Mc`Lovin and Fat Thor going high into the danger zone

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Custom Helmet wraps

Whether it's Luke Skywalker from "Star Wars" or Maverick from "Top Gun," some
of the most famous pilots wear eye-grabbing, custom-painted helmets. But for the past 35 years or so, Air Force pilots have been banned from wearing their 55/P helmets in any color save the drab gray they came out of the factory in. That is, until the ban was lifted in 2019, which ushered in a tiny cottage industry cranking out personalized decals for aviator helmets.

"We all grew up watching 'Top Gun,' it was part of the reason we wanted to be fighter pilots," said Maj. Brad "Scooby" Hunt, a former F-16 fighter pilot who now trains up-and-coming fighter jocks in the Air Force Reserves. "They all had these cool intricate helmets, but we were not allowed to do that, so nobody did."

[CNCAppsJames]

A link at the bottom of the page was an interesting read.

https://taskandpurpose.com/culture/military-pilots-call-signs/

A few especially funny ones.

Harmer added that one of his friends was given the call sign "MOTO," which stood for "Master Of The Obvious" for habitually saying things that were self-evident.

Harmer recalled the story of a flight surgeon whom he served with in Japan, who spent one night getting drunk at a Tokyo nightclub and woke up the next morning without enough money for a train ticket back to Naval Air Facility Atsugi, which is about 26 miles away.

"He called me and asked if I could pick him up," Harmer recalled. "I said sure, where are you? Mustering all his concentration, he surveilled his surroundings and responded, 'I'm in Tokyo.' I said I needed a little more detail than that to pick him up. He responded in exasperation. 'I'm on the sidewalk!' From then on, he was known as 'Sidewalk.'"

The pilot, whom LaTourrette declined to name, ran out of gas while landing, she said. Thankfully, his aircraft's Emergency Power Unit, or EPU, provided just enough juice for him to touch down safely. Thereafter, the pilot was known as "MEATLOAF," which stood for "My EPU Activated due to A Total Lack of Any Fuel."