Warbird Information Exchange

Always appreciative of comments like this. After all, you don't know what you don't know.

Anyway, it's not surprising the "word" has a long history given that just about any rotary cannon makes the same noise.

Bathroom Warning

Cheekily-worded signs posted above a urinal or toilet instructing pilots to stand close to said lavatory fixture are nothing new to me, but I guess I had always assumed it was a recent trend. Apparently not so according to a post in r/aviation I coincidentally came across only a day or two after my last post above. The picture shows one such sign at a "local flying club" at Kamloops Airport that reads:



What makes it interesting however is that the handwritten font, style of picture frame and water stains on the paper indicate that it has been in place for an indeterminate, yet long period of time. I would not be surprised if it dates to the 1960s or 70s.

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Nope, not me. But I appreciate the compliment.

Stephen, good to see you're back. It has been awhile.
John

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Airshow Spectator Steals an Airplane

Although the idea of a novice unexpectedly jumping in and taking off in an airplane at an airshow is now most well known to be performed by Kyle Franklin in his Ben Whabnoski Comedy Act, it is actually far, far older:

(Source: Ted G. Misenhimer, Aeroscience: Basic Textbook for Aeroscience Courses (Culver City, California: Aero Products Research, 1970), 653-654.)

Note that this act would have had even greater impact in the era of barnstorming, when many of the people in the small towns that they visited could have legitimately claimed to have never seen an airplane before.

B-52 with Warp Nacelles

Remarks about the age of the B-52 are, appropriately, nothing new. However, extrapolating the aircraft's future service from that a bit is. For example, the use of names like "Centuryfortress" alludes to the growing awareness of the aircraft's potential for future service. (Contrast with the use of the "Stratosaurus" name.) This likely originated with statements such as those made in a 2007 Air Force Magazine article that the "USAF plans to keep a large number of these eight-engine airplanes until 2040". One way this has been popularly portrayed is by depicting the aircraft with it's engine pylons replaced with warp nacelles from Star Trek. It seems that this concept was derived from a 2008 comic attributed to "ALX & CF". However, it laid dormant for many years until the early 2020s, when it began appearing in photoshopped images on reddit and Facebook. The reemergence of the meme is likely tied to both speculation about the announcement of a new "B-52J" designation for the reengining program as well as the creation of the Space Force in 2019. Interestingly, the concept of an old strategic bomber flying alongside Starfleet starships - albeit with the original engines still installed - extends to foreign aircraft as well. A comic posted as early as 2018 shows a Tu-95 in the same circumstances.

This joke may be found paired with a copypasta about a soldier using a M2 machine gun on Mars, only for him to look down and see that it has markings indicating it was used in World War II and then adding his own.

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"I Follow Roads"

The old saw about what the acronym for instrument flight rules really stands for can be confirmed to go back to at least September 1962, when it was mentioned in an article in Flying magazine.[1] However, it is nearly certainly dates to a time far before that. Part of the issue is that it may have started out with slightly different wording. For example, a 1961 issue of Air Facts uses the version "I follow rivers".[2] (This formulation is supported by the existence of a 1929 newspaper article entitled "Air Routes May Follow Rivers".[3]) Alternatively, in the 1960 book Flights of Fancy, the quotation is given as "I follow railroads".[4]

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"This is your captain speaking"

Luckily, this turned out to be a decidedly easy cliché to research as, unlike a number of others, the wording has essentially remained unchanged over time. The one wrinkle is that the phrase shows up quite frequently in the pre-World War II-era on ships. For example, it shows up in this context in a 1930 issue of National Geographic magazine.[1] However, the earliest instance in aviation that could be found after a quick search dates to 1950:

(Source: Joe Collier, "Jungle Jaunt," Cleveland Press, 13 April 1950, 33.)

Note how that the further cliché of long pauses (or stretching out words) has already worked its way into the depiction of the statement.

One aspect that may help pin down when the phrase became popular is that its use more or less requires the existence of a public address system in the aircraft. (Yes, technically, the captain could be yelling it at the passengers, but somehow that doesn't seem likely.) Note that the example above actually specifically mentions the "public address system". (For reference, this instance takes place aboard a Trans-World Airlines Lockheed Constellation.) So, if you can find when speakers became common in aircraft cabins, you might determine when the phrase was first used in aviation.

