Deadstick.

[Cat Driver]

Where did the saying " deadstick " come from.

I do almost every landing with the throttle/'s closed from fifty feet to touch down because I can get better landings without power.

Sure does not feel like the stick is dead to me.

Anyone?

[GyvAir]

The Wikipedia take:

The "stick" does not refer to the flight controls, which in most aircraft are either fully or partially functional without engine power, but to the traditional wooden propeller, which without power would just be a "dead stick".[1]

[1] OED Online entry for "dead stick" (Oxford English Dictionary

Doesn't ring very true to me.

[Cat Driver]

Me either.

Usually when describing any flight control use the words describe the action or lack of.

However the expression deadstick has been around forever and I guess it really is not all that important.

So when I reduce the power to zero thrust at fifty feet I just killed the prop.

If I need power before touch down and move the throttle/'s forward I have resurrected the prop?

Hey I like that sort of gives it a biblical touch.

[xsbank]

When a/c used rotary engines, back when . and I were learning to fly, they didn't have throttles, just a kill button. You had to get good at letting the engine slow down, but not too far or it would quit cold. No starters. Not saying this is the origin, just saying.

[Big Pistons Forever]

I believe it originated from the vary earliest airplanes. They had limited power and very high drag so a power failure resulted in a sudden reduction in airspeed often into the stall regime thus rendering the control stick “dead” or unresponsive.

[Cat Driver]

Some interesting comments.

[goingmach_1]

Seeing how we are exploring ancient aviation terminology, where did "taxing" an aircraft come from? Or the "button" of the runway? Sorry, not trying to hijack the thread.

[Cat Driver]

You are not hijacking the thread because it is about words that are used that do not seem to describe the action being observed.

[photofly]

Seeing how we are exploring ancient aviation terminology, where did "taxing" an aircraft come from? Or the "button" of the runway? Sorry, not trying to hijack the thread.

Here's a whole page on taxi airplanes:

https://esnpc.blogspot.ca/2016/05/fligh ... y-and.html

[dash8dave]

If we are talking about old sayings my favourite is the 'near miss'. If two planes had a near miss, didn't they actually hit each other?

[crazyaviator]

When a/c used rotary engines, back when . and I were learning to fly

Are we talkin about the GNOME ROTARY ???

I think I know where the word Cock-pit came from--- damn male chauvinist pigs ! Where is F___ is the bridge on an aeroplane?

[Schooner69A]

.:

About that "deadstick" thing you're talking about. I feel that we know each other well enough now that I can suggest (in all confidence, of course) that there are pills now for that little problem.

Dr Hirondelle.

[crazyaviator]

Whenever I had "power to spare" my "stick" was surely not ""dead" but on the rare occasions when the A/C fan stopped functioning, I got hot and bothered and my schtick went from hard and active to soft and DEAD !!!

[Meatservo]

I don’t know about “deadstick”, but the word “cockpit” of course, like many aviation terms, comes from nautical parlance referring to, variously, the area on the orlop or ‘tween decks where the midshipmen lived on a warship, or the helm area on a yacht or small cutter. And that term, in turn, refers to the arena, if you want to call it that, in which people traditionally staged fights between fighting roosters. It has nothing to do with male genitalia at all. The other day I said “cockpit” and a flight attendant told me she wasn’t sure if I should be using such a “sexist” term. For fucks sake. People are getting more and more stupid.

[airway]

How about "ramp"

BTW, has anyone ever heard a pilot using the word "tarmac"?

[Mach1]

We need an Etymologist.

[B208]

The other day I said “cockpit” and a flight attendant told me she wasn’t sure if I should be using such a “sexist” term. For fucks sake. People are getting more and more stupid.

Did you give him/her a nice pat on the bum as you told them to go get you a coffee?

Here's one: Ded or dead reckoning?

[photofly]

We need an Etymologist.

"Hi, I've found a fault with the English language and I need an entomologist"
"An etymologist you mean?"
"Νo. It's a bug, not a feature"



Badum-tsh.

[AirFrame]

Dead stick refers to the propellor. Every etymological reference i've ever seen has said so, it must be true...

Here's one people have fun debating... Where did "ditching" an aircraft come from? The most interesting explanation i've heard is that WWII pilots referred to the Atlantic as "the pond" and the English Channel as "the ditch". Running out of gas (or structural integrity) on the way back from a sortie into Europe aircraft sometimes had to land out in the Channel... Hence "ditching". I've only seen that story referred to once or twice, though, so I don't know if it's completely valid.

[photofly]

From the online etymology dictionary:
http://www.etymonline.com/word/ditch

ditch (v.)
late 14c., "surround with a ditch; dig a ditch;" from ditch (n.). Meaning "to throw into a ditch" is from 1816, hence sense of "abandon, discard," first recorded 1899 in American English. Of aircraft, by 1941. Related: Ditched; ditching.

dead reckoning (n.)
"ascertaining the position of a ship by measurement of the distance run," 1610s, might be from nautical abbreviation ded. ("deduced") in log books, but it also fits dead (adj.) in the sense of "unrelieved, absolute."

taxi (v.)
1911, of airplanes, from slang use of taxi (n.) for "aircraft," or from or reinforced "in allusion to the way a taxi driver slowly cruises when looking for fares" [Barnhart]. Related: Taxied; taxiing.

cockpit (n.)
1580s, "a pit for fighting cocks," from cock (n.1) + pit (n.1). Used in nautical sense (1706) for midshipmen's compartment below decks; transferred to airplanes (1914) and to cars (1930s).