Warbird Information Exchange

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed on this site are the responsibility of the poster and do not reflect the views of the management.
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 5:07 pm

All times are UTC - 5 hours


Classic Wings Magazine WWII Naval Aviation Research Pacific Luftwaffe Resource Center
When Hollywood Ruled The Skies - Volumes 1 through 4 by Bruce Oriss


Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 37 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3  Next
Author Message
PostPosted: Mon Oct 18, 2021 2:59 am 
Offline

Joined: Sun Jun 14, 2020 2:36 am
Posts: 309
Location: 5nm W of Biggin Hill
Noha307 wrote:

"These Fokkers were flying Messerschmitts"

Apparently, the joke came to prominence when a comic named Stan Boardman told it on a television show hosted by Des O'Connor.


Ashamed to admit that I remember hearing Stan Boardman tell that joke on the Des O'Connor show - I must have been bored! :D - but I'm pretty certain I'd heard a rather funnier person than Stan tell a more subtle version prior to that - and it could well have been David Niven as I did see him interviewed on British TV chat shows several times.

How about:

"there I was, upside down with nothing on the clock but the maker's name?"


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Oct 19, 2021 6:57 pm 
Offline

Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 5:46 pm
Posts: 456
Location: Texas
"Brief on guard",which we did quite a few times.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Nov 15, 2021 8:41 pm 
Offline
1000+ Posts!
1000+ Posts!
User avatar

Joined: Tue Aug 28, 2012 4:48 pm
Posts: 1625
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
After rewatching Smithsonian's Planes that Changed the World episode on the aircraft, I was reminded of two DC-3 related clichés today:

[Insert number] of rivets flying in close/loose formation.

This phrase has been applied to multiple aircraft - with according variations on the number of rivets involved. (As an aside, this makes it more difficult to research due to the need to search each version in quotes.) However, the DC-3 is the one I most often associate it with. The aircraft that turns up most commonly in Google search results seems to be the Avro Shackleton. One of the earlier connections seems to be with the C-124, as it is mentioned in both a 1962 newspaper article and a 1965 periodical article.[1][2] Interestingly, a book from 1949 titled The Eagle and the Egg, claims that the moniker was used by "men in Africa" in reference to the poor production quality of the C-46, not the C-47.[3]

The only replacement for a DC-3 is another DC-3.

The quote appears to have originated with the book Grand Old Lady: The Story of the DC‑3 by Carroll V. Glines and Wendell F. Moseley. A quick search of Newspapers.com revealed that the first use of the term in a newspaper likely appeared in 1959 in a review of said book.[4] Another newspaper article, written only three years earlier, notes that the concept of a DC-3 replacement had become a topic of common conversation among aviators by that point.[5] Even as early as 1949, there were articles being written about "airmen bemoaning [the] replacement of the DC-3".[6] So this was the atmosphere in which the Glines book was written: one in which the replacement of the DC-3 was seen as imminent and the nature of air travel was changing.

EDIT (22-07-11): Somewhat in the same vein as the poster mentioned in the post below, the FAA produced an image of a Boeing 727 with the text: "an airplane is a large group of spare parts flying in close formation".

_________________
Tri-State Warbird Museum Collections Manager & Museum Attendant

Warbird Philosophy Webmaster


Last edited by Noha307 on Mon Jul 11, 2022 3:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Thu Jan 20, 2022 9:31 pm 
Offline
1000+ Posts!
1000+ Posts!
User avatar

Joined: Tue Aug 28, 2012 4:48 pm
Posts: 1625
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Speed Check

One that recently (re)gained prominence thanks to reddit is the SR-71 "speed check" story. It originated with Major Brian Shul. Shul has been making the rounds on the lecture circuit for many years now, which explains the popularity of the story. In one retelling in 2016, he stated "I told this story one time in Seattle 20, 25 years ago and it became this urban legend or something." Major Shul seems to be quite the anecdote proliferator, as Snopes wrote an article about a different speech he gave in Chico, California in 2001.

