Origins of Aviation Cliches

[Stoney]

I didn't read the whole list so if this was already mentioned, my bad. "balls to the walls"

[ZRX61]

I didn't read the whole list so if this was already mentioned, my bad. "balls to the walls"

Refers to governors on steam engines.

[Stoney]

or the nobs on the throttles, multi engine A/C.

[Noha307]

The other day I noticed a post on the Internet Archive's blog about a man named Craig Smith who was attempting to preserve a collection of stock sound effects. Figuring that he might know where the Stuka dive siren audio originated, I reached out. The response I received in return was, to paraphrase, "no, but I know someone who does". That someone was Ben Burtt. Ben provided me with a thorough and detailed explanation and history of not only the famous Stuka audio, but also two other famous sound effects. It was so good, in fact, that I have elected to copy-pasted it below:

One of my recording passions over the decades of recording is the collection of vintage aircraft sounds. I used sounds of many warbirds for spaceships in Star Wars and have employed many aircraft for use in my sound design for Indiana Jones, Red Tails, etc.

You are right about numerous cliches in Hollywood’s aviation movies. However, the sound used in “Airplane” is not the Stuka. More about the Stuka in a minute. The sound in “Airplane” is a composite mix of an airplane passby backwards (for the beginning of the dive), an artificially accelerated steady wire whine from a biplane (likely from 1933’s King Kong at RKO), and a pullout that is once again a passby of (an unknown type) aircraft. It was made for the 1944 20th Century Fox film “Wing and a Prayer.” Since the composite sound had a beginning, middle, and end that could be conveniently cut to fit the length of any airplane diving (or in distress), the “Wing and a Prayer” dive became very popular and got copied or traded to all the other studio sound departments. Hence it showed up frequently for decades in movies and on tv and became one of the cliches familiar to the public.

On the other hand, the iconic Stuka siren dive also had much use as well and could be confused with the “Wing and a Prayer” dive because there is similarity. The Stuka sound is authentic. It was recorded by the Germans in 1941 for a feature film they made called “Stukas.” (You can see it on YouTube and it is quite a film). The sound effects (including some specific explosions) also showed up in a German short/newsreel called “Nordmark.” The British got ahold of this newsreel (as a war prize I suppose) and copied off the Stuka siren dive and the explosions and put them in a stock library. Sound editors in the UK started adding the sounds to “Guns of Navarone” and the early James Bond films. The Stuka siren was used in the Bond films for any aircraft in distress. They even used in for a helicopter going down in “From Russia With Love” and “You Only Live Twice.” I think later is was a jet in trouble in “The Spy Who Loved Me.”

I confess I used a bit of the Stuka to sweeten Tie Fighter fly-bys in the trench run just as an homage because I loved the sound. Even in the recent “Dunkirk,” despite the claim that they created new Stuka sirens…you can still hear underneath the sound of their new Stuka audio that original 1941 recording. You just can’t beat the original.

Just to complete the topic, there is yet another diving airplane sound that has a bigger history than either the “Wing and a Prayer” and the realistic Stuka. That sound is the Travelair bi-plane recorded for the 1930 version of “Dawn Patrol” at Warner Brothers. It has “screaming guy wires” when making high speed turns. That particular set of recordings was used in every Warner Brothers aviation epic from Dawn Patrol to Air Force, to God Is My Co-Pilot…you name it. It was featured prominently in the Road Runner cartoons and was used for every Mig going down in flames in “The McConnell Story.” It just became sound language that communicated what the public expected.

That is the esoterica from me. I’ve tried to get a good bi-plane strut wire whine but it has been a fleeting objective. I have heard it in brief spurts at airshows but never when I was recording. I have asked pilots if they can reproduce it but they say it means loosening the wires a bit so they will vibrate and nobody wants to take the risk. Consequently that sound is still on my bucket list. If you hear a plane that “sings”, let me know!

