denis555 makes a valid point. Conventionally (but who cares about conventon any more!), the VC10s, Tristars and C17 (not even a Manufacturer's Type No) should have been named after a Town or City; but they haven't. Furthermore, the Gnat, Jetstream and Hawk broke the tradition (habit for the more pedantic fish heads) of trainers being named after school/college things. Arguably, Tornado 1/4s should have had "bomber" names not common to the 2/3 fighters. Historically, a Boston (bomber) wasn't that different from a Havoc (fighter) other than weapon fit and role.
For the 1930's airframes, the naming of RAF Aircraft was based on a quite strict criteria (Towns / Cites for Bomber/Transports etc), abet with the odd exception. Of course with the advent of purchases of US aircraft / off the shelf and civil types in mass, the manufactures names tended to get picked i.e Tiger Moth, Liberator, Fortress. I’ve looked into the naming of a piece of kit I worked on once from the files at Kew. The manufacturer put the name forward, MoS (running the development programme) agreed with the manufacturer. The RAF Engineering Authority who was going to be in charge of it wished to be named with the letters SA at the start (Saturn, was the first choice if memory serves), to reflect its mission and HQ Fighter Command (the user) wanted to name it after a Snake!!! In the end, the Defence Minister picked the manufacturer’s name (the kit in question was the Bloodhound SAM).
Last edited by MAINJAFAD; 22nd Jun 2008 at 18:55.