The Dreaded 7 Engine Approach

This story about the pilot of a single engine jet fighter who ends up behind a B-52 is mentioned on an Airliners.net thread in April 2001.

The Fighter and the Bomber/Cargo Plane

This one is hard to research as the keywords that would help with the search - the type of airplanes involved - are updated to match the current generation of aircraft with each new generation. However, it usually involves a fighter being shown up by the pilot of a multi-engine airplane (commonly a B-52) who, while initially appearing to do nothing, uses the large size of his aircraft to "stretch [his] legs, [get] some coffee, [and go] to the bathroom". Other versions involve the latter shutting down two engines. One version found on a forum dates back to December 2003. The fact that the same story appears in a newspaper only four days later may point to when it entered the public consciousness.

I'm From the FAA and I'm Here to Help

Although often associated with Ronald Reagan with "FAA" replaced by "government", one analysis notes that it predates his 1986 quote by at least 13 years. In the aviation world, this one appears to have been popularized by a poster titled "33 Greatest Aviation Lies" with a cartoon at the top that features the phrase. Based on an example for sale on eBay, it was produced by Aviation Promotions, Inc. and, not coincidentally, dates to 1986.

With this post, I also decided to branch out into a pictures. A number of the images that bounded around in the early days of the Internet - thanks to websites like the Oops List - still show up from time to time.

Squawks

The earliest confirmed example I could find online dates to April 2000. However, it seems very likely to me that it predates the Internet by at least a couple decades. A search of Newspapers.com reveals that it received a lot of publicity in 1997, when it was passed around as a common sidebar in many newspapers. Interestingly, the first instance specifically notes the Internet as an origin.

Stealth Fighter

At some point, the staff at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base decided to add a "stealth fighter" to Celebrity Row. The display featured three wheels and a ladder behind a sign labeled "F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighter". The joke has been reproduced elsewhere, but it appears that it originated with the display at D-M. It may date to the War in Yugoslavia, as that was when the "[s]orry, we didn't know it was invisible" quote seems to have appeared. This joke was carried forward into the aviation museum world, when the Museum of Flight announced plans to exhibit Wonder Woman's Invisible Plane in 2013.

Canard B-17

A photoshopped version of a B-17G, 42-38091, with the horizontal stabilizer abreast the cockpit and the wings at the rear has been confusing netizens for many years (1, 2). (It even appeared on WIX in 2009.) The image, which is usually associated with a jokes about "if Burt Rutan existed during World War II" dates to at least December 2005 when it was mentioned in a Key Aero thread. (The linked URL is, unfortunately, not archived.) However, its fictional nature has not stopped at least one individual from building an actual scale model of the design.

EDIT (22-07-11): Reword the mention of the Snopes article in the Speed Check entry, as it turned out to be about a different speech.

_________________
Tri-State Warbird Museum Collections Manager & Museum Attendant

Warbird Philosophy Webmaster


Last edited by Noha307 on Mon Jul 11, 2022 3:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Thu Jan 20, 2022 11:49 pm 
Offline
Long Time Member
Long Time Member
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 12:27 am
Posts: 5229
Location: Eastern Washington
I'm From the FAA and I'm Here to Help.

That has been around the military seemingly forever.
Just substitute the FAA with "IG".

_________________
Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2022 5:47 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Tue Nov 30, 2004 3:13 pm
Posts: 364
Noha307 wrote:
The Dreaded 7 Engine Approach

This story about the pilot of a single engine jet fighter who ends up behind a B-52 is mentioned on an Airliners.net thread in April 2001.

