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RAF Aircraft for the 20teens


Dave Fleming

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Airseeker?!! W*nk.

Even if you try to, it's not easy to say without it sounding like "a**e-licker". Plenty of scope there for boozy brawls, one feels.

Honestly, who makes these names up? Some 16-year tea-boy? Or a PR goon?

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I was told this week that I had been allocated a weeks work on Rivet Joint Airseeker, well after some of the code names for some of the systems on Hercs, Nimrods and Sentry, Airseeker didn't seem out of place - Then I found out it was the new name for the Loose Rivet aircraft. :gobsmacked:

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I was told this week that I had been allocated a weeks work on Rivet Joint Airseeker, well after some of the code names for some of the systems on Hercs, Nimrods and Sentry, Airseeker didn't seem out of place - Then I found out it was the new name for the Loose Rivet aircraft. :gobsmacked:

It seems to have been the project name, them someone said 'We'll just use that for the aircraft'. I have visions of a VSO using it in error and no-one havig the balls to correct him!

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Oh, for the good old days of the Sidestrand, the Bagshot and the Tabloid, eh?

Ah, but in those days there were so many names to be thought up that no-one noticed the odd daft one. In fact, taking that thought further, maybe lack of a viable workload has resulted in the ability to come up with sensible names for aircraft being lost to this country's skill base.

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I think Atlas will most appropriately be "At last" initially.

As for Airseeker, that's the programme name. I suspect just as all the other Waddington ISTAR aircraft, it will receiver a name either beginning with "S" when it arrives, or, more sensibly, be known as the Rivet Joint.

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I think Atlas will most appropriately be "At last" initially.

As for Airseeker, that's the programme name. I suspect just as all the other Waddington ISTAR aircraft, it will receiver a name either beginning with "S" when it arrives, or, more sensibly, be known as the Rivet Joint.

Don't know what was wrong with Sentry R.2 myself. There seems an increasing trend nowadays to use the mark number as a quasi-US designator (eg "F3" for Tornado ADVs) so there'd be only limited confusion with the AEW.1.

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I suspect just as all the other Waddington ISTAR aircraft, it will receiver a name either beginning with "S" when it arrives, or, more sensibly, be known as the Rivet Joint.

Well on that basis, why don't we propose the following fully self explanatory names to their Airships?! The new Rivet Joint should be called one of the following, Snoopy, Shifty, Spy(or Speculator if we use the latin coz then we could have a fleet of Speculari!!) or Surveiller. Or if we want to really take the mick, we could adopt the American practice of recycling names and call it the Spooky II(esp apt since these are recyled American planes).

Of course, these suggestions are firmly tongue in cheek, but with some of the decisions being made in Whitehall these days, one can't rule anything out....

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Don't know what was wrong with Sentry R.2 myself. There seems an increasing trend nowadays to use the mark number as a quasi-US designator (eg "F3" for Tornado ADVs)

Sea Harrier F/A2. Probably done to try and put it on a par with the F/A-18. This totally ignored the fact that there was a perfectly good designation - FGA.2 - already available in the system.

Likewise with the Phantoms leased from the US Navy in the 80s. By rights they should have been Phantom F3, but intead they became Phantom F-4J(UK).

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Don't know what was wrong with Sentry R.2 myself. There seems an increasing trend nowadays to use the mark number as a quasi-US designator (eg "F3" for Tornado ADVs) so there'd be only limited confusion with the AEW.1.

You mean using the Sentry R2 designation for the RC-135 ? It wouldn't be 100% correct technically as the two, while similar, are effectively different planes: the C135 series is a direct development of the 367-80 prototype. The 707, on which the Sentry is based, is still a development of the 367-80 but has a big number of differences, like a totally different cabin section. As such there is little in common between the two apart from the general layout and some components.

This is also relfected in the fact that US military 707s are not numbered as versions of the C-135 but use the designation C-137 for those based on the early versions and C-18 for those based on the 707-320

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There seems an increasing trend nowadays to use the mark number as a quasi-US designator (eg "F3" for Tornado ADVs) so there'd be only limited confusion with the AEW.1.

for some reason, that bugs me quite a lot - and we can only get away with it because, at the moment, we don't have any types on the same Misson/mark number. (though I wonder when the last time was when that actually happened? Tornado F.3 and Phantom F.3 sort of overlapped, and that's maybe why the Phantom designation didn't really stick.)

and don't get me started on people dicussing "T1" Typhoons when they don't make it clear if they mean the two-seaters or the Tranche 1's... :-)

Anyway, IIRC the E-3 and RC-135 airframes are different enough (as one's based on the 707, and the other on the KC-135, which have different fuselages) that you couldn't really say that the Rivets are Sentry variants. (edit - giorgio beat me to it...)

Edited by RFT
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Anyway, IIRC the E-3 and RC-135 airframes are different enough (as one's based on the 707, and the other on the KC-135, which have different fuselages) that you couldn't really say that the Rivets are Sentry variants. (edit - giorgio beat me to it...)

Although to be fair they used the name Harrier for two aircraft that only had an engine in common. And even that was different.

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I was told this week that I had been allocated a weeks work on Rivet Joint Airseeker, well after some of the code names for some of the systems on Hercs, Nimrods and Sentry, Airseeker didn't seem out of place - Then I found out it was the new name for the Loose Rivet aircraft. :gobsmacked:

loose rivet? now there's an idea for an aircraft name..... :)

well it made me chuckle.

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Even if you try to, it's not easy to say without it sounding like "a**e-licker". Plenty of scope there for boozy brawls, one feels.

Honestly, who makes these names up? Some 16-year tea-boy? Or a PR goon?

17 year old actually!

Sorry guys that was my fault, the reason i proposed that name was because the aircraft will be lucky if its airworthy and even gets to the air before the RAF scraps them!

Edited by RAF Colonel
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The way MoD Provisioning works I am surprised it's not the 'Golden Rivet'

Coz you bet yer bottom dollar we'll all wind up bent over and shafted so someone keeps his bonus and 9's on his annual appraisal!

Rex

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17 year old actually!

Sorry guys that was my fault, the reason i proposed that name was because the aircraft will be lucky if its airworthy and even gets to the air before the RAF scraps them!

Ah, you mean it desperately seeks air to stay alive in the current financial climate. Hadn't seen it that way before.

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