Lords of the Sky: Fighter Pilots and Air Combat, From the Red Baron to the F-16 (76 page)

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

AAM:
Air-to-air missile. Can be either radar guided or heat seeking.

ACC:
Air Combat Command. The major command containing all stateside fighter units.

ACM:
Air combat maneuvers.

ACT:
Air combat training. Generally as one or two pairs against an unknown number of adversaries.

AGM:
Air-to-ground missile.

AIRFOIL:
Cross-sectional view of a wing or propeller blade. The overall shape determines the airfoil’s efficiency relative to aerodynamic forces such as lift and drag.

ANGELS:
Altitude in thousands of feet. Technically only used for friendly aircraft.

AOR:
Area of responsibility. Places like Iraq, Afghanistan, et cetera.

ARVN:
Army of the Republic of Vietnam.

ATC/AETC:
USAF Air Training Command.

AWACS
: Airborne Warning and Control System and aircraft.

BFM:
Basic fighter maneuvers. Dogfighting.

BLIND:
Lost visual on a friendly flight member.

BLOCK 50:
A type of F-16. Block designations are for different specific capabilities. Block 50 includes the HARM Targeting System pod and associated avionics.

BOARDS:
Slang for speed brakes.

BURNER:
Afterburner.

BVR:
Beyond visual range.

CAMBER:
The measured difference between the top and bottom of an airfoil; in this case a wing.

CBU:
Cluster bomb unit.

CEEJAY:
F-16CJ. Also a Block 50.

CHANDELLE:
An aerobatic/dogfighting maneuver resembling an oblique, climbing turn that trades airspeed for altitude. The aircraft ends on a reciprocal heading from where it began.

CHORD LENGTH:
A notional line drawn from the trailing edge to the leading edge of a wing. Also used to measure the width of an airfoil section.

COMPANY GRADE OFFICER:
Junior officers. A Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant, or Captain.

DEFENDING:
Technically a defensive reaction against a SAM or anti-aircraft artillery. Usually accompanied by the type of threat, if known, and a direction for the maneuver.

DMZ:
Demilitarized zone.

EAGLE:
F-15C.

EMPENNAGE:
All the parts which comprise the tail assembly of an aircraft.

EOR:
End of runway. This area is directly to the side of the runway and used for arming/de-arming.

EW:
Early warning radar.

EWO:
Electronic warfare officer. A specialist in signals analysis.

FALLSCHIRMJÄGER:
German paratroopers belonging to the Luftwaffe.

FEAF:
Far Eastern Air Force.

FIELD GRADE OFFICER:
A Major, Lieutenant Colonel, and Colonel.

FIGHTING WING:
A fluid, loose formation that puts a wingman on about a one-mile string behind his leader. Think of a water skier behind a boat.

FINGERTIP:
Close formation. Usually about three feet from wingtip to wingtip.

FOX ONE/TWO/THREE:
Air-to-air-missile shots. “Fox One” refers to an older radar-guided AIM-7 Sparrow. “Fox Two” is a close-range infrared Sidewinder, and “Fox Three” is the advanced medium-range air-to-air missile (AMRAAM).

FRAG:
Fragments from an explosion. Also a Fragmentary Order, a squadron’s piece of the larger Air Tasking Order detailing missions, targets, and weapons.

FUSELAGE:
The central core of an aircraft to which the wings and empennage are attached. From the French
fuselé,
meaning “spindle-shaped.”

FWIC:
Fighter Weapons Instructor Course.

G-FORCE:
Actually an acceleration against
g
ravity producing stress on the human body that is felt as weight. This can be positive (the force acts downward) or negative (the force acts upward). A 200-pound man would feel 1,800 pounds of force acting in the opposite direction from his acceleration.

GOMER
: Slang for an enemy.

GRUNT:
Slang for an infantryman. Friendly ground forces.

HARAH
: Hebrew for “shit.”

HARM:
High-speed anti-radiation missile.

HOG:
Slang for A-10 Thunderbolt II.

HORNET:
Slang for the F/A-18 multi-role fighter.

HOTAS:
Hands on throttle and stick. Technology that permits the activation of weapons, aircraft systems, and cockpit displays from multifunction switches on the control stick and throttle.

HTS:
HARM Targeting System pod.

HUD:
Heads-up display. A transparent plastic rectangle mounted on the glare shield with superimposed flying symbology and weapon attack cues.

HUN:
Slang for the F-100 Super Sabre.

IFF:
Identification Friend or Foe. An electronic code which can be read by other friendly aircraft.

ILS:
Instrument landing system.

IMMELMANN TURN:
A purely vertical dogfighting maneuver that produces a half-loop. The aircraft rolls out at the top of the loop, much slower and much higher than where it began.

INLINE ENGINE:
A piston engine with the cylinders arranged alongside the crankshaft; can be in a block, straight-up, or inverted alignment.

JINK:
Usually a quick, violent, three-dimensional defensive maneuver.

KILL BOX:
A 30-mile-square piece of airspace. Given an alphanumeric identifier, kill boxes are used for deconfliction between flights of fighters.

KLICK:
A kilometer. A little over half a mile.

LANTIRN:
Low-Altitude Navigation Targeting Infrared Night. An older, specialized system used on Block 40 F-16s for low-level night-strike missions.

LOOP:
A vertical turn. Resembles an egg if viewed in profile.

LOOSE DEUCE:
A wider, more flexible form of fighting wing. A two-mile string.

LUFTSTREITKRAFTE:
German Imperial Air Service of World War I.

LUFTWAFFE:
German Air Force of the Second World War.

MAGNUM:
Warning call made to indicate a HARM firing.

MFD:
Multi-function display.

M
I
G:
An abbreviation for Mikoyan and Gurevich, a prominent Soviet/Russian aircraft manufacturer. Sometimes generically applied to any enemy fighter.

M
I
GCAP:
A flight of fighters dedicated to counter-air operations.

MIKE:
Short for microphone. Also denotes millimeter, as in “twenty mike mike” (20 mm cannon).

MIL POWER:
Full non-afterburning power.

NO JOY:
Lost visual. Should be used only for enemy aircraft. Often used in place of “Blind.”

NVAF (VPAF)
: North Vietnamese Air Force, or Vietnamese People’s Air Force.

NVG:
Night vision goggles.

OFFSET BOX:
A four-jet tactical formation. Two pairs separated by three to five miles.

PADLOCKED:
Brevity communication for “my eyes are locked and if I look away I’ll lose sight.”

PATCHWEARER
: Graduate of the USAF Fighter Weapons School. Also called “Target Arm.”

PAVN
: People’s Army of Vietnam (Communists).

PDJ
: Plaine des Jarres (Plain of Jars) in Laos.

PGM:
Precision guided munition.

POW:
Prisoner of war.

QRC
: Quick reaction capability. Used mainly for jamming pods; the forerunner of the ALQ series pods.

QUARTER PLANE
: An aggressive diagonal move made by an attacker to reposition behind a defender. Used when closure is too high and airspeed (energy) needs to bleed off.

RADIAL ENGINE:
Internal combustion, piston engine with the cylinders aligned in a radial star shape around the crankshaft.

RAF:
Royal Air Force. Formed from the RFC in April 1917.

RFC:
Royal Flying Corps. Britain’s air force during World War I.

RHAW
: Radar homing and warning. Systems to detect radar tracking and missile guidance.

RIFLE:
Brevity communications for a Maverick missile shot. Used commonly for any guided munition.

RNAS:
Royal Naval Air Service. Merged with the RFC to form the RAF.

ROTARY ENGINE
: Internal combustion engine which rotates around a crankshaft.

ROUTE:
A wider, more relaxed version of fingertip formation.

ROUTE PACK:
One of six aviation zones of responsibility for operations conducted by the USAF and USN/USMC in North Vietnam.

RTB:
Return to base.

RTU:
Replacement training unit.

RWR:
Radar warning receiver. Tells the pilot which radar system has locked him.

SAM
: Surface-to-air missile. Can be radar guided or infrared heat seeking.

SIDEWINDER:
U.S. made AIM-9 heat-seeking, air-to-air missile.

SLAMMER:
Slang for the U.S.-built AIM-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missile.

SLAPSHOT:
A quick-reaction HARM shot along a line of bearing to a threat.

SLICEBACK:
An aggressive vertical maneuver from a higher to a lower altitude, at the end of which an aircraft is heading the opposite direction.

SMS:
Stores management system. Onboard computer that accounts for all weapons ballistics and aiming symbology.

SPLIT S:
A purely vertical “down” maneuver used in aerobatics and dogfighting. Opposite of an Immelmann.

TACAN:
Tactical air navigation system. Provides bearing and range to a selected channel that can be located at a ground station or between other aircraft.

TALLY-HO:
Visual sighting of an enemy aircraft. Sometimes used to indicate sighting any aircraft.

TARGETARM:
A graduate of the USAF Fighter Weapons School. Also called a “Patchwearer.”

TD BOX:
Target designator box. Put around anything locked onto by the F-16 radar.

THRUST-TO-WEIGHT RATIO:
Expressed by dividing the available thrust by the overall weight of an aircraft. Both variables can change constantly; thrust varies by throttle position and air density, while weight changes in-flight due to fuel consumption and the release of weapons.

THUD
: Common nickname for the Republic F-105 Thunderchief.

TOT:
Time over target.

TRIPLE-A:
Anti-Aircraft artillery. Gunfire directed at aircraft visually or by radar.

UNIFORM:
UHF radio.

USAAF:
United States Army Air Forces.

USAF:
United States Air Force. Formed from the USAAF on September 18, 1947.

VICTOR:
VHF radio.

VIPER:
Slang for the F-16 multi-role fighter.

VISUAL:
Sighting of a friendly aircraft.

VNAF:
Vietnamese Air Force. Republic of South Vietnam.

VUL:
Short for “vulnerability” time. This is the fragged, or allotted, time that a fighter is given in a target area.

WALKING THE DOG:
Streaming an activated towed decoy.

WEHRMACHT:
German armed forces of the Second World War.

WILCO:
Will comply. A military way of saying “I’ll do it!”