The Fighter and the Bomber/Cargo Plane

This one is hard to research as the keywords that would help with the search - the type of airplanes involved - are updated to match the current generation of aircraft with each new generation. However, it usually involves a fighter being shown up by the pilot of a multi-engine airplane (commonly a B-52) who, while initially appearing to do nothing, uses the large size of his aircraft to "stretch [his] legs, [get] some coffee, [and go] to the bathroom". Other versions involve the latter shutting down two engines. One version found on a forum dates back to December 2003. The fact that the same story appears in a newspaper only four days later may point to when it entered the public consciousness.

Both of these go back a lot further. I don't have the book nearby right now but I'm sure versions of these stories are present in Bob Stevens cartoons, which date back to the 1970s and 1980s. Get a copy of 'There I was... 25 years' for a very good collection of cartoons and stories. I'm sure at least one of these is in that book, but it features a B-36 as the bomber.

_________________
A Little VC10derness - A Tribute to the Vickers VC10 - www.VC10.net


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2022 1:33 pm 
Offline
1000+ Posts!
1000+ Posts!

Joined: Tue Jun 17, 2014 4:19 pm
Posts: 1380
Queen of the Skies: always (in my experience) applied to the VC-10 but since appropriated by less worthy types. Was there one before the VC-10? I'm thinking that one of the Empire boats must have been given this moniker?

And while I think of it, "canvas" being used to cover biplanes.

And "Streamlined" always seemed a bit more of a qualified statement than the lazy term "aerodynamic". I suspect that 'streamlined' was a 'fifties term, but 'aerodynamic' seems to be a fairly recent development.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2022 8:17 pm 
Offline
1000+ Posts!
1000+ Posts!
User avatar

Joined: Tue Aug 28, 2012 4:48 pm
Posts: 1625
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
quemerford wrote:
Queen of the Skies: always (in my experience) applied to the VC-10 but since appropriated by less worthy types. Was there one before the VC-10? I'm thinking that one of the Empire boats must have been given this moniker?

A quick search of Newspapers.com reveals that the name was apparently used quite frequently to refer to rigid hull airships in the early 1930s. The yet to be named ZRS-4 was called the "Queen of the Sky Roads" in 1930.[1] The British R-100 also earned the "Queen of the Skies" moniker the same year.[2] One pulp fiction story that was reprinted across a number of newspapers uses the term no less than 11 times![3] However, the term surfaces as early as 1925, when in an article mentioning describing the damage to the USS Shenandoah in a storm.[4]

_________________
Tri-State Warbird Museum Collections Manager & Museum Attendant

Warbird Philosophy Webmaster


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2022 8:28 pm 
Offline

Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2009 12:05 pm
Posts: 907
Location: ELP
JohnB wrote:
I'm From the FAA and I'm Here to Help.

That has been around the military seemingly forever.
Just substitute the FAA with "IG".


I thought the motto of the FAA is: "We are not happy until you are unhappy."

_________________
Had God intended for man to fly behind inline engines, Pratt & Whitney would have made them.

CB

http://www.angelfire.com/dc/jinxx1/Desrt_Wings.html


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sun Jan 23, 2022 8:57 am 
Offline
1000+ Posts!
1000+ Posts!
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 18, 2010 12:51 pm
Posts: 1185
Location: Chandler, AZ
quemerford wrote:
And "Streamlined" always seemed a bit more of a qualified statement than the lazy term "aerodynamic". I suspect that 'streamlined' was a 'fifties term, but 'aerodynamic' seems to be a fairly recent development.


Streamlined is very much a late 20's early 30's term that made a big splash on the consumer scene in the late 30's (compare a 1935 John Deere tractor to a '37)
What most people call 'Art Deco' is more properly 'Streamline Modern'

_________________
Lest Hero-worship raise it's head and cloud our vision, remember that World War II was fought and won by the same sort of twenty-something punks we wouldn't let our daughters date.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Feb 07, 2022 2:07 pm 
Offline
1000+ Posts!
1000+ Posts!
User avatar

Joined: Tue Aug 28, 2012 4:48 pm
Posts: 1625
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
One quote in particular I'm looking for a source for: "Never fly the A model of anything." It is attributed to Pilot Officer Edward Thompson of 433 (RCAF) Squadron.[1] However, P/O Thompson was apparently killed on 1 February 1945 in the crash of Lancaster NG460.[2] Given that it couldn't have come from any postwar writings, I'm assuming it had to have been taken from a wartime letter (à la High Flight). Does anyone know where it first appeared?

