Aircraft Nickname Master List

[nuuumannn]

Ameisenbar (Anteater) Do 335. Ten thousand rivets flying in close formation, Shack; Avro Shackleton, Bristol Frightener; Bristol Freighter, Blunty; RNZAF for BAC Strikemaster, Glass house, RAF SE.5 (not SE.5a), Feuerzeug or Luftwaffenfeuerzeug; He 177, Des Fliegende Auge; Fw 189, Tiffie; Hawker Typhoon, Flaming Coffin; Airco DH.4, Leukoplastbomber; Me 323, Hamaki (cigar) Mitsubishi G4M, Flying barn door; Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, The box the B-17 came in; B-24 Liberator, Baby Boeing, FLUFF (Funny Little Ugly Fat Fella); Boeing 737...

The Buccaneer wasn't supersonic, but it did spend most of its time sniffing around at low level and at high speed, as was its mission, although it was designed as an anti-shipping weapon, so once it came off the carriers and became land based, its useful life did shrink with fatigue, although the RAF examples saw service beyond their use-by dates. A real tough aircraft. Rumour has it there was an exercise off the British coast involving a US Navy nuclear carrier and the Buccaneers snuck up on it and scored a 'hit' without being detected on radar.

The Buccaneer has a host of nicknames; Banana, which someone's already mentioned, Banana Bomber, Arna (A Royal Navy Aircraft) to which is added 'Blackburn' Arna (say it fast), given by a Blackburn employee before the NA.43 was given the name Buccaneer, Peeled Banana, referring to the Royal Navy's anti-flash white colour scheme in the nuclear role, and Easy Rider and Dirt Eater were given to it by US personnel on its debut at the 1977 Red Flag exercises.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Ark Royal came visiting back in I think '73 for a little "NATO Joint Training" (spell: bragging rights!). Their fleet crewed Spey powered Phantoms waxed our J-79 powered birds flown by our best ACM instructors. Their Buccaneers out ran our Phantoms in the weeds and were in turn outrun by our Vigis(who, incidentally, raised some thunderclap complaints from the locals). All the above is as told us by the flightcrews, of course, except the complaints. Those we heard. The Vigi crews BTW claimed mach 1 on the deck. The funny part was, after they shut down their engines ashore, they couldn't get them started again. Our huffers wouldn't spin their Speys fast enough for a light-off. They had to sling load a couple of starter units by Sea King from the ship.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Correction: In case anyone misunderstood, it was the Brits couldn't start their engines. Our birds were safe and sound at home.

 

[Ascent]

The Buccaneer as mentioned was firmly subsonic however it's trick was ultra low level flight. Something about it's design created a ground effect 'cushion' that meant it could safely sit barely feet above the surface without worrying about flying into it.

I've read that on red Flag exercises they'd come back with tumbleweed on the pitot. They went out of service not long after I started mine so never got a chance to work on them but knew plenty of people who did.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

The Ark Royal's Buccaneers that visited us had what looked like rather slow acceleration and a long takeoff roll, AND LOUD, but once airborne they didn't climb out like everyone else. They just scooted over the trees at the end of the runway and disappeared. They took off after the Phantoms but got to the Warning Area/ACM range first and were down in the wavetops while the Phantoms frantically tried to spot them from 20,000 ft with their look-down radars. The Phantoms were wary about coming down to search from a lower altitude as the Bucs apparently had some sort of awesome AAM that they could pot an unwary fighter with by using their spectacular zoom climb capability. Then the Brit F-4Ks showed up and "killed" all four of our Phantoms. A bit embarrassing, eh, old chap? There is no joy in Mudville.