Aviation Uniforms and Customs for the new ENS

[FLGUY]

Maybe saying "the jet" is considered douchey by folks from other communities.....I don't know, however that seems to be a consensus of sorts here? I've never had a second thought about it to be quite honest. There is no hidden meaning or intent (though I agree that it is entirely inaccurate when speaking of a T-6). Which inexplicably leads me to one of my favorite brief-isms......"hack, I have time 3-0, but we'll get a GPS time hack in the jet"......ummm no, I have never adjusted my watch to match the aircraft time. The other one is "NORDO"......"we'll join up and pass me the Hellen Keller signals". WTF does that actually mean? Wasn't she deaf and blind?

I think it’s only douchey when someone says it in reference to a non-TACAIR aircraft. The F-18 can be “The Jet”. The T-6, and other turboprops are not jets. The P-8, while having turbofan “jet” engines, is most accurately referred to as a “plane”. If all it takes to be considered a jet is a turbine engine of some sorts, then everybody in the navy flies jets and we should update the number of “what % get jets” from 42 to 100. I’m sure aspiring pilots would love to hear the good news on that ?

 

[Jim123]

I think it’s only douchey when someone says it in reference to a non-TACAIR aircraft. The F-18 can be “The Jet”. The T-6, and other turboprops are not jets. The P-8, while having turbofan “jet” engines, is most accurately referred to as a “plane”.

Something for you to consider next time you're stepping to the plane,

"and another thing,"

 

[Griz882]

Say buddy...tell the dames I’m off to “the jet.”

 

[Griz882]

Question from the audience....would the pre-zombie S-3 be considered a “jet” or a “plane?”

 

[Gatordev]

The other one is "NORDO"......"we'll join up and pass me the Hellen Keller signals". WTF does that actually mean? Wasn't she deaf and blind?

I have been known to say, when briefing lost comms during a form brief, "...the NORDO aircraft will signal the good aircraft and then we'll do the Macarena..." where I flip my hands back and forth, and then continue, "we'll just let each other know what's going on with hand signals." Anyone who had to suffer through the incredibly dumb and WAY over-complicated HT Form brief in flight school (in the past, anyway) will get the joke.

 

[Jim123]

I have been known to say, when briefing lost comms during a form brief, "...the NORDO aircraft will signal the good aircraft and then we'll do the Macarena..." where I flip my hands back and forth, and then continue, "we'll just let each other know what's going on with hand signals." Anyone who had to suffer through the incredibly dumb and WAY over-complicated HT Form brief in flight school (in the past, anyway) will get the joke.

The other amusing thing about that canned brief was the time hack, and for a few reasons:

• How random students and staff alike could F up something so common sense as a time hack that we would need to formalize inordinately complicated procedures on how to do one
• That it greatly outlived its usefulness, surviving like a cockroach well into the era of mission systems and cockpit clocks that self-synchronized to GPS timing signals as well as cell phones that self-synchronized to cellular networks that are in turn synchronized to the same (hint, flip phones and old candy bar phones did this...)
• A badly done time hack was a trigger for some of the more tactically minded Marines, among others; this alone made it a fantastic gift to troll-minded individuals mwuahahaha!!

Personally I disagreed with the philosophy of that scripted time hack- there was this obsession, going back to windup watches, with setting it up for the top of the minute thus allowing any children present ample time to fiddle with their watch. For example, some guys pushed that if you were at about 45-50 seconds then you should wait until the top of the next minute to say "hack." I thought the script should have been rewritten to "Time hack, the time is now [exact time, including seconds] twelve past the hour and seventeen seconds, eighteen, nineteen... Does anyone need extra time to un-f___ their watch today or did we all show up to the brief like grownups?" I mean really, if you're deployed but you're too dumb to keep your own watch set (yes, the computer clocks on the ship are off by a few minutes sometimes, so is the old hands clock hanging in the wardroom- so don't use those, eh shipmate?) then maybe you should take a few days off from being allowed to touch weapons.

Fear, sarcasm, and ridicule can be powerful tools, but not if you don't use them.

