What's behind your AFF user name?

[JohnM]

 

[drron]

Looks like I am not needed on this thread.

 

[AIRwin]

Looks like I am not needed on this thread.

We All Know Who You Are?

 

[DejaBrew]

I reckon I’ve worked it out -:

Deep in the unpressurised belly of the aviation world exists a clandestine group known only as The Order of the Winged Manifest—an elite cabal of airline insiders who secretly control seat upgrades, in-flight beverage temperatures, and the mysterious algorithm that decides whose luggage gets lost.

Membership is tightly controlled. Each initiate must assume a civilian alias to operate among the general flying public. These aliases must be bland enough to avoid suspicion but encoded enough to signal status within the Order.

Now, our subject—code name classified, real name unpronounceable outside of a headwind—was tasked with infiltrating online travel forums to monitor chatter about flight delays, gate agents who ask too many questions, and passengers who know too much about aircraft maintenance.

He needed a name that wouldn’t raise eyebrows but would pass the Order’s secret naming convention. According to the Cabal Codex:

• “John” is the go-to placeholder for covert operatives (short for Just Observing Human Navigation).
• The “M” stands for Mile High Manipulator, a title given only to agents who have successfully caused a flight to be delayed by exactly 13 minutes for no discernible reason.

So he became JohnM—lurking on forums, subtly steering discussions away from Flight 239's mysterious third landing gear, and ensuring no one ever finds out the real reason why gate changes always happen when you’ve just bought a yogurt parfait.

He is watching. Always boarding early. Forever JohnM.

 

[RSD]

The Seats are all divers although I’m not active at the moment because of my chronic cough . Seat Son and Mr Seat 0A dived in the Gulf of Aqaba a few years back without me. But I did get to enjoy a crazy beach club there.

View attachment 450247View attachment 450248

Plenty of crazy beach clubs there - Aqaba, Dahab, Sharm etc. It's always interesting being able to look across the gulf and see Saudi - especially the lights in Saudi at night.

 

[drron]

I reckon I’ve worked it out -:

Deep in the unpressurised belly of the aviation world exists a clandestine group known only as The Order of the Winged Manifest—an elite cabal of airline insiders who secretly control seat upgrades, in-flight beverage temperatures, and the mysterious algorithm that decides whose luggage gets lost.

Membership is tightly controlled. Each initiate must assume a civilian alias to operate among the general flying public. These aliases must be bland enough to avoid suspicion but encoded enough to signal status within the Order.

Now, our subject—code name classified, real name unpronounceable outside of a headwind—was tasked with infiltrating online travel forums to monitor chatter about flight delays, gate agents who ask too many questions, and passengers who know too much about aircraft maintenance.

He needed a name that wouldn’t raise eyebrows but would pass the Order’s secret naming convention. According to the Cabal Codex:

• “John” is the go-to placeholder for covert operatives (short for Just Observing Human Navigation).
• The “M” stands for Mile High Manipulator, a title given only to agents who have successfully caused a flight to be delayed by exactly 13 minutes for no discernible reason.

So he became JohnM—lurking on forums, subtly steering discussions away from Flight 239's mysterious third landing gear, and ensuring no one ever finds out the real reason why gate changes always happen when you’ve just bought a yogurt parfait.

He is watching. Always boarding early. Forever JohnM.

So that explains how he is always in Seat 1A.

 

[RSD]

Prozacs divers also. In 1982 I took the first published photo of The Lady & Horse in the ballroom of the President Coolidge. Depth 150' inside a shipwreck (complete blackout). From memory 21minute bottom time, 11m decompression at 20' and around 6m at 10'. We dived to around 200' (exiting the wreck over the poop deck at 200') over subsequent days. Never made it to the aft deck rail at 240'.

Done alot of dives up and down the east coast and around 1983 I dived in Exmouth Gulf when we were doing a bit of drilling for oil and some more up the west coast. Oh, and Fiji too, Taveuni, Waianunu, Savusavu.

I've never been able to make it to Vanuatu to dive the Coolidge - dates etc when groups are going just never work out, and my luck with diving the Yongala is far worse - did two trips on Spoilsport to the Coral Sea with Yongala scheduled for the last day - 1st trip we had a DCI case onboard which meant heading straight to port on the last day, second trip we were half way to the Yongala on the last day when a turbo let go.

My claims to fame with wrecks are being one of the first divers on the Thistlegorm when it was rediscovered in 1993, and in 1991 being the finder of a 2000 year old Roman merchant ship in the Red Sea that was fully laden when it sank and outbound for India with a load of goods from Mediterranean Europe. Because the maritime archaeologists from the Ministry of Antiquities aren't trained to dive to the depths that this wreck lies in they have more recently accepted a proposal that I put to them that I put together a "citizen scientist" team of closed circuit rebreather divers to document the wreck for them. Very recently we had some multibeam sonar and sub-bottom profiling done of the site and incredibly that has revealed that the hull appears to be entirely intact - the only thing we couldn't locate was the mast. During the 400-500 years that the Romans conducted maritime trade from Egypt to India there were thousands of ships that sailed that route, however only three wreck sites have ever been discovered, one is some remains of a ship off the west coast of Sri Lanka, one is just some scattered amphorae near a reef in the Egyptian Red Sea, and this one - incredibly lying fully intact. The remains of one of the Roman ports is not far away so my ultimate dream is to build a museum at the site of the port and then raise the hull and have it conserved and put on display in the museum.

