Nautical terminology

[*Lancer*]

Everything in aviation seems to come from nautical languange...

So why is the Flight-DECK, not called the BRIDGE?

[Maxiumus]

"Bridge" is short for "bridge deck" I believe.

Hence "flight deck"

[ETOPS]

When I answer the interphone from the cabin I normally say "bridge". To expand on the theme - how about "cast off forr'd" instead of "push back"?

[steamchicken]

Possibly because it's a "cockpit" after the area in a small craft where the helmsman can be found?

[el dorado]

Old but still good:

Everyone knows that as we now have a sizeable number of female pilots it is no longer permissible to call it the COCKPIT but rather the BOXOFFICE.:p

[no sponsor]

ETOPS,

Subsequent to that message, I suppose you could replace 'starting number four' with 'loose the heads'ls, hands aloft to loose the tops'ls'

Position report to include mach number could be: 'close hauled, with reefs set'

Actually there was an interesting discussion some years ago as to the the etymology of 'flying-the-line' which has some nautical relation to 'ship-of-the-line'. The line inferred the naval tactic used when all the ships, one-behind-the-other, could then present their guns to the enemy in a continous barrage once they were abeam the enemy.

[Crowsnest]

Ok then, one for the Seadogs on the forum:

After watching "Master and Commander" I found myself thinking:

'What on Earth is a "Larboard". Come to think of it, why is Starboard called Starboard?'

And for a bonus point: What does POSH stand for and why? :ooh:

[SLF]

Avast behind...

Larboard is another term for Port I believe, but fell into misuse due to similarity to starboard. Think it was originally "leeboard" or somesuch when a board on the port side was used in place of a deep keel.

Port Out, Starboard Home, POSH with a capital P. Preferred berths to keep cool when heading asia-wards...

[Tinstaafl]

Starboard: Derived from 'Steerboard', that side of the ship on which the steering oar was mounted. This before centreline rudders appeared in ship/boat design.

[Intruder]

Position report to include mach number could be: 'close hauled, with reefs set'
Why do you want to report your flap (reef) setting? ;)

Better speed report would be, "close hauled, with a bone in 'er teeth"! :}

[srjumbo]

There are lots of phrases we use in aviation derived from nautical terms for example 'knots'.
Before technology was used to calculate a ship's speed through the water, a rope was thrown over the side of the ship and the amount of knots tied in the rope which went over the side during a given time was the speed of the ship in knots.
Something obviously had to be tied to the end of the rope which floated and was thrown over the side therefore a log was used. You guessed it, the speed in knots was recorded in a book which became known as 'The Log Book'.

[chiglet]

And a "Knot" was the speed per hour, [Not Nautical MPH] 'cos that's acceleration, {as everyone knows} over a distance of 2000 yards, [a "Nautical Mile"].....:ok:
That is why we have K ilometers, M iles, andNM iles.
That is why we have Vis in Kilometres , Heights inFeet and wind speed in Knots and pick your own "Pressure Setting" :confused:
we aim to please, it keeps the cleaners happy

[Smeagol]

Just a couple of observations:

SLF

The meaning of POSH. The oft quoted, 'port out, starbord home' is an old chestnut but does not appear in my Shorter Oxford dictionary which gives the origin of the word as unknown.


chiglet


Not quite sure how a Nautical MPH would be acceleration.

Thought a Nautical mile was 6080 feet not '2000 yards'


OK, I'll put my anorak on and s*d off now!



Smeagol

[razzele]

and there was me thinking a nautical mile was 6076.4 feet

[chuks]

When you operate close to the equator you can very usefully read off distance from the lat/long squares, since a nautical mile is 1/60 of a degree of latitude at the equator. Who needs those poncey metric units for distance and speed? On the other hand, for mass and volume I find metric to be the way to go.

And that POSH business; you even see some cruise lines using it in their brochures to hark back to some age of imagined luxury, as if one could await a 2:1 ratio of self to grovelling underlings on some modern monster cruise-liner. Nowadays you have to pay extra just to get a window!

When I finally made Captain on a multi-crew aircraft I was very disappointed to learn that flogging had not been carried over from the old ways of doing things. Not PC, I guess....

[Firestorm]

A nautical mile is 6080 feet, but at sea a nautical mile is divided into 10 sub-units known a cables, there being 10 cables to a NM, each cable being 200 yards. It is an approximation, and the resulting mile is sometimes referred to as a tactical mile. The point here is when dealing with measurements as small as a mile, or a cable, 80 feet, or indeed, 4 feet in a cable, the difference is negligible.

If you take even a cursory look at the Nautical Rules of the Road and Aviation Rules of the Road they are very very similar. I believe the reason is that the Royal Navy was the first body charged with developing aviation in a meaningful way, and that included writing the rule books. The obvious thing to do was to adapt the rules that everyone was already familiar with.

[rmmonteiro]

starboard and portside.
Answering the question that came up a few posts back, it is called STARBOARD because when the Portugese navigators were descending the west coast of africa, when they looked to the right side, they would only see the stars. And PORTSIDE is because they allways navigate with the cost in sight, ( the port )

cheers

RMM

[TR4A]

Everything in aviation seems to come from nautical languange... Juan Trippe of Pan Am was a Navy pilot and his use of flying boats.