Also, in the process of trying to track it down, I came across a few older compilations of clichés, including an article titled "Quips and Quotes" in the September 1996 issue of Flying, a webpage with nearly the same title, and a webpage called "Rules of the Air".

EDIT (24-03-10): More evidence for a 1996 origin of the quote list comes from the website Great Aviation Quotes, which claims to have been "[o]n the web since 1996" and "published years ago as a couple of books". Although the dedicated domain name only goes back to roughly June 2018, it existed as a page on the website since at least October 1999. The site was and is the work of Dave English, a self-described "aviation nerd bon vivant".

It is worth noting that this date somewhat dovetails with the popularity of other online "lists" from the early Internet, such as the Evil Overlord List (half created in 1990, half created in 1994), Skippy’s List (as early as 2002), and the Oops List (as early as 2004).

_________________
Tri-State Warbird Museum Collections Manager & Museum Attendant

Warbird Philosophy Webmaster


Last edited by Noha307 on Sun Mar 10, 2024 7:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Jul 25, 2022 7:28 pm 
Offline
1000+ Posts!
1000+ Posts!
User avatar

Joined: Tue Aug 28, 2012 4:48 pm
Posts: 1625
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Propeller Clocks

Propellers with a clock in the middle are a popular wall decoration for man-caves these days, but the idea goes back as far as 1931 according to an advertisement for surplus propellers which states:
Karl Ort wrote:
I just located a thousand new war time propellers. The
price was low. I bought. Now you can buy these real
airplane propellers 8 feet 6 inches long from tip to tip for
the extraordinarily low price of only $1.98 each. Mount a
clock in the centre! Hang them in the den! Put them
over the fire place! A real ornament that becomes more
valuable as time goes on. They won't last long. Act now.

(Source: Karl Ort, “Real Airplane Propellers,” Aero Digest, May 1931, 131.)

The man behind that advertisement, Karl Ort, could be considered the progenitor to the aircraft souvenir catalogs of today. He had his own catalog and took out full page advertisements in other aviation periodicals showcasing his wares.

_________________
Tri-State Warbird Museum Collections Manager & Museum Attendant

Warbird Philosophy Webmaster


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Jul 26, 2022 4:37 pm 
Offline
1000+ Posts!
1000+ Posts!
User avatar

Joined: Tue Aug 28, 2012 4:48 pm
Posts: 1625
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
First Flight as a Unit of Comparison

It has become a tradition to note the size of an aircraft by comparing it to the distance of the the Wright brothers' first flight. It is aviation's contribution to the list of frequently-made comparisons. The origins of the cliché apparently lie in Orville Wright's flight on the first production Lockheed C-69 Constellation, 43-10310, on 26 April 1944.[1][2] It is claimed that Orville made the comparison either during or immediately after the flight.[3] However, in the short bit of research for this post, I could not find a direct quote or a contemporary source that specifically attributes it to him. Nevertheless, the comparison was made in image captions and newspaper articles reporting on the event, so even if it wasn't uttered by Orville, it definitely was at least in use at the time.[4][5]

_________________
Tri-State Warbird Museum Collections Manager & Museum Attendant

Warbird Philosophy Webmaster


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 2:40 pm 
Offline
1000+ Posts!
1000+ Posts!
User avatar

Joined: Tue Aug 28, 2012 4:48 pm
Posts: 1625
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Any landing you can walk away from is a good one

If you search this phrase on Google, the overwhelming majority of results will attitbute it to Chuck Yeager. However, like the case of "old, bold pilots" mentioned in a previous post, it actually goes back much farther than that. It may have originated with Eddie Stinson, who is quoted in a newspaper article from 1926 as stating "[a] good landing...is when you can walk away from it." As a matter of fact, far from just being mentioned in passing, the phrase and what it represents is the centerpiece of the article. To that end, it is worth quoting the entire beginning of the article:
Commercial Appeal wrote:
Slight Mishaps Cause Many
Wrecks of Noted Aviators


Eddie Stinson Says Good Landing One You Can Walk
Away From-Commander Rodgers Victim of Wreck
In Comparative Safe Location After Passing Through
Far Worse Dangers


NEW YORK, Sept. 6.-Eddie Stinson, man of nerve, professional
flyer of vast experience and skill, a trifle sardonic by nature, once was
asked to give his view upon the difficult business of landing an airplane.
A group of aviators had been discussing the dangers that face every pilot
as his ship nears the earth.

"A good landing," said Eddie shortly, "is when you can walk away
from it."

The phrase has become part of the philosophy of the air service of
the Army and Navy, in the air mail and among professional or commer-
cial pilots. Eddie Stinson knew what he was talking about. He has
walked away from landings where unassisted locomotion had seemed
impossible. He has come twisting down out of storm clouds into small
fields hemmed with stone fences. The night has had slight terrors for
him. He was the only pilot, among a score or so, who maneuvered to a
resting place in the tragic Ohio field where a year ago the Shenandoah
lay dead.

Many of the men who have died in airplane accidents were killed
because they failed to make good landings. The average aviator is safe
if he is high in the air. But as his plane begins to circle toward the
earth the peril increases. The human equation-the chance of a mistake
-assumed an appalling importance. The mistake made a few hundred
feet above the ground is usually fatal.

(Source: “Slight Mishaps Cause Many Wrecks of Noted Aviators,” Commercial Appeal, September 7, 1926, 13.)

The remainder of the article is devoted to examples where notable aviators died within 1,000 feet of the ground. So far from being just a humorous remark, it was actually a very real commentary on the risks of the day. Even before coming across this article, it was clear the sentiment expressed by the phrase was one that originated from the early days of aviation. The idea that airplanes crash so frequently that bare survival is a good outcome was a foreign concept even by Yeager's time. (Though, admittedly, as a test pilot, Chuck would have been in a position where accidents were far more common.)

Bumblebees Cannot Fly

Admittedly, this myth may not exactly be an aviation cliche, but I did happen to find it in an aviation context the other day.

The Instruction Manual [for] Pratt & Whitney Engines R[-]1830-43 & 65 includes it on page VII - before even the table of contents. It states:

Instruction Manual [for] Pratt & Whitney Engines R[-]1830-43 & 65 wrote:
THE BUMBLEBEE
CANNOT FLY


According to the theory of aerodynam-
ics, and as may be readily demonstrated
through experimetns, the bumblebee is
unable to fly. This is because the size,
the weight, and the shape of his body,
in relation to his wingspread, make
flying impossible.

But the bumblebee, being
ignorant of these scientific
truths, goes ahead and flies
anyway-and makes a little
honey every day.

(Source: Instruction Manual [for] Pratt & Whitney Engines R[-]1830-43 & 65, First (Melrose Park, Illinois: Field Engineering Department, Buick Motor Division, General Motors Corporation, 1943), VIII.)

As an aside, it is interesting to note that the R-1830 was of course given the nickname "Twin Wasp". It is not hard to imagine that the manual's author may have been making a connection between the two.

_________________
Tri-State Warbird Museum Collections Manager & Museum Attendant

Warbird Philosophy Webmaster


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Mar 07, 2023 7:12 pm 
Offline

Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2011 3:02 pm
Posts: 285
"And if you can use the airplane again, so much the better."


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 37 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3  Next

All times are UTC - 5 hours


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: AG pilot, ErrolC, Google Adsense [Bot] and 104 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group