 

[anat0l]

Mine was my gaming handle from a very long time ago. Of course, in the old gaming days, it was cool to replace some letters in your name with numerals instead; zero for "oh" was very common.

As for where the handle itself came from, I think I was just playing with random words or names in my head one day, then based it on the first thing in my head at the time I needed to decide.

 

[TheRealTMA]

Looks like I am not needed on this thread.

I thought it may have come from the old Crystals song?

“
I met him on a Monday and my heart stood still
Da doo ron-ron-ron, Da doo ron-ron
Somebody told me that his name was Bill
Da doo ron-ron-ron, Da doo ron-ron
Yeah, my heart stood still
Yes, his name was Bill
And when he walked me home
Da doo ron-ron-ron, Da doo ron-ron”

 

[kileskus]

Kileskus was a proceratosaurid, a group of tyrannosauroids that were on the small side compared to the type species of the tyrannosauroids. (Palaeontology uses the phylogenetic framework based on shared evolution as opposed to the Linnaean system based on anatomical similarity, so height isn't a classification trait but rather a similarity shared more by species of this subgroup than other tyrannosauroid subgroups.) I like dinosaurs and I am short.

It would be a pity if anyone changed their handles as I've come to associate writing styles (and humour styles) with them.

 

[DejaBrew]

Looks like I am not needed on this thread.

Don’t be so modest good Dr….

Long before budget airlines and emotional support wallabies, there existed a secret society known only to a few whispered air traffic controllers and a single, semi-sentient baggage carousel in Perth. This group, the Council of Contrails, controlled the global airline ecosystem from the shadows—flight routes, duty-free pricing, even the inexplicable mystery of the warm, damp towel.

At the heart of this council was a man, a legend, a turbulence-whisperer known only as DrRon.

Now, was he really a doctor? Not in any field you’ve heard of. He held a PhD in Altitudinal Quantum Negotiation—a forbidden science involving seat recline angles, airplane coffee phase states, and the quantum mechanics of boarding group envy.

The name “drron” is no ordinary username. It is, in fact, an acronym encrypted in ancient Frequent Flier Latin:

• D – Deus (God)
• R – Reclinare (To Recline)
• R – Regnum (Kingdom)
• O – Obliviatus (Of the Forgotten Overhead Bin)
• N – Nullius (Belonging to No Airline)

Roughly translated: “The God of Recline from the Kingdom of Forgotten Carry-ons”.

DrRon earned his place by resolving the 1997 Armrest Treaty, a conflict that nearly brought down five major carriers. He once convinced a Boeing 777 to land early just by whispering to the seat back tray table. His frequent flyer card is made of eucalyptus bark, and when scanned, it simply says: "He knows."

To this day, “drron” appears on obscure travel forums, quietly correcting misinformation about fare codes, lounge access, and why gate agents always say “We’ll begin pre-boarding shortly” (a logical impossibility he invented to test humanity’s patience).

He is myth. He is mileage. He is drron, and he always knows which side of the plane gets the better sunrise.

 

[RooFlyer]

Palaeontology uses the phylogenetic framework based on shared evolution as opposed to the Linnaean system based on anatomical similarity, so height isn't a classification trait but rather a similarity shared more by species of this subgroup than other tyrannosauroid subgroups.)

Never knew that. Has it been a long-standing thing? What happens with the classification systems when the birds diverge?

 

[OZDUCK]

The second half of my user name is the nickname I had in Customs for over 30 years. I was rarely called by anything else. It used to amuse me later in my career when I was at the Chief Inspector level and some very new young staff member came to ask for some technical advice looking very confused at being told to go talk to the Duck to get some help. Many of the younger people never even knew my actual name.

The Oz part was added for an overseas forum.

 

[Tiki]

My first internet forum was pet bird related and everyone named themselves after one of their birds. My first and oldest coughatiel is Tiki, he's about 27 years old now! I used the same handle on FT and soon after that AFF.

 

[sudoer]

I spend a lot of time administering computers..

 

[Flyerwin]

My first name is part of my username.

 

[AIRwin]

My first name is part of my username.

Fly?

 

[Flyerwin]

You and I must have similar names lol

 

[Groundfeeder]

Kileskus was a proceratosaurid, a group of tyrannosauroids that were on the small side compared to the type species of the tyrannosauroids. (Palaeontology uses the phylogenetic framework based on shared evolution as opposed to the Linnaean system based on anatomical similarity, so height isn't a classification trait but rather a similarity shared more by species of this subgroup than other tyrannosauroid subgroups.) I like dinosaurs and I am short.

It would be a pity if anyone changed their handles as I've come to associate writing styles (and humour styles) with them.

DADDY!!!!!!!!

 

[AIRwin]

You and I must have similar names lol

We also have the same QF/VA status... Are you the talented Mr Ripley?