'XXXXX Down'

[212man]

Mark Bowden has a lot to answer for! Every accident, incident or minor fart by the pilot, of a helicopter, is now reported on pprune as "XXXX (insert as appropriate) DOWN"

What's with this 'DOWN' obsession? Most accidents - to my limited knowledge - involve an aircraft going down. Very few involve an aircraft going 'UP!'

It's symptomatic of the creep of Hollywood movie language and phrases into the common vernacular. As Cmdr. Tom "Stinger" Jordan said in Top Gun - "God help us!" :ok:

[Capetonian]

It's like so many other bloody irritating and stupid clichés :

At the end of the day
At the top of the hour
Basically .....

The worst use I ever saw of 'end of the day' was in a motoring article :

"At the end of the day what everybody wants is a car that starts in the morning."

[Horror box]

minor fart by the pilot

On this point I beg to differ. I have found this particular type of incident/accident to most certainly go "up" and then out of the survival suit neck collar, then up again into my face, although up until now I have not felt the need to report such incidents on Pprune, but I do get your point, and have to agree in general.

[212man]

HB, I'd say that was just routine ops - how else can one process a Leman/Forties/Buchan/Brae/Claymore/Bruce/Brent/thistle etc etc bacon and egg and mushroom and black pudding and baked beans and tomato and fried bread breakfast whilst en-route? Happy days - don't see too much bacon these days!

[Horror box]

212,
Of course you are quite right, it is indeed routine ops, but as for the healthy British diet to which you refer, that is but a distant memory for me also. In our operation up here, we are lucky if we get a bottle of water thrown at us, but the money is not too bad, so I just about manage to afford a few extra "comfort" calories after work to keep myself inflated, ready for the next day at work!

[Skittles]

@ 212man,

The phrase has been around and in prominent use well well before you were born, and well well before Mark Bowen was born.

It's a perfectly valid slang term and is understandable to the masses.

I think I'll stick with it.

[Torquetalk]

'tis your choice at the end of the day.

[Brian Abraham]

The word is one much used in particular areas of the aviation world.

I got a down (I got a failing grade on a flight)
My aircraft's down (it's U/S)
We've got an aircraft down (an aircraft has force landed/crashed)
We're down X aircraft (we're X aircraft short of being able to meet a commitment - maybe U/S or assigned other missions)
Then there is "I'm going down". :E

The Brits came up with the book title "Tornado Down" and the Cousins followed suit with "Blackhawk Down".

Things must be OK in your part of the world if a man in your position and responsibilities has time to worry about this 212man. ;)

[SASless]

All this use of the word "Down" getting you down?

[TeeS]

Hi 212

I have to agree, 'xxxxx down' leaves me expecting a sad tale of destroyed aircraft and injured/deceased. Obviously a good thing when you find the incident consists of an R22 with bent skids!

Your comments led me to dig out my dear old Dad's copy of 'ABC of the RAF' which includes a 'Short Glossary of R.A.F Slang' which includes the following more descriptive terms:

Bale Out- To take to one's parachute.
Blonde job, A- Young woman with fair hair. (I had to include that one!)
Deck, Crack down on- To "pancake" an aircraft.
Drink, In the- To come down into the sea.
Play pussy- Hide in the clouds.
Spun in- A bad mistake. Analogy from an aircraft spining out of control into the ground.
Touch Bottom- Crash.

I thought I had seen 'Wizzard Prang' in there as well but that appears to be down to my imagination.

There must be plenty more adjectives to use out there!

Cheers

TeeS

[oldtimersdisease]

A prang was originally used by the RAF during WWI for a crash, but by WWII usually meant a large explosion, especially as the result of a bombing raid, as shown by some of the extracts from the log book of Jim Glasspool, a navigator in XV Squadron RAF, which at the time was operating Lancasters

Date Target Remarks
8/7/44 Caen
1st 1000 bombers daylight by B.C. load 6 tonnes. Germans tanks and troop concentralions saw convoys going to beachhead- wizand. no opposition.
15/7/44 Kiel
1st German??. Carried 'cookie' and "J" incendiaries as well as leaflets. Heavy flak & fighters. Good prang.
6/8/44 Stuttgart
Nice load with leaflets. Quite a quiet trip. Moderate flak & fighters. Bombs went safe.
8/8/44 Stuttgart
What a find! Stuttgart again. lots of fighters. attacked by me. 110 otherwise a quiet trip. lots 62 a/c
?/8/44 Foret de lecheux
French target peace of cake!! load 14000 lb oil bump in woods. Good prang.
?/8/44 Fort denglos
French oil target again 14000lb no fries seen but bags of smoke no flak although a few fighters in raid area.
?/8/44 Hamel
France-daylight op. Raids of falaise bombing jerry in 'bottleneck'. Good prang.
?/8/44 Stettin
Long blinding carried 'cookie' and 'J' incendiasier. 3 mins late. Seattened attack-not as good.
?8/8/44 Bremen
Wizard prang area devistated 2000x 4000 yeards bang on bombing. hordes of searchlights flak pretty accurate.
25/8/44 Russelheim
Shaky "do". Hit with predicted flak en route, almost got the chop. Piece of flak through table too close to be funny. m./ug and w/op attacked in rear!! Bags of fighters & S/L's over target Coned. Corkscrewing like the clappers. Bang on prang.
29/8/44 Stettin
Long binding trip, but how cares-Joe for king. Coned over targets. Bags of flak & panick. No fighters encounted. Routed over swedden. The low types shot rockets at us. Anyway, we got back.
31/8/44 Pont Remy (FR)
Narrow on T.O. Violent swerve. Bombs half ml. From A.P. Target Robot debot. Spot of flak. otherise ok.
5/9/44 Le Havre
An interestiing trip. Oboe's 50th. My 13th. Leading navigator, 'bang on' show. Carried as passenger, Brig. Genral Schlatter USAAC. Accurate flak over target. Main force carried 1000 lb bomb for every German in le Havre.

[Sir George Cayley]

I say Ginger,good show:ok:

SGC

[212man]

I'm grateful for the etymological put downs (no pun intended!) but I think I'm fairly familiar with how long the word has been used. I would sugest that it tends to be associated with military action, and is probably a contraction of 'shot down.'

What I find irritating is when someone starts a thread (using the term) with the dramatic overtones it implies, and it turns out to be an incident where some tosser who can't hover his R22 has just tripped over his skids.

Anyway, Brian, you are right - I have more important things to worry about. Right now I'm in the Singapore Lounge in Changi debating over the Sauvignon Blanc or the Piper Heidsick....:ok:

[topendtorque]

Plonk, in the middle of the day;
over here we'd usually prefer to put down a XXXX or two.

then agin XXX was a good drop to, but here I am showing my age.