'Boffins' are still thought of as being rather 'absent minded professor' types who have flashes of inspiration and then spend hours locked away in 'back rooms' refining their conceptual studies. Probably forgetting to eat or go to bed. They wear lab coats with long-discarded slide rules and the odd pencil or two in the top pocket, have threadbare shirts with frayed, curling collars and flannel ties over which they wear v-necked pullovers full of holes mainly caused by the consequences of trying to light their pipes with bunsen burners... Old corduroy trousers, a different sock for each foot and ancient brogues complete their wardrobes. They speak in Boffinese and will happily scribble on a table cloth with an ancient Conway Stuart fountain pen in obscure Greek symbols, the meaning of which are known only to fellow boffins.....
Whereas 'Engineers' are rather less colourful but certainly more practical and smell of oil and hydraulic fluid. They have hands which bear witness to many a slipped screwdriver or Dzus key occasioned when attempting to turn the boffins' brainwaves into something which actually works.
Or at least, that's how it was. But now there is a third sub-species - the 'software designer'. A pony-tailed geek who lives in a world of computer chassis, patchboards, junk food cartons and styrafoam cups tapping away in some obscure code to develop something totally meaningless - even to boffins!
All have one thing in common - no stick and rudder time! But many of the braver boffins and engineers spent much time trying to understand why the aircrew had so much trouble with their bits of kit - even flying with them on occasion to find out why!
The regard in which aircrew and boffins held each other was always amiable - long may it continue!