330th, we like to talk...
Rajay wrote:
I don't completely agree with JDK.
Your welcome! It was just thought caused by a IMHO failure of the designation system, and was just a few random comments. I was meant to be working.
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To me, what he describes as a "design authority" sounds more like the old Soviet system under which airplanes were designed by "design bureaus" - i.e. MiG, Sukhoi, Tupolev, etc. The planes themselves were not built by those firms, but under contract in government factories.
Er, my
examples were pretty accurate, and not Russian - certainly in the Commonwealth, the design company/original manufacturer (if you prefer) is/was the correct way of naming a type - Supermarine Walrus Mk.II were built by Saunders Roe for instance, but they were, officially Supermarine Walruses.
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Maybe I'm just a little bit more picky than most (there's another word for it that starts with an "a") but I have always felt the need to distinguish between a TBF and a TBM, a F4F and a FM-2, a F4U, FG-1D, a F3A-1, and an AU-1, etc. I don't like to gloss over that kind of thing and I like to give credit where it is due; to me at least, a TBM may be an "Avenger" but it is not a "Grumman Avenger."
Depends what for. If it's on the ramp, I'd like to be able to identify the type without needing to be sub-sub-sub specific while I walk up to it - 'Avenger' if you like. Certainly where the difference matters, be precise.
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While in some cases, the aircraft may be identical licensed copies, in others they are not. The F4F had a P&W R-1830, the FM-2 had a Wright R-1820 and a taller fin. A PBN is not a PBY that was built by the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia; it is actually a different aircraft in several respects and details of the hull and the wingtip floats.
Sure, no argument with different sub types, but again, let's accept that or
most people
most of the time it's a PBY, because that's accurate enough - and that includes the guys using them at the time.
Yup, it's anal to need to identify every variant with a completely different designation every time - and, as I said, people just don't do it. When you need too fine. I don't think the British Mark system is perfect, but you can call a type (in combat, on the field in the air) without having to say that the PBY might be a PBN - and you couldn't say PB, because that was too vague. 'Cat' or 'Catalina' worked, as did in practice however inaccurate 'PBY' or 'Canso'.
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There was also nothing identical about two Gooses - any two Gooses. I'm sure that in addition to the plethora of military designations assigned to the Goose series (OA-9, OA-13, XJ3F-1, JRF-1, JRF-1A, JRF-2, JRF-3, JRF-4, JRF-5, JRF-5G, and JRF-6B),
Jeeze - exactly. When I was researching the Goose at the NMUSNA, I had to check five files for photos rather than one covering Gooses. Some of those files had one photo in. And guess what, some of them were in the wrong designation folder.
Sure, again, when you need to specify a coastguard vs a Navy example it's good to be specific, but it helps a lot to have a catch all name until you need to be specific. Otherwise it's that other 'a' word, autistic.
Grumman Goose? Most know it; by all means
after then specify. I'm reasonably able to keep up, but I'd have to look up what a OA-9 is.
The front cover of our book will have 'Grumman Goose' on it, and won't take any designations.
We might prefer what we grew up with, at base, but it's not hard to show that a plethora of complex and re-used numbers and letters designations are guaranteed to confuse.
Just my opinion, of course!
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