CHEYENNE — From a distance, all the Thunderbird F-16 Fighting Falcon planes look the same, but there is one that has a telling difference from all the others.
That plane has the number “5” on it upside down.
The plane’s pilot is Maj. Jeffrey Downie, call sign “Simmer.”
Ask him what’s behind that nickname, and he’ll say the price is a beer. Offer to pay that price, though, and he’ll laugh and inform you he doesn’t actually drink beer. Some things in life just have to remain inscrutable to the outside world.
And the Thunderbirds, and many of their inside pilot jokes, are among them.
There is one inside joke Downie will explain without a beer. That’s the upside-down number on his plane.
“So, it started as a joke about 36 years ago,” he told Cowboy State Daily, standing plane side just after landing in Cheyenne for another Wings Over Wyoming Airshow. “One of the crew chiefs turned the five upside down, because the lead solo — which is my position — flies most of the air show maneuvers upside down.
“That joke has stuck ever since. So, I get to represent all my brochures on the jet, my uniform and my autograph, I always put the five upside down.”
It’s a little bit like the old