It would be understandable to most of us that in the heat of an intense hostage rescue done by helicopter, shell-shocked victims might not have the presence of mind to get creative. But it always was a burr in the saddle (or a tack in the pilot’s chair) for Jerry “No Nickname” Feltburg, the pilot of the Choplifter! games, that no one ever gave him a decent pilot’s nickname.

Sure, they would try, but none of them ever sounded any good, even during a crisis. Some of the names that didn’t stick included:

• Choppy
• Chopperguy
• Lifty
• Our blessed savior
• Hoverman
• Three-Lives

Feltberg decided, as late as 1985, that he would rather go without a nickname than settle for one of the weak-ass suggestions made by his “precious” cargo. He died of emphysema in 1991 from years of inhaling engine exhaust.

His tombstone reads, “Jerry Feltburg, Pilot, 1956-1991.”