What is the name of your plane?

[oldtimer]

My favourite many moons ago was a Fleet 80, CF-DYP, called "The Deadwood Stage" and it kind of fit.

[Rudder Bug]

I had plenty of good times with DYP in the early 80's. Where is she now?

Gilles

[looproll]

"Little Bird" for my tiny Pitts S-1S

[Instructor_Mike]

We have a 172 with the registration of FHOC. Usually we call it hawk, but it spent some time in the 'peg getting maintence and I wanted to get FHOC out there which turned into getting the Fa Hawk (read it aloud if needed) out of Winnipeg.

[Meatservo]

Pale Horse

It killed the previous owner. I'm quite fond of it, even though it tried to kill me, first time I flew it - jammed stick on vertical dowline, which made the landing interesting.

I love it dearly.

I'm certain you already realise this, but it bears repeating for other "lovers" out there: It does NOT love you back!

[1000 HP]

I flew a C-180 C-FLDW a friend of mine called "Loves Deep Water". I took a picture of it underwater at Pauingassi which I suppose I should not have showed to him...

I was going to call my Mooney "Mary Jane" after my wife, but I thought it might give me problems at the border. It's vintage so I call it "The Time Machine" after a Rush tour.

[Tramp]

I had plenty of good times with DYP in the early 80's. Where is she now?

Gilles

I'm pretty sure DYP is in the Ottawa area now - based at Carp, if I'm not mistaken.

[CFR]

Pale Horse

It killed the previous owner. I'm quite fond of it, even though it tried to kill me, first time I flew it - jammed stick on vertical dowline, which made the landing interesting.

I love it dearly.

I'm certain you already realise this, but it bears repeating for other "lovers" out there: It does NOT love you back!

Agree! No matter how much you love your plane, it can turn on you in an instant and try and kill you.

[Colonel Sanders]

it can turn on you in an instant

Sure, had that happen lots of times, but let's face
it, 99% of the time, when something goes wrong,
the pilot screwed up:

http://i.imgur.com/W5xrz9g.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/z5Fik5g.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/0ORVUC8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/aoiRLsH.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/xVTML.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/yMob0QK.jpg

The above is just a quick summary of recent
accidents near me.

Pilots like to think that 99% of the time it's the
aircraft that fails, but that just isn't so. For
example, the B777 that just crashed at SFO.
Or how about Resolute Bay?

[Meatservo]

That goes without saying, but some people have this idea that "the ol'girl" looks after them in some way after having flown her for thousands of hours, as if she were a horse or something. You hear it all the time, especially among young floatplane pilots and private pilots with their cherished machines. Wrong. "The ol'girl" is not "looking out" for you; she's just as happy sitting in a crushed heap in a garage somewhere with bits of your scalp in the broken instrument panel as she is bobbing on the water or flying through the air. Taking pride in the fact that you always bring the ship home is fine; taking pride in the fact that she always brings YOU home is incorrect. She doesn't care about you at all.

[Colonel Sanders]

She doesn't care about you at all

Quite true - I've been married twice before, so
I'm very experienced with that kind of relationship

Thing is about an airplane that you get to know
over the years and decades ... you clean it carefully,
get to know it and it systems in great depth - you
know every hose and valve and clamp - and when
it's behaviour changes, you listen to it, because it's
talking to you.

Guy across from me has a 172, and it had "morning
sickness" - ran rough after it started, and then smoothed
out, and because he's a pilot, he didn't care.

Well, his exhaust valve stuck so bad, it bent a pushrod,
cracking the shroud tube and started to leak oil.

There's nothing wrong with getting to know your aircraft,
and listening to it when it talks to you. Heavy on the
anthropomorphising, sure, but there's something to it.

PS Can I use pollysyllabic words in this crowd?

[Meatservo]

PS Can I use pollysyllabic words in this crowd?

I'm sure it depends on whether you're using those words out of perspicacity or merely being bombastic. Let your conscience be your guide.

Being mechanically competent has nothing to do with "love". The guy didn't damage his engine because he's a pilot, nor did it fail because he didn't "love" it. He was just careless. Those guys are running around all over the place. Let me tell you about some of the engineers I've run into over the years, if you want to ascribe mechanical ineptitude simply to "being a pilot".

[RCAC#20SQ]

.I learned to fly the summer of 1962 at the Regina flying club. They had just purchased new Piper Tripacers which kind of excited me however I was assigned the old 1946 Fleet Canuck nicknamed "The Deadwood Stage". I learned to love it. It had recently been re skinned in Bright bright yellow.
This summer learning experience as a 17 year old air cadet is one of the most memorable in my life. Any others out there who trained on The deadwood? I would love to share stories.

[lownslow]

Being mechanically competent has nothing to do with "love".

I respectfully disagree. Becoming really good at anything almost has to be driven by love. If I didn't love what I do I never would have put the effort in to be where I am now.

He was just careless.

Careless because he didn't have the love.

LnS.

[iflyforpie]

In spite of the many colourful names I have called it over the past few months..... I haven't come up with anything official yet.

[davecessna]

Ab initio plane 1
Ab initio plane 2
Ab initio plane 3

[Brownstone]

Anyone remember the twin otters in Resolute.. "Charlie Goes" & "Charlie Gone"?

[170 to xray]

Very Dirty Sally. Unfortunately,she is no longer.

[182-SS]

Tweety.

There's a Taylorcraft near me with the registration C-FLYS... We call it "syphilis"...

No one thought that name was hilarious? Not one comment on it! SYPHILIS!!! WTF lol hahahaha.

My girl is Suzie, I love her dearly and always treat her with extreme care and respect as she is just like any other fast woman, get complacent and she will kill you. Remember Aluminum is just as cold as a hookers heart.

[Big Pistons Forever]

The only plane I ever named was an ancient beater Ho I had the misfortune to fly early in my career until I got smart enough to quit the job. It's name was "You Fucker" because on about every 3rd flight something important would stop working, never the same thing and often unreproducable on the ground. When this happened to me I would always exclaim "You Fucker, why are you trying to kill me !" It stuck with the FO's and after a while that became the name of the airplane and everyone groaned when they were assigned to fly "You Fucker".

[oldtimer]

A very good friend of mine had a Cessna 180, CF-HYD which he called Hotel Yankee Deathtrap. It was actually a good airplane.
A company I knew had a Navajo CF-TCE, everyone called it the Twin Coffin Express.
I flew a Norseman 6 and someone painted on the nose "Curse You Bob Noordyne"