Originally Posted by
ShyTorque
During my RAF QHI course I was teamed up with a Royal Navy pilot.
When spot turning the helicopter I’d been trained to announce “TAIL GOING LEFT”, “TAIL GOING RIGHT” or “MOVING BACK” etc as required for the benefit of crew cooperation.
My RN colleague used to instead say stuff like “TURNING TO PORT”, “TURNING TO STARB’D” and “GOING ABAFT!”
I think he just did it to confuse me, but I did get used to it and sometimes imitated him with a pirate accent.
I'm virtually certain that your colleague will actually have said "GOING ASTERN". "Abaft" has a completely different usage and meaning , such as "abaft the beam", meaning a relative bearing further aft more than 90 degrees.
Originally Posted by
Cat3508
And an old maritime rule, Green to Green, Red to Red, in perfect safety go ahead
Equally old is "Red to Red and Green, perfect safety go between"!
Jack