When I asked him how he learned all of this, he replied:

I was always interested in the history of movie sound effects and I especially collected data and interviewed vintage era sound people to figure out the creative provenance of iconic sounds. Aviation was always a priority. Along with a friend named Craig Barron, we did an aviation film festival at the Academy of Arts and Sciences 10 years ago in which we amassed quite a bit of audio and footage pertaining to Hollywood aviation history.

So there you have it! I haven't had a chance to search through the movie for the relevant clip, but as stated, the film Stukas is indeed available on YouTube.

I want to thank both Ben for the excellent response and Chris for putting me in contact with him. For anyone who, like me at the start of our conversation, is unfamiliar with Mr. Burtt, he is the man responsible for much of the sound design on many iconic movies franchises such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones as well as, ironically enough, popularizing the Wilhelm scream. However, despite all of this, the fact I most appreciated when reading his Wikipedia article is that one of his first amateur movies was filmed at Old Rhinebeck while working with none other than Cole Palen.

[Chris Brame]

The sound in “Airplane” is a composite mix of an airplane passby backwards (for the beginning of the dive), an artificially accelerated steady wire whine from a biplane (likely from 1933’s King Kong at RKO), and a pullout that is once again a passby of (an unknown type) aircraft. It was made for the 1944 20th Century Fox film “Wing and a Prayer.”

Right here, at 36:43.
https://youtu.be/kvatDO6P22s?t=2203

[Noha307]

Wings and Wheels

"Wings and Wheels" is a pretty common name for airshows these days, with no less than 10 different events using the theme, or some variation on it, in 2023.[1] (In addition, at least two aviation museums - Poplar Grove Vintage Wings and Wheels Museum in Illinois and Warbirds and Wheels in New Zealand - incorporated the phrasing as well.) However, the term has a much older pedigree.

One prominent postwar use of the term was "Wings and Wheels Express", an air freight forwarding company located in Chicago. Started by Edward L. Richter in 1949, it ran for 20 years until purchased by the Novo Corporation.[2][3] Coincidentally, that same year a museum called Wings & Wheels owned by Dolph Overton opened in Santee, South Carolina.[4] Furthermore, only two years earlier an event of the same name - the "nation's first speed and sport double header" of "ground and air action" - debuted at the Vina Raceway, formerly Chico Auxiliary Army Airfield #3.[5]

However, we have to go back even further to find the first usage of the term. The Hupp Motor Car Company held an event called the "Sky Road Parade" in April 1929 as a publicity stunt. The event would see 150 new Hupmobile owners flown to pick up their cars before parading them back to Chicago. At least one newspaper of the time referred to it as "wings and wheels".[6] However, it seems the term truly first entered the public consciousness with the release of the silent comedy film "Wings and Wheels" by Keystone Studios company in late 1916.[7][8]

Thunder Over [Location]

The other somewhat frequently seen airshow name is "Thunder Over [Location]", with the last word obviously changing based on where the event takes place. Like "Wings and Wheels", it was also used 10 times in 2023.[1]

The phrase has been used more times than can be counted - particularly in movies - so instead the focus here will be on specifically aviation events. The earliest version that turned up after a quick search was Thunder Over Louisville. However, it is important to note that the event, which began in 1989, was originally only a fireworks display - an aerial display was not incorporated until 1992. Other well known "Thunder Over" shows apparently only came later. Thunder Over Michigan first appears under that name in 2003.[9] Thunder over the Boardwalk also began in 2003, although it is unclear if the term was used before 2004.[10]

[Noha307]

Joke Aircraft Identification Chart

The need for aircraft recognition and the corresponding charts produced for that purpose go back to at least World War II. Indeed, the "oddentification" series even established the concept of a humorous take on aircraft silhouettes during that time. However, it was still for a serious purpose and only featured exaggerations of aircraft characteristics. The first wholly incorrect versions are much more recent. Specifically, a version labeled "U.S. AIR FORCE AIRCRAFT IDENTIFICATION CHART". It depicts an array of twelve incorrectly identified fictional and non-fiction aircraft. Eleven are labeled as "weather balloon", poking fun at the official explanation of the 1947 Roswell incident, while the twelfth, an actual weather balloon, is stated to be "swamp gas".