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Bucket of "Prop Wash"

This turned out to be an interesting one. First, the earliest reference to this term in the context of a snipe hunt can be found in a 1925 article from the Baltimore Sun subtitled "Phillips Field Provides Many Men With Opportunities for Playing Pranks on Rookies":

(Source: "Air Service Work Hard, But Has Its Fun Too," Baltimore Sun, 17 May 1925, 2.)

The modern version - sending someone on a wild goose chase to different departments for an item - does also exist in the article, but instead of "prop wash" the hapless rookie is sent looking for something called "glide":


(Source: "Air Service Work Hard, But Has Its Fun Too," Baltimore Sun, 17 May 1925, 2.)

At some point, it seems the two merged.

Where it gets interesting is when you get to the 1940s. Searching for "prop wash" on Newspapers.com of course finds you a lot of examples of the term used according to their proper definitions. However, it also reveals a number of "goings on" type columns that use it as a title.[1] These tend to particularly date to the 1940s. One use is particularly insightful. An 1942 newspaper article about the work that the hard work ground crews performed at Shaw Field in South Carolina includes the following passage:

(Source: "Shaw Field Drive for Mechanics Shifts Into High Gear," The State, 13 September 1942, 1-D.)

Here, "prop wash" is being used as a byword for "sugar session" – and given that the aforementioned columns are in many ways nothing more than the printed form of such discussions, it is natural that the terms would be transplanted onto them. Clearly by this point it has grown beyond its original meaning to become an idiomatic expression referring to insider knowledge or rumors. To put it another way, it was aviation's version of "scuttlebutt". Furthermore, the connection to the original meaning can be seen as these "informal conclaves" are quite the type of situation where calls for a junior member to go procure some non-existent object may arise. By 1944, "prop wash" is popular enough that it is actually used as the name of a variety show put on by servicemen at Millville Army Air Field.[2] Again, the connection to the original meaning can be seen, as a variety show would of course feature the type of hijinks that created the phrase in the first place.

As an aside, note also that the term is placed in quotation marks, indicating that it is a phrase the author feels the reader will not be familiar with. The most fascinating case I have come across of this is in a book from 1940 titled Fighting Planes of the World:

(Source: Bernard A. Law, Fighting Planes of the World (Random House, 1940), 1.)

In the span of two paragraphs the author: 1) puts the phrase World War II in quotation marks, 2) does not capitalize the word "first" in "first World War" and 3) refers to said conflict with a definite article and no qualification as "the World War". All of this is to say that the term "World War II" was only just starting to become popular. (As a further indication of the evolution of language, the author also describes flying as a "gay and adventurous sport" in the following sentence.)

On a final note, as timing is so critical in this case and the copyright date only going so far as to mention the year, it is worth mentioning that the illustration on the page opposite purports to depicts an aerial action that took place on "November 6th, 1939". Furthermore, an illustration on page 33 shows German paratroopers descending from Ju 52s onto "Holland" – an event that occurred on 10 May 1940. Therefore, the book could have been published no earlier than that date. Although the writing of a book obviously takes place a while before its publication, this gives us a rough approximation of when the phrase was coming into vogue.

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"Blueprint" Paint Schemes

Paint schemes identifying (and sometimes jokingly explaining) the various components (and sometimes cargo) of an aircraft have become more popular as of late, with the concept being used on the "Blueprint" livery of a JetBlue E190, N304JB, in 2017 and the "Flying 101" makings on a Kulula Boeing 737-800, ZS-ZWP, in 2010. However, the other day I was surprised to learn that the idea appears to have originated decades earlier with one of the Piper PA-31T Cheyenne prototypes, N441PT, 31T-7400004. The aircraft was seen at the Farnborough Airshow in 1974 wearing an overall blue paint scheme with white markings identifying the various components of the aircraft.

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I remember seeing pics of the blueprint Cheyenne at the time - unfortunately I didn't see it in the flesh as the first time I attended Farnborough wasn't until until 1978!

