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Aviation History
1946
1946 - 0430.PDF
FLIGHT FEBRUARY 28TH, CORRESPONDENCE as compared with single-engined types, may I point out that although a four-engined aircraft can certainly carry a larger proportion of fuel than a smaller type, the fuel consumption of the four-engined aircraft is four times greater or more. JOHN LAWSON COVERDALE. R.A.F. SLANG A Few More Probable DerivationsM AY I submit a rather belated reply to the letter on "The First Strip," by Mr. W. H. Brown (Flight. Jan. 17th)? 1 would like to suggest the following derivations and com- ments : — Torn off a strip.—Meaning reprimanded, told off, given the raspberry. Enquiries into its origin prove futile, but it must be admitted that there is a considerable coincidence in the fact that the noise produced by tearing off a strip of cloth is not unlike the colloquial "raspberry." Gen.—Reliable information. Some say it is an abbreviation ot "genuine information," but at one time official documents were headed '' For the General Information of All Con- cerned " ; the latter would seem to be the more probable. The use of the word has spread into '' civvy street'' in no mean manner. Bind.—A depressing job or situation, one who is a bore. It is one of the oldest expressions in the R.A.F., and the origin is in an aircraft's brakes binding when they should not—• itself a bind. Clueless.—Ignorant. This should be self explanatory; without a clue, without an inkling. A Clueless Type is the opposite of a Gen Wallah Mr. Brown might also be interested in some other expres- sions, possibly covered by his "... and so forth:'' It's a piece of cake.—It's easy, it's a cinch. Literally, it'3 easy to get your teeth into, and is a modern version of a Great War saying, "There's jam on it," or "It's Jammy." Panic or flap.—An excitement caused by any duty. ' It is derived from an old naval expression referring to the high- speed preparations before going to sea. Then the very R.A.F., very effective You've Had It, (you cannot have it, you have missed it), has been the. subject of an article in The Times. Surely it originated in station stores? . . . It's no use asking for more . . . You've Had It! IAN LEE-DUNCAN. Not a Wartime Innovation THERE have been a number of letters in your column*regarding the origin of such phrases as "tearing ofiS strip," and I notice that many explanations-—or rather gues&Jj —have been offered as to the way in which such phrases became common parlance. These guesses seem to limit the use of such slang to the period of the recent war. In fact, how- ever, much of this slang was quite common long before the war, and I would suggest that the only reason for its sudden prominence is the tremendous expansion of the R.A.F. and the publicity given to its eSorts during the past six years. After all, which of us hasn't at least one "R.A.F. type" in the family? Although 1 had little to do with the R.A.F. before September, 1939, the phrases "tearing off a strip" and "couldn't care less" and such terms as "wizard" and "bang-on " were hardly unfamiliar ones ten years ago. EX-V.R. [A point nobody has yet raised is how much of this slang is actually common to all three Services and not exclusive to the R.A.F.—ED.j FOR THE BOOKSHELF First Tide, by Alan Melville. Skeflington and Son, Ltd., 12s. bd. net. ALAN MELVILLE was a B.B.C. War Correspondent inR.A.F. uniform. He landed in Normandy on D-Day, and he describes the whole campaign up to the halt at the Scheldt while the wav into Antwerp was being cleared. Though he was no authority on things aeronautical, he gives very vividly a picture of what air cover meant to the soldiers on the ground. His powers of descriptive writing are great, and he uses them all to describe the bombardment when the heavy machines of Bomber Command tackled the defences of Caen. It is a grim story. Not less so is the description of the havoc wrought by our aircraft on the lanes leading out of the Falaise Gap. The majority of th<_ book is not of air interest, but it is full of the interest attaching to the first steps of the victorious in- vasion of Euiope. It has one very good map. F. A. R. "Hurricane," by F. H. M. Lloyd, ys. 6d. The Harborough Publishing Co. 'HPHERE is something original in the idea of. writing a bio- •"- graphy about a piece of machinery, with the more normal human subject of such a book merely as incidentals. To some degree this has been done before in the world of films when the Fust of a Few—a tiot very accurate story of the development of the Spitfire—appeared; but in that case, to all but the more technically interested film-goers, the actual aircraft took a very second place. Hurricane has been published with the co-operation of Hawkers and by a member of the firm's technical staff, so there should be no question about its accuracy, and it is, one feels, more than high time that this fighter should be given its ' full praise for work throughout the war and, in particular, during the Battle of Britain. The average member of the public undoubtedly considers that the Spitfire won the battle; certainly this aircraft played a critical part, but the Hurricane was very much in the majority as a type and was, in conse- quence, responsible for Oi per cent, of the total German losses. The Hurricane was in front-line use in the Far East until the very end, yet the basic design was conceived as long ago as 1933 in the form of a monoplane version of the Fury biplane fighter. One way or another the design inevitably developed along more and more individual lines, and the prototype was, superficially, very similar to the last production aircraft, which was flown in September, 1944. Mr. Lloyd mentions, in his final chapter, a number of experi- ments or prospective experiments about which little or nothing was heard at the time. In addition to the " Hurri-biplane" with the jettisonable upper wing, there were the " Hum- glider," suggested for long-range convoy protection, the " Hurri-Liberator " composite, and many others. "Red Rain. By Leslie Kark. 8s. 6d. Macmillan and Co.,Ltd. THIS is not merely a good novel about flying; it is a verygood novel in its own right. We have learnt to make allowances for a certain literary amateurishness in books byflying people so long as their pictures are technically true. In this case no allowances are needed. Red Rain isthoroughly professional and describes real persons, with real thoughts and against a real background—so much so thatcertain passages and character drawings produce a form of nostalgia in the reader. The picture of the brother and sisterrelationship, for instance, of Judith and David Tetlow is per- fect, and the impossible situation between Robert and Dilysis handled with understanding. There is no false sentiment or tendency to try to give the reader some sort of happy end-ing when, by the very rules of the real world, no such ending is decently possible. It is a grown-up novel. If criticism can be applied it concerns the fact that WingCmr. Kark has attempted too much and has given the readei such a complete picture of each member of the crew of tht-bomber which is eventually lost over Munich that it is <i;."lfe cult to maintain interest in any single one. The story wGi\f5perhaps, have been more satisfying if the drawing of tw character—Michael, for instance—had been permitted to over-shadow that of the others. Wing Cdr. Kark is a man of understanding and sensibility-Listen to this: "It was a period in the war when false opti- mism and a kind of weariness with the promises of a secondfront and of the ultimate defeat of Germany and Japan some- how intermingled into a frustration and a despondency . • •How well we all remember that phase. And he is blessed with a sound sense of the ridiculous. Here is an Americanflight engineer talking about gongs: ". . . We just have different values about medals . . . everyone who matter?knows the difference . . . for the rest, if works to the Yanks disadvantage ... if you get a medal for singing in the choirat the time of the Coronation, people who don't know think. 'Uh-huh, Burma Campaign or something.' But, with us,if a guy wears the Congressional Medal of Honour, or some- thing terrific like that, people say to themselves, ' Ah veiltwenty-one to-day, I suppose, but he looks older • • •
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