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US Navy: Penis in sky drawn by jet trail was ‘unacceptable’

A display of ‘airmanship‘, the sort, but not the pattern, that was needed in Operation Taxable on D-Day, appears to have fallen on ‘stony ground’ as it were, it looks like a pilot will be having a hard time.

US Navy officials have said it was “absolutely unacceptable” that one of their pilots used a jet’s contrail to draw a penis in the sky.

What else could, or should, he have used? Wider reaction is mixed:

Ramone Duran told the Seattle Times newspaper: “After it made the circles at the bottom, I knew what it was and started laughing.”
But one householder told KREM 2 she was upset about having to explain to her children…

However, the good news is that the Brylcreem Boys beat the Yanks to it:

In August this year, an RAF fighter pilot drew a 35-mile penis on radars monitoring skies over Lincolnshire, England.

Just wondering if they did that in the Cold War, and what the Soviet spy trawlers reported back.

Photo credits: ‘jon’, and, of course, the Secretary of the United States Navy.

35 comments to US Navy: Penis in sky drawn by jet trail was ‘unacceptable’

  • Agammamon

    she was upset about having to explain to her children…

    If she had to explain to her children then they were too young to even care what it was. And if they were old enough to care they already knew. And likely had drawn one on a wall somewhere earlier that day anyway.

  • bobby b

    The US Air Force and Navy currently have a deficit of over 2000 pilots. Too many opting for the better paid, more relaxed life of a civilian pilot.

    It has gotten so bad that Congress just authorized the military to call back recently discharged pilots, and to delay the leaving of current pilots who would otherwise be following the exodus out.

    I bet this guy will have no problem with his discharge.

  • bobby b

    “In August this year, an RAF fighter pilot drew a 35-mile penis on radars monitoring skies over Lincolnshire, England.”

    Yeah, but the only people who could see it were military radar operators who hit the playback buttons at the right time. Our guy put it out there loud and proud for the world!

  • jsallison

    I thought it an impressive display of airmanship and aircraft control, also spatial awareness. Possibly a Blue Angel pile-it doodling on his off time? A lesson to his black shoe brethren who seem to have difficulties dodging lumbering lummuxi of container ships and oilers whilst pile-it-ing ‘greyhounds of the sea’.

  • Mr Ed

    bobby b

    I bet this guy will have no problem with his discharge.

    I don’t think he drew that, he has some standards, but it may be difficult to keep it up at that altitude.

  • bobby b

    😆 ❗

    (It does not speak well of me that this nicely matches my sense of humor.)

  • bobby b

    ” . . . who seem to have difficulties dodging lumbering lummuxi of container ships and oilers . . .”

    I’m picturing two drivers, one in each vessel, both yelling “no, YOU turn!”

  • George Atkisson

    I don’t understand the problem. It’s obviously a quick sketch of a Texan 10 gallon hat.

  • David Axup

    I bet this guy will have no problem with his discharge

    Depends on whether it was erect or not I’d have thought.

    😉

  • Vinegar Joe

    A great example of high performance art.

  • Perhaps it was not acceptable on the basis it (1) wasn’t big enough (2) wasn’t drawn in the sky over North Korea?

  • PersonFromPorlock

    The military is famously petrified that the Mothers of America will realize their boys have dirty minds. The classic example is the forty-year effort of the Air Force to convince the public that the nickname the B-52 went by in Vietnam was BUFF (Big Ugly Fat Fellow) and not BUF (Big Ugly Fucker).

    This is just another ridiculous example; although the pilot can be criticized for making such lopsided circles.

  • CaptDMO

    Drawing a penis?
    What you CAN’t see, with the naked eye, is the geosynchronous Russian, or Chinese satellite right above it, apparently poised for gettin’ it from behind.

  • nemesis

    Fading vapour trails in the distance looks like he had a practice run at it.

  • In the UK, “absolutely unacceptable” means the government will do nothing about it if it is one of the relatively small number of things the government really should do something about, but will do something – and claim it is about it – if it is one of the many things that are none of their business.

    Between these two is an area where who knows what the phrase means. I’ll make a wild guess that here it is a substitute for the now-PC-denigrated word ‘rude’. In the good old days, they would order the pilot to improve his performance – in being the latter part of “an officer and a gentleman”. Today, it is “absolutely unacceptable” – to be asked for a solution of the impossible intersectional problem. The pilot has only to claim it was his bold coming-out statement and it will be “absolutely unacceptable” to mind.

  • Dom

    I always thought my penis looks like a 20 gallon hat.

  • Paul Marks

    How odd.

  • Mr Ed

    nemesis

    It looks to me like a faded heart in the background.

    I suppose this also begs questions as to whether the pilot had filed a flight plan, had a map to work from, worked from memory or improvised once in the cockpit.

  • Bilwick

    It was a poignant tribute to Johnny Wadd. Lest we forget . . .

  • PersonFromPorlock

    Niall Kilmartin
    November 18, 2017 at 4:07 pm

    Niall, in US bureaucracy, ‘unacceptable’ is the go-to mustelidism for ‘we don’t like it because shut up’.

  • Jamesg

    politically erect response.

  • NickM

    Throughout much of it’s history the USN bought fighters from Grumman (now part of Northrop Grumman) and Leroy Grumman had a weakness for “catty” names: Wildcat, Hellcat, Bearcat, Tigercat, Panther, Cougar… You get the drift. Now from the ’30s Grumman had wanted to name a fighter for the USN the Tomcat but the USN considered this obscenely sexual until they relented in the ’70s and the USN got the F-14 Tomcat. Clearly a result of the ’60s sexual revolution. Or the abject failure of the F-111B.

  • Laird

    “in the cockpit.”

    I hear Beavis and Butthead laughing . . . .

  • Julie near Chicago

    “Only someone with a really dirty mind would interpret it that way,” she said with a sniff. “And in our own government!”

    .

    Comment winners:

    bobby, at 7:11 am.

    David Axup, at 10:10 am.

    😈 😆

  • Paul Rutherford

    I recommend the RAF draw one over Brussels.
    Or perhaps several?
    Tumescent, of course, since among its various meanings are:-
    distended
    bloated
    bulging
    puffed out

  • bloke in spain

    Shame the pilot wasn’t gay. No doubt the authorities would have given in to the pressure from the LGBTXYZ community to strike a special medal.

  • Julie near Chicago

    Hmph. If you ask me, the pilot was. In the proper meaning of the word. Good for him/her/it. 😀

  • An accurate depiction of a junior grade military officer.

  • MadRocketSci

    Somewhere under all that bureaucracy, the irreverent human spirit still lives. 😛

  • Vinegar Joe

    Looks like it would have made a great cover for a Pink Floyd album circa 1969.

  • CaptDMO

    “Unacceptable?”
    I should say so!
    Do you have any idea how much we spend on precision navigation equipment for our military’s tools of war?
    Penis envy indeed!

  • Mr Ed

    Meanwhile, the USAF is helpfully reminding its UK-based pilots to clean their windows (pre-flight I assume) and to look out of them when flying with a view to avoiding collisions.

  • Alisa

    I took that advice to heart, and thoroughly cleaned my computer screen after seeing that headline. My keyboard is a different matter though 😕