"If it looks right, it will fly right"

This supposed law of aeronautics is already described as an "old saying in aviation" in the 1980 book NASA Aeronautics.[1] Before that, it was called the "airplane designer's truism" in a 1968 issue of Air Trails Pictorial.[2] And before that the 28 April 1952 issue of Aviation Week calls it an "old saying in the aircraft design business".[3] As you may have guessed, the one theme running through the use of the phrase - more than any other example so far in this thread - that it is consistently said to be "old". While it's quite possible that this has more to do with its narrative purpose than being an actual statement of fact, the collective consciousness of aviators everywhere has decided that - whether it is describing a 727 in 1974 or a C-21 in 1985 - it is certifiably ancient.[4][5]

It is not until, finally, on page 8 of the 27 April 1933 edition of the newspaper Chilliwack Progress, the word "old" is omitted and it's simply described as an "adage" - hinting we may be getting closer to its origin.[6]

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In response to your August post about Blueprint paint schemes...I can attest to the Piper scheme. IIRC, the unit used in a FLYING magazine, pilot report was the blueprint machine. If you go to the magazine archive on Google, you'll see lots of photos of it. One editor remarked it was a clever scheme, but he wondered what the aircraft would look like in a normal scheme. (The answer is: like a pressurized Navajo with PT-6s and tip tanks).

In regards to when airliners had PA systems, based on anecdotal evidence, it was certainly post war.
I don't believe Ford Tri-Motor had a system for the simple reason an announcement probably could not be heard over the engine noise. One writer said the decibel level pretty much matched its cruise speed.

Likewise, Ernie Gann does not mention them in DC-3s in Fate is the Hunter.
However he does mention one of the chores for the co-pilot was filling out a form which was to be passed among the passengers stating the flights ETA and weather.

Probably they weren't seen as necessary until aircraft got larger, so sending a stewardess back with a message wasn't practical.

Someone needs to watch their DVD of The High and the Mighty for a look at mid-50s airliners...though the aircraft in that was a surplus C-54, and not representative of new DC-6s and 7s.

So...as standard equipment, how about the Convair propliners and the DC-6 along with Constellations? I'm sure DC-3s were eventually retrofitted with them.

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Laughing Airplanes/Goofy Smiles

I've chosen to address these two concepts in a single post because they are distinctly intertwined.

The large intake of the X-32 was quickly led to ridicule. As early as February 2005, it was being proposed as the "ugliest plane ever". By 16 August 2013, a picture of the X-32 parked at the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum had appeared with the text "HUE HUE HUE", the Brazilian onomatopoeic form of laughter, superimposed on it. This image macro then served as inspiration for a larger collage of six pictures that appeared as early as 4 August 2014. The single image can be no older than circa April 2005, as, according to a NAVAIR news article, that is when the airplane went on display at the museum.

However, it seems the idea goes back farther than that. Before jumping into it, there's an important distinction to make here. While there's no question that pareidolia has been causing airmen to paint mouths on aircraft almost since the dawn of aviation, essentially all of these have been intended to be intimidating. The idea that the design of an aircraft, particularly an air intake, may make it look "derpy" is much more rare. Nevertheless, page 171 of the 1 December 1947 edition of the Erection and Maintenance Handbook Navy Models: F4U-4, F4U-4B, AN 01-45HB-2, does just this, depicting an unhappy pilot demanding that a nearby mechanic in the midst of painting a shark mouth "Do something about that silly grin!" while pointing to the intake on the bottom of the cowling:


Similar to the X-32, a series of "laughing" airplanes featuring a four panel layout of Boeing 747 freighters labeled with longer and longer versions of "HAHA" corresponding to their increasingly open nose doors was posted to reddit on 21 February 2018. An uncropped version of the fourth image credits @toowoomba_spotter as the photographer. Unfortunately, it seems that they deleted their Instagram profile. Luckily, there's a good chance we can actually date when this picture was taken because there's a news article featuring this particular plane and location posted on 24 November 2015. While it's not completely certain that this was the particular situation, a picture in the article shows a very similar view.

Dog and Pilot

One formulation of this joke is as follows:

(Source: Flying in Ireland)

Luckily, a quick search of Google Books for this one immediately returned a particularly specific claim of origin: "a speech given by a professor from the University of Miami in 1989 to the International Airline Pilots Association". The story was purported to describe an aircraft from the year 2005.

A quick search for "International Airline Pilots Association 1989" reveals there might actually be a bit of fascinating backstory to this anecdote. According to one webpage, "on March 4th, 1989 the ALPA pilots of Eastern Airlines walked out in a sympathy strike to support the International Association of Machinists". Now, the version above does not mention where the speech was given, but it does include the detail that the professor was from the University of Miami. For those unfamiliar with Eastern Airlines, I'll give you one guess what city it was headquartered in. Out of context, it comes across as a simple dig about pilots' abilities and their arrogance. However, in the possible context of the strike, it sounds a heck of a lot like it's describing an environment where automation has replaced human workers. Indeed, this is just the way it was used in a 2015 article about single pilot airplanes. So, was the professor speaking to a group of striking pilots? Was he hinting at their need for solidarity by suggesting that corporate downsizing come for all of them eventually? I can't say for certain, but it does seem plausible.

