POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

U.K. Fighter follies

Oh, pardon me, I mean mil-ah-tree air-croft, so sorry old man; as a pair of Harrier (pronounced, Hah-ree-ar, don't you know) pilots here on an exchange program corrected me once.  And maybe they had a point, considering most of their ships are multi-role; what we would call Fighter/Attack in our armed forces. 

But, as the photo record confirms in this Daily Mail article confirms, don't be fooled by the what may incorrectly percieve as a pretentious or condescending temperment among some British warriors, it's merely a reflection of institutional insistence on precise verbage as well as gentlemanly reserve; these guys like to have fun as much as anybody else.  And, while this isn't exactly Monty Python, whaddaya want?  Indeed, our Whizzo's used to occasionally engage in amusing, and sometimes rude, signage as well.  But, you know, they weren't busy driving the plane; pilots really only occasionally have time for a judiciously chosen, ahem, hand signal...

But I must point out a couple of errors in the body of the article.  First, the back seater in the Tornado is not simply the navigator.  Just like in our military aircraft, he is the Whizzo(WSO), or weapons systems operator; which is a combination navigator/weapons officer/flight engineer and works closely with the pilot to optimize the crew's situational awareness at all times as well as the overall mission effectiveness.  The second, well, that would be their reference to Top Gun, which would be OK if they were only talking about the movie starring my beloved Tomcat; and I mean the F-14, not Tom Cruise.  No, the US NAVY Fighter Weapons School at NAS(now MCAS) Miramar in Sandy Eggo is properly referred to as "TOPGUN"; one word, all caps.

You know, since we want to be precise; like Mil-ah-tree Air-croft, eh what?  And not just because I want to pick at nits.

Rocketman