 

[Python]

Maybe saying "the jet" is considered douchey by folks from other communities.....I don't know, however that seems to be a consensus of sorts here? I've never had a second thought about it to be quite honest. There is no hidden meaning or intent (though I agree that it is entirely inaccurate when speaking of a T-6). Which inexplicably leads me to one of my favorite brief-isms......"hack, I have time 3-0, but we'll get a GPS time hack in the jet"......ummm no, I have never adjusted my watch to match the aircraft time. The other one is "NORDO"......"we'll join up and pass me the Hellen Keller signals". WTF does that actually mean? Wasn't she deaf and blind?

Have to agree with all of this. Never thought it (calling a jet “the jet”) douchey or gave it a second thought. The fact that people are taken aback by it is news to me.
Also couldn’t agree more about time hacks, though I haven’t heard HEFOE called “Hellen Keller” signals before...ouch.

 

[nittany03]

Which inexplicably leads me to one of my favorite brief-isms......"hack, I have time 3-0, but we'll get a GPS time hack in the jet"......ummm no, I have never adjusted my watch to match the aircraft time.

The first Mini Boss we had when I was a nugget was a Tomcat guy, and I remember him joking in Tower about having all these ultra-accurate ways to get time in the Rhino, and yet the first thing he'd do when he got passed a CAS nine-line was look at his watch purely out of habit.

 

[zipmartin]

In my 18+ years of flying in the Navy, I can count on one hand the number of times I experienced a time hack in a brief, and those always involved a multi-unit alpha strike scenario. Concerning the clock with hands compared to the digital kind, one day, sitting in the ready room as an instructor in VT-22, Capt (Marine) "Easy" came walking in after a Tac Form hop, relating how his student kept saying "Right nine o'clock" or "Left three o'clock" when calling out targets. He finally told his stud to look at his watch and tell him which side the 3 and the 9 were, too which his stud replied, "Sir, I don't know. My watch is digital."

 

[nittany03]

If you note a minute prior, and then begin the brief exactly on time, that is itself a time hack.

 

[Hair Warrior]

Or if your retirement ceremony retires you at 1313 Local.

 

[AllAmerican75]

So that just mean you guys adopted an Air Force thing in the mid to late 90s. Still an Air Force thing to reject, and it isn't too late. You too can harken back to the 70s and 80s when Naval Aviation was GREAT. Better call signs, more hours, better parties, more interesting personalized flight jackets, silver dollar salutes, bottle flights, flight suits around the waist driving through the gate...ah...no wait. ?

Is that also back when they would bring strippers to the O Club on the weekends? I've heard stories. . .

At least that’s what I was told when I pointed out the obvious for the 69th time.

Nice. ?

Say buddy...tell the dames I’m off to “the jet.”

View attachment 29818

Back when the Air Force was cool.

 

[Odominable]

In my 18+ years of flying in the Navy, I can count on one hand the number of times I experienced a time hack in a brief, and those always involved a multi-unit alpha strike scenario. Concerning the clock with hands compared to the digital kind, one day, sitting in the ready room as an instructor in VT-22, Capt (Marine) "Easy" came walking in after a Tac Form hop, relating how his student kept saying "Right nine o'clock" or "Left three o'clock" when calling out targets. He finally told his stud to look at his watch and tell him which side the 3 and the 9 were, too which his stud replied, "Sir, I don't know. My watch is digital."

On a serious note, while I'll tease students about doing exactly this but I don't necessarily have a problem with cockpit / flight calls with a "L / R, X Clock". As funny as it is to think about, some dude helmet-firing might benefit from the base simplicity of L/R before devoting a few more neurons to the actual clock code after he turns his head.

But yeah, timehacks are dumb.

 

[HAL Pilot]

Is that also back when they would bring strippers to the O Club on the weekends? I've heard stories. . .

Back in the early 1990s, it was Wednesday evening at Oceana.

I was at Dan Neck. I’d take the SWOs to see the strippers and they’d freak out. They could believe what those damn aviators got by doing.

 

[johnboyA6E]

+1 on Oceana strippers

In the back bar, away from the wives and girlfriends. one time in '90 or '91, after a bunch of drinks watching the strippers, one of them hopped in the car with us and drove to Norfolk to see KISS in concert for the hell of it - turns out this was the only time they toured without makeup, what a letdown