As a final fun note, searching Newspapers.com for "dog bite pilot" to check for any earlier examples of the joke was unsuccessful, but did turn up an an odd three-sentence story from May 1940 about a pilot in Dubque, Iowa who was bitten by a dog immediately after making a forced landing.

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To answer my own question:

Any earlier examples?

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

Post-Solo Shirt Tail Cutting

It has become tradition that pilots have a portion cut out of the lower back of their shirt following the completion of their first solo. It is claimed that in the early days of aviation the instructor would grab on the back of the student's shirt to get their attention, so by removing this possibility it signified that the student was now on their own. It has become sufficiently popular that many flight schools now offer shirts with preprinted dashed "cut here" lines.

The earliest mention that could be found of the practice in aviation is the caption of a (frankly somewhat disturbing) picture in a 1940 newspaper, showing four men restraining a woman who had just soloed to obtain a piece of her slip "because she had no shirt tail":

(Source: Newspapers.com)

(The convention of women supplying another piece of clothing as a substitute seems to have been somewhat common, as a 1963 newspaper article describes the wall of one airport building having "a neat row of nine shirt tails and one lady's bra".) In any event, the story proves that the tradition dates to the prewar period. It is likely is even older than than this, but earlier sources are elusive.

Interestingly, in researching this tradition, it seems that two important parts of the story have been lost over the years.

First, many modern mentions simply describe it as "shirt cutting" or "cutting the back of the shirt" while older stories specifically use the term "shirt tail". While I cannot claim to have first hand experience from the time to substantiate the following claim, it appears that this may have been driven by a change in fashion. It seems that a "shirt tail" was something that was a lot more common in the first half of the 20th Century. (On that subject, there's one other aspect that makes the modern day convention a bit of an anachronism: almost all civilian training aircraft these days are side-by-side, while pulling on a student's shirt only makes sense if the instructor is behind him or her.)

Second, the custom seems to have originated with hunters, not pilots. In a particularly lucky discovery, a newspaper column from 1953 describes the "ritual" in a hunting context in detail. Despite dating to a period later than the first references to it in an aviation context, it calls shirt tail cutting an "ancient and honorable practice" and states that it "dates early in American sporting history". Apparently, it was carried out as a punishment for missing a shot at a deer. (It is worth noting that, according to Merriam-Webster, "shirttail" is a synonym for "very young" or "immature". In other words, inexperienced.) While the piece admittedly uses a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor and this could be seen as undermining the reliability of the claims of chronological priority, a quick search of Newspaper.com for shirt-tail cutting reveals a large number of articles from the 1930s of hunters removing the lower backs of their friend's shirts.

As a final point, the earliest mention of the practice in any "friendly punishment" sort of way dates to an April 1924 newspaper article in which the winning manager's reward in a sales competition between different divisions of an organization is being given the "privilege" of mock cashiering the losing manager.

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Flying is Safer Than Driving

Everyone has heard the statistic that you are more likely to die in an automobile accident than a plane crash being used to reassure nervous flyers, but who was first to popularize the claim? Apparently, it was Bernt Balchen, who, after accompanying Robert Byrd on his 1927 Trans-Atlantic flight, said:

(Source: Newspapers.com)

Now, it is a reasonable question to ask how we can know this was the source of the claim when so many different people would go on to make it at different times. For example, a brief news article about a new Air Corps pilot in 1918 bears the headline "Says Flying Safer than Driving Auto". Or take a 1909 newspaper article, that under the headline "Is flying safer than driving?", quite ironically begins with "it may be premature, and there is a strong inclination to knock on wood as we write it" before observing that the recent Rheims air meet had only a single accident, while the first ever race at the Indianapolis Speedway saw two or three fatalities on the first day of the event. (In actuality, two drivers, a mechanic and two spectators would be killed during the races there.) The answer is because of exposure. As noted in the original post in this thread, the old-bold pilots quote was printed in the Piper Cub owner's manual - an aircraft that need it not be reminded was extremely popular - a similar situation was the case with Mr. Balchen's claim. While it is hard to illustrate without having actual access to them, it is clear from the search results on Newspapers.com that this story was widely reproduced in papers across the United States. All of them bore the same headline of "Flying Safer Than Driving".

However, there's an important qualifier here: When was the assertion first backed up with actual statistical evidence? For example, a 1938 newspaper article is based on nothing more than the author's own personal experience. In a 1953 newspaper article, a pilot "insist[s] that flying was easily twice as safe [as driving]", but supports it by showing the safe flying characteristics of the Piper Super Cub he is flying, not any sort of academic study.

Furthermore, it was being made before the postwar drop off in "deaths per passenger-mile". This brings up an counterintuitive possibility: The research into aviation safety was brought about by the claim and not the other way around. In other words, when initially proposed, the fact was unsubstantiated. It suggests that, in some cases, the motivation for the supposition was a less than fully honest attempt to promote aviation. (Reference the rationale for the NTSB an independent agency and the "decades-long" debate over the incompatibility of the FAA's dual mandate to both promote and regulate aviation.)

Hangar Queen

The earliest mention of "hangar queen" that could be located was a picture caption in the 3 November 1942 edition of the Scranton Times, which describes a B-17 named "Wild Wimpy". (The name does not appear on the B-17 Nose Art Name Directory, but it is noted as being at a "flying station somewhere in England" and being sketched by Clayton Knight.) Referencing the discussion in a previous post, the term appears in quotation marks and is followed by an explanation in a newspaper article in the 7 March 1943 edition of the Sioux City Journal. It may have gained notoriety from an article written by Ernie Pyle that was published in various newspapers only four days later.

Hot Ship

Unfortunately, researching this phrase is difficult due to overlap with vehicles of the naval variety, but in an aviation context it goes back at least to 18 July 1943, when an article in the Fort-Worth Star Telegram described how the B-26 "live[d] down" its "hot ship" reputation.

Helicopters are "Unnatural"

Often stated as something along the lines of "helicopters don't actually fly. They're just so ugly that the Earth repels them" and, as noted in a forum post, is strongly associated with the similar truism that "helicopters don't fly, they beat the ground into submission". It seems this sentiment is often attributed to an article by Harry Reasoner on page 13 of the November 1973 issue of Approach, the magazine of the Naval Aviation Safety Center, in which he relates:

(Source: "Twenty-Five Years... and Still Holding!," Approach, November 1973, 13.)

For example, the introduction to an article presented at an FAA conference in 1989 begins by paraphrasing Mr. Reasoner's piece before ending with the "beat the ground into submission anecdote. However, the problem is that neither of these quotes appear in his commentary. (However, the popularity of the adage is correctly confirmed in an article by Flight Safety Australia, which notes that Mr. Reasoner was "renowned for his way with words" before observing that "[t]wo paragraphs he wrote on helicopters in 1973 have hovered for many years on the internet".) The earliest substantiated use of the phrase is from an newspaper article in the 2 June 1985 edition of the Muncie Star. A potential prior mention from an article in a 1979 "Symposium on Mountain Logging" cannot be completely confirmed as the full article is not viewable online, but it seems plausible.

As a final note, at least one book associates the "so ugly the earth repels them" quote with a "collection of parts" quote that strongly resembles the "rivets flying in close formation" quote mentioned in a previous post.

Meowing on Guard

This is another one that turned out to be surprisingly easy to research - and not just because it's something that developed during the Internet age. It just so happens that the question has already been asked and answered in an Aviation Stack Exchange thread. It was apparently inspired by a skit in the movie Super Troopers. Now, this does not explictly confirm when it first started happening in aviation, but it does give us a lower bound: 2001. However, if the dates of various forum postings about it are any indication, it really started getting going around 2019-2020.[2][3] The same post gives us an explanation for this as well: a sequel to the movie, which again apparently included a similar skit, was released in 2018. It seems what was occasional from 2001 to 2018 really got going when the second movie reinforced it.

There's a further caveat in that while specifically meowing on guard is recent development, misusing guard as a whole is not. A forum post and AOPA article, both dating to 2017, mention this "buffoonery" (and notably do not mention "meowing", further confirming the post-2018 popularity). The former source even offers "work work work" or "GUUARRDDD!" as pre-meow examples of taunting.

A 2021 incident over the South China Sea somewhat raised the practice's profile. (It is worth mentioning as it can be seen as a merging of the trope with the famous Cold War-era pranks that happened between Tu-95 crews and intercepting U.S. fighters.) It is likely "meowing on guard" will receive a further boost in popularity given a recent stories by ABC and NBC that are making the rounds on places such as r/aviation, r/flying and r/ATC.

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