A Tineye reverse image search, produced a number of results, some of which showed that it was originally a hand drawn comic. Luckily, the original hand drawn version included the signature of the author: cartoonist Ed Stein. (The original version also included the word "Official" in the title.) Interestingly, many of these results also share the same setting: a gray paper background. A further reverse image search using Google Lens led to a TripAdvisor post that revealed the setting: the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, New Mexico. Given that many of the oldest pictures, which date to early 2008 at the latest, in the TinEye result depict this, this is likely the way it likely first entered the domain of the Internet. (The TripAdvisor post, which is more recent, even shows wear on the paper as a result of its popularity over so many years.) Indeed, the tongue-in-cheek atmosphere of the "museum", which is really more of a tourist trap, would be just the right environment for use of the chart to spread. However, the computer created version was even being translated into Russian as early as May 2007. So it is also possible the example at the museum may have been a consequence of online popularity, rather than the original. On the other hand, the early 2008 dates from TinEye search only note the date it was first indexed by the service, not when it first appeared.

The popularity of the chart has led to further takes on the subject, including a Journalist’s Guide to Firearms Identification, a Journalists Guide to Aircraft Identification and even an xkcd comic.

The chart shares a connection with two other cliches - both of which are mentioned in a previous post. Like the invisible "stealth fighter" joke, it deals with "black projects" and seems to have originated at a museum and similar to the "33 Greatest Aviation Lies" quotes it is often seen in poster format.

[Noha307]

Remove Before Flight Tags

You can find the "remove before flight" tags on just about everything these days. For example, as evidenced by the number of reddit posts asking about it (1, 2, 3), they're quite popular as keychains. Another bit of merchandise featuring the phrase that shows up frequently are novelty t-shirts. However, just in case you thought anyone who came up with the joke in the past 50 years had an original idea, I'm here to tell you they didn't:

REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT-Miss Louisiana of 1960,
Judith Coday of Baton Rouge, is shown on a visit to Barks-
dale Air Force Base to inspect Barksdale's flight line
and aircraft before leaving for the Miss America Pageant
to be held in Atlantic City, N. J., Sept. 5-11. Just to be
sure the blond beauty made it to the pageant, a "Remove
Before Flight" sign was appropriately pinned on the
young lady by Airman Second Class James H. Seigler
(left) of Seneca, S. Carolina and Staff Sergeant Jack W.
Mosby of Sacramento, Calif. Without a doubt, this is the
most beautiful "package" these airmen of the 4239th Or-
ganizational Maintenance Squadron will ever have the
pleasure of removing from an aircraft.

(Source: "Remove Before Flight," Shreveport Journal, 24 August 1960, B1.)

As a final thought, the proliferation of remove before flight tags and their subsequent overused nature resembles another textile strip-based piece of safety equipment used by the military: PT belts.

[Archer]

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".

A late addition, but I can vouch for the fact that his website goes back that far. I had found it in the early days of the internet and when his first book 'Slipping the Surly Bonds' came out in 1998, it was my first ever purchase on that big South American river site. I know I purchased that book in 1998, so that means that his website was around in 1997 at least, most likely in 1996 as well.

[Noha307]

The A-10 can fly backwards when firing its gun

That old canard about the 30 mm Gatling gun on the A-10 being so powerful it can overcome the thrust of the engines and make the plane fly backwards may have its origins in another aircraft with a famously large gun: the B-25H. More than one description of that gun being fired in flight described the aircraft as feeling like it had stopped in mid-air.[1]

[VaBeachEd]

Not sure if this is aviation specific, but I was in a USN squadron when I heard it.... an uncomfortably large number of years ago.

"That guy gave me the Seabee Salute".

He proceeded to mime slapping his forehead and shrugging his shoulders in the standard "I don't know" gesture.

