homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Wings: Over Flanders Fields Slightly OT: Where did you get your Forum Handle from?

From an old TSR role playing game called "Gangbusters or Gangsters"...circa 1970s. It was a module add-on entitled "Mad Dog Johnny Drake.

Mine goes waaaay back but is not too dramatic.
Anyone remember the Jane's jet flight sim series? Mid to late 90's IIRC. Strikefighter I think one was called? Or was it USN Navy Fighters?
Anyway you had to pick a call sign from the in-game choices and I liked "Duke."
Well it wasn't long enough to to get into the forum in those days so I combined it with one of the mission types I liked ("Ironhand" or anti-SAM missions) and the rest is history.
Never changed it as it became easy to remember. And it was never already taken in the various other forums.

Way back when... I had to switch off CompuServe (Kesmai - Air Warrior), for a short time I had a rather unimpressive handlebar moustache. So when signing up for a new internet provider at the time, it was the best I could come up with.

Been Stache ever since...

@ Olham: Actually Komemiute is Israeli.

Olham, your vision of me is pretty accurate except it's the back porch.

Great question!

Best I sum mine up this way....




Shortened = OvS

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A long time ago in a forum far, far away, when I began flying online in RB3D, I needed a moniker. I was going to use 'Felix' as it was my nickname in the USAF, but there were already several folks with that handle. Instead, I went with 'Louvert' as a tip of the hat to my now long-departed father, who passed on in 1974 when I was 20. He very much wanted to serve in the military during WWII but due to health issues was denied the chance because of his 4F classification.

The 'RAF_' tag was added when I was made a member of the online RB3D 209 Squadron "back in the day", and even though I've not been a part of that group now for a good number of years I've kept the tag. It just all feels right somehow.

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Mine is from my favorite movie star - Groucho Marx.

In "Animal Crackers", he wants to send a letter to his attorney so he dictates to his secretary (brother Zeppo): "To the honorable Charles H. Hoongadoonga, care of Hoongadoonga, Hoongadoonga, Hoongadoonga, Hoongadoonga, and McCormick."

When finished, he has Zeppo read it back to him. Groucho quickly interrupts him and says "Hey, you left out a Hoongadoonga! You left out the main one!"

Groucho also takes great pains to make sure that Zeppo is pronouncing the name properly.

It's my way of honoring Groucho and it's just fun to say.

Back in the original Red Baron, I would fly careers where I would try to emulate those of real pilots. Rick Rawlings was my take on Mick Mannock. I could never come up with any good German names, so even to this day, I rarely fly as a German!

I hear Olham is a name spoken in whispers among the Allied pilots with both respect and fear...

Not too far off from Robert. M is first initial and Fair is part of my last name.

Interesting thread Hellshade.

When I was in the USAF my career field was electronic warfare, as in radar jamming, thus Jammer. My first assignment, in the early 80�s, was with the 28th Avionics Maintenance Squadron where I worked on B52H�s. Some of which are still flying today.

He's like the Highlander, there can be only one!

I retired from the military as a CW3 and worked all of my 28+ years in special ops of one kind or another,
Thus CW3SF.

At first when I joined SimHq I had SNAKE which was my call sign in the USAF. That was put on me while going through the Jungle School's in SE Asia due to my unique way of catching snakes ( long story).

ARUP was a real airplane from the 1930s. You can see Youtube vids of it flying! I'm an RC pilot and scratchbuilder. I draw my own plans, make almost all of my fittings and parts. I built and flew an ARUP model in 1/4 scale in the past. I particularly relish Golden Age Air Racers and Vintage sailplanes as well as WWI and Pioneer birds. You can see some of my builds on (shameless plug!) www.scalesoaring.com forums in the 'scale sailplanes' section.

A long time ago, on a ski hill far far away, my buddies, patrollers, and cat drivers, named me Ted Shred. Shredward is the formal version, this being a very formal kind of place.
Cheers

Way back when at a Rendezvous with my black powder club, I just may have fallen face first into a fire in a TeePee, twice, alcohol (lots of it) may have been involved. My beard never actually caught fire, just smelled that way

Beard

Mine is just my old callsign and my fleet squadron. There was a time that I would probably have answered to my callsign before my actual name and likewise couldn't have told you what the first names of most of my closest friends were.

Always interesting trying to introduce them to your family.

"Hey mom, this is...well, we just call him Freakshow. Don't ask."

Well played, sir.

Too many really interesting stories to comment on here. Great thread!

I chose Human Drone because I'm soooooo bad at this and rarely get a chance to fly. So it is meant to signify an unskilled, hapless, awkward dolt loping along, a fat easy target. But in the recent development of highly accurate and deadly drones has left me in a bit of a quandary - people might think I feel myself as deadly and accurate as a modern drone, not one of those dead targets they towed behind airplanes in times past.

My brother-in-law gets a kick out of my self-deprecating humor. He says I take "low" to new highs!