Flyboys?

From: Cub Driver

As I get deeper into Flyboys, my irritation increases. Bradley
regularly refers to the North American B-25 Mitchell bomber as a
Billy.

Matilda or Gertrude, maybe, but not Billy. Definitely not a male but a placid,
homely, dependable, strong-as-an-ox female.

As to "flyboy," I asked an old friend if he ever recalled being referred to by
anyone as "flyboy," and he said, "No....., unless it was in a bar and some
gyrine used it while trying to muscle in on my girl. Broken beer bottle fight
following immediately, of course."


Chris Mark

Subject: Flyboys (Was: Flyboys?)
From: ost (Chris Mark)
Date: 12/18/03 9:35 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

From: Cub Driver

As I get deeper into Flyboys, my irritation increases. Bradley
regularly refers to the North American B-25 Mitchell bomber as a
Billy.

Matilda or Gertrude, maybe, but not Billy. Definitely not a male but a
placid,
homely, dependable, strong-as-an-ox female.

As to "flyboy," I asked an old friend if he ever recalled being referred to
by
anyone as "flyboy," and he said, "No....., unless it was in a bar and some
gyrine used it while trying to muscle in on my girl. Broken beer bottle
fight
following immediately, of course."


Chris Mark

No one ever dared call Willie the Wolf a female.



Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

On 18 Dec 2003 17:43:56 GMT, (ArtKramr) wrote:

Subject: Flyboys (Was: Flyboys?)
From: ost (Chris Mark)
Date: 12/18/03 9:35 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

From: Cub Driver

As I get deeper into Flyboys, my irritation increases. Bradley
regularly refers to the North American B-25 Mitchell bomber as a
Billy.

That's something that arguably never occured during the operational
life of the aircraft.


As to "flyboy," I asked an old friend if he ever recalled being referred to
by anyone as "flyboy," and he said, "No....., unless it was in a bar and some
gyrine used it while trying to muscle in on my girl. Broken beer bottle
fight following immediately, of course."

Chris Mark

No one ever dared call Willie the Wolf a female.

Arthur Kramer

I don't recall attributing gender to my F-105, the "Bat Bird", but
typically all airplanes and ships are referred to in the femine
gender.

My F-4E, was nicknamed "Arnold--the Pig" before I got my name on the
canopy rail. It was bestowed because of Arnold's tendency to fly
sidways, thereby consumming much more fuel than anyone else in the
flight--a result of two gear-up landings (neither of which I had
anything to do with.)

On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 18:36:54 GMT, Ed Rasimus
wrote:

My F-4E, was nicknamed "Arnold--the Pig" before I got my name on the
canopy rail. It was bestowed because of Arnold's tendency to fly
sidways, thereby consumming much more fuel than anyone else in the
flight--a result of two gear-up landings (neither of which I had
anything to do with.)

Unless this was a common occurrence, I know someone who also flew
Arnold. We were just talking about it the other day. He says that
this sort of thing is the typical "good news, bad news" the F-4 made
possible.

Good news--after two gear-up landings the airplane is still
flightworthy. Bad news--but it's going to fly sideways and really
burn fuel.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer