Navy Speak

Naval Aviation Jargon can be found farther down the page.

General Naval Jargon

• Aft - Toward the stern or "blunt end of the boat"
• Alpha Mike Foxtrot - Adios, Motherfuc*er (goodbye!)
• Anchor Clanker - Boatswains mates
• Air(e)dale - Naval personnel connected with Naval aviation
• Bilge - to fail or do terribly at something
• Bird Farm - an Aircraft Carrier
• Black shoe - Naval personnel NOT connected with Naval aviation
• Blue nose - a sailor who has crossed the Arctic circle
• Blue water Ops - operations in the open ocean (as opposed to gulfs, etc.). Denotes the logistics support available to sustain ops away from land bases
• Bohica - Bend over, here it comes again
• Bravo Zulu - Well done (from the NATO code for "well done")
• Bug Juice - Sort of like Kool Aid
• Bulkhead - Wall or other device delineating a compartment
• Cannon cocker - a Gunner's Mate
• Captain's Mast - Informal hearing by the unit, ship or station commander. Usually for relatively minor offenses - not a court-martial
• Catapult (or cat) - A device that literally hurls aircraft into the air off an aircraft carrier
• Charlie Sierra - chicken sh*t. Stupid stuff
• Chief - A Chief Petty Officer
• Coffee pot - a nuclear reactor (aka teakettle)
• Compartment - Room or space in barracks or ship
• Crow - the bird on the rating insignia worn by petty officers along with some chevrons
• Deck - The floor or a level on a ship
• Deck ape - Boatswain's Mates (aka Knuckledraggers)
• Deep Six - to throw something overboard (or away)
• Delta Sierra - Dumb Sh*t - stupid
• Dixie cups - a sailors white hat or any sailor under E-7
• Dog watch - a 2-hour versus the usual 4-hour watch
• Field Day - to thoroughly clean from top to bottom
• Forward - Toward the bow or "pointy end of the boat"
• FUBAB - Fuc*ed Up Beyond All Belief
• FUBAR - Fuc*ed Up Beyond All Repair
• Gear adrift - anything not properly stowed or tied down
• Gedunk (or Geedunk) - store which sells candy, soft drinks, ice cream, etc...
• Goat Locker - Chief's mess and quarters on a ship
• Gouge - The "straight scoop", inside information
• GQ - General Quarters
• Gundeck - to "pencil-whip" a task, sign off as complete without performing it (often done with inspections)
• Gut bomb - Navy chow
• Gyrene - A member of the Marine Corps
• Head - Bathroom
• Jack - a flag at the bow of the ship
• Jar head - Another word for a Gyrene
• JG - A Lieutenant Junior Grade
• Knee-knockers - the phlange around the oval-shaped watertight doors. The lip of the opening is roughly 18" off the deck. Just about shin level!
• Knuckledraggers - Boatswain's Mates (aka deck apes)
• Liberty - Going ashore or into town when off duty
• Lid - the hat or dixie cup
• Mail buoy watch - watch duty assigned as a joke on new crewmembers. There is no such thing as a "mail buoy"
• OBA - Oxygen Breathing Apparatus - an oxygen generation and recycling unit worn during firefighting
• On-station - the ship is at it's designated place
• One MC - the PA system on the ship
• Overhead - the ceiling
• Port - If facing forward, the left side of the ship. Also, of course, a harbor
• Rollers - hot dogs, frankfurters
• Sandcrab - civilian contractor aboard ship
• Sea Bat - a joke pulled on anyone gullible enough. Usually ends with the jokers whacking the joke with brooms
• Scuttlebutt - Water fountain. Also rumors, etc., generally associated with being spread at the water fountain
• Shellback - anyone who has crossed the Equator and gone thru the initiation. All others are Pollywogs.
• Sierra Hotel - Sh*t Hot! The best.
• Splice the Main Brace - have an alcoholic drink
• Stanchion - Any pole or pillar used to support the overhead
• Starboard - If facing forward, the right side of the ship
• Steel beach - use of the deck for barbeque, games, etc. A party aboard the ship
• Squid - What Gyrenes call sailor-types
• Sliders - Hamburgers (with lids=cheeseburgers)
• Tea kettle - a nuclear reactor (aka coffee pot)
• Titless WAVE - a male Yeoman
• Tits up - broken, inoperative, dead
• UNREP - UNderway REPlenishment - taking on supplies, ammo, fuel, etc., while still moving thru the water
• Zero - Any officer...from the "O" in their pay grades

JAG; Admiral Chegwidden; General Cresswell

Naval Aviation Jargon

• AAA - Anti-Aircraft Artillery (flak)
• ACM - Air Combat Maneuvering (dog fighting)
• Afterburner (AB or 'Burner) - Feature on high-performance jet engines where raw fuel is dumped directly into the hot exhaust, which nearly triples thrust (but also fuel consumption)
• AGI - the Russian trawlers that trail every carrier task force everywhere they go
• Alert 5 - an aircraft ready to launch in 5 minutes. The crew is/are seated in the aircraft, it is fuelled and armed. It simply needs to be started and launched. There may be aircraft and crews on "Alert 15", etc...
• Arresting Gear - the wires and associated machinery which stop the aircraft on the flight deck
• Ball - the image created by the Fresnel lens. Denotes glideslope information for a landing pilot
• Bandit - positively ID'd bad guy
• Barricade - a mesh net designed to stop an aircraft that has missed the arresting wires
• Bingo - fuel state so low that a pilot must either hit a tanker or RTB
• Bird Farm - an aircraft carrier
• Blue shirt - an Aviation Boatswains Mate. Positioning and chaining down of aircraft (aka knuckledragger)
• Bogey - an unidentified contact
• Bolter - missing the arresting wires on a carrier landing (IF the landing gear contacts the deck)
• Brown shirt - a plane captain
• Colorful actions - dangerous flight actions
• Driver - a pilot
• Aluminum cloud - An F-14 (They're HUGE aircraft)
• Arresting Gear - Heavy steel cables stretched across the flight deck to catch incoming aircraft. The cables are connected to braking devices
• B.E.S. - Blinding Electronic Speed
• Blower - Afterburner
• Borex - BORing EXcercise
• Buster - Full military power -- go fast
• CAP - Combat Air Patrol
• Centurion - A pilot who has made 100 arrested landings on a carrier. (there are double centurions, etc)
• Drop lights - red lights arranged below the round down at the aft end of the carrier for night landing lineup
• FAG - Fighter-Attack Guy. A Hornet driver
• F.M. - Fuc*ing Magic
• FOD - Foreign Object Damage. A very small object sucked into a jet engine can damage the turbine blades
• FOD Walkdown - anybody who can be spared is incorporated into a line which walks the flight deck from end to end and picks up even the most minute pieces of trash
• Foul Deck - a flight deck which is not ready for landings due to any reason (previous landed aircraft not taxied clear, arresting gear not ready, etc.)
• Fox one - A Sparrow air-to-air missile
• Fox two - A Sidewinder air-to-air missile
• Fox three - A Phoenix air-to-air missile
• Fur Ball - big dogfight
• Grapes - the purple-shirted fuel crew on a carrier
• Hangar Queen - An aircraft which has chronic "down" problems. Often cannibalized for spare parts
• Huffer - Cart used to provide compressed air to jet engines during startup
• JP-4, JP-5 - Jet fuel (or coffee)
• Judy - an aircraft that has radar contact with the target and needs no further assistance to prosecute
• Knuckledragger - Aviations Boatswains Mate - positioning and chaining down of aircraft. (aka blue shirt)
• Lights out - radar off
• Low pass - landing attempt when the landing gear does not contact the flight deck at all
• LOX - Liquid Oxygen
• LSO - Landing Signals Officer. Aids pilots in landing aboard the carrier (aka "Paddles")
• MAD - 1) Magnetic Anomaly Detection (finds submarines) or 2) Marine Aviation Detachment
• Nugget - Rookie pilot
• Nylon letdown - Ejection and subsequent parachute ride
• Oh-dark-thirty - Any time between midnight and sunrise
• Ordie - an ordnanceman, one who handles ammunition, bombs, missiles, etc...
• Paddles - Landing Signals Officer - aids pilots in landing aboard a carrier
• Padeye - a tiedown point usually sunk below flight deck or flight line level
• Paint - to illuminate an aerial target with radar
• Passing gas - aerial tanking
• Pinkie - a trap (carrier landing) at dawn or dusk which is generally counted as a night landing (night landings are graded and recorded separately from day traps.)
• Plastic bug - an F/A-18 Hornet, so called because of the amount of plastics and composites used in it's construction
• Plumber - A bad pilot
• Prang - crash, bend or break an aircraft
• Pucker factor - the amount of tension or stress in any situation
• R2D2 - Radio-Intercept Officer (F-14) or Bombardier/Navigator (A-6)
• Ramp strike - to hit the round down of the carrier
• Round-down - the very back end of the flight deck; it is slightly rounded off
• RTB - Return To Base
• SA - Situational Awareness, most often used in aviation to describe a pilot's alertness to the situation surrounding him/her
• Shooter - catapult officer. The one who directs the actual firing of the catapult
• Six (or Six O'clock) -- the area immediately to the rear of your aircraft
• Skosh - usually used by aviators to describe a nearly zero fuel state
• Splash - an air-to-air kill (esp. over water)
• Squawk - to use an IFF device to identify yourself using a special code
• Sweatex - any busy, tense exercise
• Tailhook - A hook on carrier borne aircraft which catch the Arresting Gear Wires
• Trap - an arrested carrier landing
• Vulture's Row - Catwalks and galleries where crewmembers not on duty can observe flight ops
• Wave off - signal from the LSO to abort the present landing attempt and go around again. Could be bad approach, foul deck
• Zone five - Maximum afterburners

JAG; Petty Officer 1st Class Tiner; Gunnery Sergeant Galindez

Thanks to Steve's Navy Page for this info.