The vocabulary of your air force...

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TheGreenGoblin
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The vocabulary of your air force...

#1 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Sep 23, 2019 8:41 pm

Wherever you come from and your role or rank. It matters not a jot! Give us the story from pilots to the tea wallah! We live here because we love flying...

(Names changed to protect the innocent and the guilty)...

FLOSSIES
As promised to <<redacted>>.., here is the story of where the name "FLOSSIE" came from.

Not many years after the arrival of the C130B's onto the SAAF register, South Africa became embroiled in a Border War along the South West African/Angolan border. There has been much good and bad written about that conflict and I am not going to add further to that issue, other than to point out that the C130's were used on a daily basis to convey Troops and Material to and from the border, in later years SAFAIR, operating L100's were contracted to assist in the air transport effort. To the casual observer the C130 and L100 look so much alike that one could be forgiven for thinking they were the same. Having said the above I can now get on with story.

At 28 Squadron, the operators of the SAAF C130's, was a Flight Engineer named Phil or "Flippie". He was a most dedicated man who ate, slept and dreamed C130. In his private life he was a most disciplined man (real old school, soldier), who never did a half job of anything. You all know the type, "if its worth doing, do it properly or don't do it at all"

Phil was married to a lady with the real oldie English name of Florence. In her family she was called Flo, and among her siblings she was called Flossie. (by now you can see where this is going)

Being the consummate professional Phil would ALWAYS walk out, long before the rest of the crew, to the aircraft he was schedualed to fly in and do a proper pre-flight inspection. A few of his fellow flight engineers would pull his leg and tell him the aircraft was only due for a major technical inspection at a future date. His standard reply was "Chaps, if you treat and look after your Aircraft like you look after your wife, she will never let you down" This comment always gave all of his Squadron mates a smile. Over the months, whenever his crew were due to walk out to the Aircraft they would ask "where is Flippie, is he at Flossie? or Come guys we shouldn't keep Flossie waiting" or comments along those lines.

In time the reference to Flossie was made more often at the movement control section at Air Force Base Waterkloof and more and more people became atuned to this reference and this then morphd into, All troop transport, becoming known as "FLOSSIE"

You may ask how I know this bit of history. The simple answer is that Phil was my Father and "FLOSSIE: was my Mother.
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Pontius Navigator
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Re: The vocabulary of your air force...

#2 Post by Pontius Navigator » Tue Sep 24, 2019 8:14 am

Nice one. Can we have Albert next please?

From ARSE

The venerable Lockheed C130 transport aircraft is known in British service as the 'Hercules'. Primarily used for shifting large amounts of duty free alcohol and cigarettes back to the UK, for onward sale round the back of most pubs in the Brize Norton and Lyneham areas, it has also been successfully adapted by the RAF for transporting small amounts of non-duty free cargo (when space allows), and sometimes even personnel. It should be remembered that as the result of CAA regulations, non RAF aircrew flying in Hercules's may not transport anything that is slightly pointy or can be made to go bang. There are no exceptions to this, so 16 Air Assault Brigade can forget any notions they might have about parachute or TALO operations: movers won't allow it.

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Re: The vocabulary of your air force...

#3 Post by ian16th » Thu Apr 02, 2020 11:19 am

Furlough is a word that is being used a lot these days.

My understanding is that the US military have always used it where we Brits would use 'leave'. But paid leave.

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