Thomas
Yanks!
What? are we back in '43 and stealing your womenfolk agin?
'Yanks' are not an homogenous mass, staring eastward, looking for collective ways to confuse your sense of what's proper and correct, and further distort the Queens English.
We have types like Lappos,yourself and several others who have put in the time and developed, what for me, seems like an uncanny level of knowledge...
Then we have your common or garden!yank/polack/frog/canuck/et al, such as myself, who just fly helicopters.No great aviation education other than what we learned in flight school, just been out flying for a living all my life.
No claim on being any kind of Guru, but nonetheless like to throw in our 'two bits' ...Just for the fun (as the French say!)
The Spanish milled dollars were easily cut apart into equal "bits" of 8 pieces. One "bit" would be equal to 1/8 of a dollar, and 2 bits would equal 2/8 (a quarter of a dollar). So, that's why the coins were called "pieces of eight", and "2 bits" was commonly used to refer to 25 cents.
When contributing my little piece to this august forum, I write as if I'm speaking to a guy in the hangar...I don't really think about the pedantics.As most guys (I think) just intrinsically understand the jargon. If the check airman says to me, "give me a 180 to the ground"...I don't ask, a 180 What?......I just kinda know what he means! and go ahead and do it best I can...
I appreciate that some people want to get to the marrow, but then again, some of us just throw out a few comments without needing to write something for peer review.
Your clarification of the nomenclature makes sense to me, although I don't know that you'll find too many people adhering to it, with this degree of accuracy.
I'm not arguing the need for accuracy, just that many of us 'cousins' are a little more relaxed about nomenclature, or maybe just a little more relaxed period...
Most 'Yanks' think of an auto, simply as an auto! with the codicil attached... to a power recovery or a full down...touchdown...take it to the ground etc...
VRS v SWP....In my working world (logging) the approaches might start out as upflow/upwind, and just as everyone gets in the groove, we get a windshift and you end up falling thru a little....Am I in VRS or SWP....I don't know? because as soon as I feel it happening, I fly out of it before I get bent too far outta shape..... I work with it, until the next cycle break, and try to get the guys/landing reset. It's just not that big a problem... But when I read that in VRS I'm just along for the ride, makes me wonder if I'm safe doing what I've done for a long time. maybe I just don't get it? but I get paid for heading downhill (normally) as fast as I can and somehow I always seem to stop at the bottom...Go figure?
I've heavily edited this from the original to remove the apparent vitriol, I got a couple of emails saying I'd gone overboard...
You see! ....I find the way you say 'Yanks' offends me...Don't know why exactly,some folks can say it fine. The way you say it just irritates the hell outta me!
I feel better now!
170
Last edited by 170'; 24th Dec 2005 at 03:30.