern. Mr. Hands has now been upgraded to a video depiction rather than someone’s actual hand, but old-timers still refer to it as Mr. Hands.
9. Dog Machine: If you’ve ever been to a Golden Corral or similar restaurant where they have soft serve ice cream, then you’ve seen a dog machine. Soft serve ice cream is known on the ship as “dog” because when it comes out of the machine it has a strong physical resemblance to dog poop. In the wardroom, pilots always know if there is a good batch of dog. If you hear someone exclaim, “That’s a good dog!” a rush to the dog machine ensues. I guess pilots don’t have much to do.
1. Ease Guns to Land: As soon as carrier pilots hit the landing area, the engines are at full military power (full power without afterburner). This is because in case the hook misses one of the wires, the plane has enough power to take off and continue flying. Ease Guns To Land is when a pilot pulls the throttles back in an effort to help set the hook for arrestment. This is a big no-no, and results in a stern debrief and probably a mandatory break from flying.
2. “Taxi One Wire” written as “T1W”: The ship has four arresting cables (CVN’s Reagan, Bush and Ford only have three), with the most aft wire being #1 and the most forward wire being #4. The target wire (what every pilot is trying to hit) is normally #3. While catching any wire can be considered “good”, you want to avoid the #1 wire because it is the closest to the back of the ship. Hitting the back of the ship is not recommended. Taking that thought a step further, pilot’s who land well before the #1 wire and “taxi into it” are on a very dangerous path.
3. Tower Flower: During the launch and recovery of aircraft, each squadron has to send a Junior Officer (JO) up to the tower (called Pri-Fly, short for Primary Flight Control) to provide the Air Boss and his team with a liaison for their aircraft and any problems (or stupidity) that may arise. Unfortunately for the JO, the Air Boss is not always in the greatest of moods, so communication tends to flow in only one direction. The poor soul on the receiving end of the Air Boss’s wrath is the Tower Flower.
4. Greenie Board: Each pass at the carrier is graded by Landing Signal Officers (LSO’s). The results for each pilot are displayed using colored dots on a “greenie board” displayed in their respective ready rooms for all to see. The green color represents the highest grade a pilot can receive. A fair is normally yellow and considered an average pass. Red represents the worst and is referred to as a “cut pass” (such as ease guns to land). A Brown dot is used for a pass called a “no grade.” This pass is considered safe but certainly below average and affectionately known as a turd. A rule to live by: Avoid the brown.
5. Foc’sle Follies: At the end of each grading period for landings (called a Line Period), the awards for Top Hook and other accomplishments are handed out during Foc’sle Follies. The name comes from the location on the ship where this ceremony takes place (Ships Foc’sle) and where crazy, funny, and sometimes straddling the line of political correctness skits are performed. It is a great camaraderie building event and normally happens before a port call or just prior to the end of a long cruise—so spirits are high.
6. Roll ‘em: A Roll ‘em is a term used for showing a movie in a squadron’s Ready Room. Roll ‘ems can be very formal events with set doctrine and mandatory attendance. The events might include a Call Sign Review Board where a new guy is formally blessed with a call sign, a “Stoning” where someone is brought before the crowd and stoned with paper rocks for performing a mildly dumb act that day, and an attempt to guess the movie about to be shown using drawings of the movie subject matter—kind of like charades. Roll ‘ems include popcorn, sodas, and as much candy as can be purchased from the ship’s store.
7. Mid Rats: Formally known as Midnight Rations. It’s one of four meals served on the ship and one of the most popular because the grill is open for orders. If you are a nightly attendee to Mid Rats, you better have a good workout program in place to keep the extra pounds off.
8. Mr. Hands: The ship has closed circuit television that is piped through to nearly every space that has a TV. Two of the most watched channels at night are the PLAT camera—(Pilots Landing Aide Television or PLAT), which shows landings from the perspective of looking aft on the ship and the Mr. Hands channel. Mr. Hands is a real time depiction of traffic in the pattern using small pucks symbolizing aircraft that move around a board. It gets its name from the sailor’s hand (sometimes in white gloves) that would pick up the pucks and move them around, placing them at the proper location as aircraft made it around the pattern. Mr. Hands has now been upgraded to a video depiction rather than someone’s actual hand, but old-timers still refer to it as Mr. Hands.
9. Dog Machine: If you’ve ever been to a Golden Corral or similar restaurant where they have soft serve ice cream, then you’ve seen a dog machine. Soft serve ice cream is known on the ship as “dog” because when it comes out of the machine it has a strong physical resemblance to dog poop. In the wardroom, pilots always know if there is a good batch of dog. If you hear someone exclaim, “That’s a good dog!” a rush to the dog machine ensues. I guess pilots don’t have much to do.