With apologies to my Seabee colleagues

[Spitty]

The A-10 can fly backwards when firing its gun

That old canard about the 30 mm Gatling gun on the A-10 being so powerful it can overcome the thrust of the engines and make the plane fly backwards may have its origins in another aircraft with a famously large gun: the B-25H. More than one description of that gun being fired in flight described the aircraft as feeling like it had stopped in mid-air.[1]

Have heard the same thing said about Tank Busting Hurricanes in the Western Desert...

[Noha307]

Airbus A3

Like the Rutan B-17 mentioned in a previous post, another early Internet photoshop classic is the Airbus A3. By now, it has reached legendary status, but the diminutive airplane consisting of a fuselage barely as long as its vertical stabilizer had its origins in the A320 family of aircraft. Specifically, it was based on the observation that Airbus had developed the A320 into the smaller A319 and the smaller still A318. It seemed as though the company would go on designing shorter and shorter commercial airliners, so some netizen took it upon themselves to bring the trend to its logical conclusion. The popularity of the image may have been aided by witting or unwitting comparisons to the "short bus" slang term used in the United States to refer to school buses for special needs students. References to Airbus pilots as "bus drivers" would have only furthered the metaphor.

The earliest evidence of this concept is a post on the forum Simviation from 12 December 2004. Notably, it includes another Burt Rutan photoshop joke as well. As if to make the origins of the joke clear, the thread is titled, in part, "newest Airbus projects" and a second version of the aircraft appears with "A317" on the tail. However, the "A3s" depicted are still a bit more appropriately proportioned than the most commonly encountered version today. According to a TinEye reverse image search, the latter does not appear until 7 February 2008 in a different forum thread. (Note, the image is not visible in the archived snapshot and the date on the posts show 2007, not 2008. The date quoted above is provided by the TinEye search results. Another early forum thread including the image is also dated to late 2007, indicating the TinEye date may be incorrect.)

As a footnote, an example of a "real life photoshop" in aviation is the "Pratt & Whitney 5600 XBSAP", commonly, but incorrectly referred to as the "Pratt & Whitney R-8720", that was seen at the Reno Air Races in 2013.

[Noha307]

Brrrtt

The onomatopoeic sound of the A-10 firing its GAU-8 is well established by now, but when did it begin? Certainly, the type of extremely high cyclic rates that makes the sound of one round indistinguishable from the next is nothing new as it goes back at least as far as the "Hitler's buzzsaw" nickname for the MG 42. However, just when it became popular online and amongst the general public is another matter.

According to Google's Ngram Viewer (something I should have thought of using far earlier in this thread, I might add), instances of "brrt" start to increase dramatically around 2013:

The fact that a subreddit by the name r/Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt was created on 24 October 2015 seems to support the mid-2010s as a period of increasing popularity for the word. However, the Ngram for "brrrt" shows an earlier moderate rise around 1990, before a steeper growth around 2004:

This would match with a WIX thread from 2005 the title of which uses the word and references the A-10 by proxy through its discussion of the shark mouth nose art use on the airplane. (Itself an aviation cliché of course.)

However, Ngram viewer only searches books, not the Internet. For that, we have to go to Google Trends. In both spellings, again a distinct increase is seen around 2015:

As a final note, one particular problem with researching this turn of phrase is that the number of letters varies between instances, so searching for "brrrt" may not turn up the same results as "brrt". Furthermore, the word can be interpreted as an acronym - such as "brain reperfusion rehabilitation therapy" - so that may throw off results a bit. For example, one paper on the subject came out in 2014 - which would place it just around the time of the jump in the graph in the mid-2010s.

[Hooligan2]

I am pretty sure I first saw "brrrt" (the number of Rs undoubtedly a few more than I've typed!) in a magazine article as far back as the 1980s or 1990s - it is such an apt description! I'd point the finger of blame at Stephan Wilkinson writing for Pilot as he was ever the author of a memorable turn of phrase, but it honestly could have been anyone in an entirely different journal!