Mike wrote:
Thank you for the correction Rajay. Does that also mean that we are no longer permitted to refer to Vega-built B-17s as Boeings, or Westland-built Spitfires as Supermarine? Casa 1-131 s as Bucker Jungmanns? How about North American Harvards, if they were built by Noorduyen or CCF?
It’s not a matter of permission; you can always do what you want, as I said already – well, almost always. In order to be valid and legal in the US however, yes a
B-17G-50-VE owned and operated by a private individual or company and registered with the FAA
should be officially identified as a “
Vega” or a “
Lockheed” B-17G. It certainly is not a “Boeing” –
that was the whole point of the “VE” code in its official US Army Air Corps designation. Uh, duh!
By the way, see this for reference; it is labeled (correctly) as a "Lockheed-Vega B-17G-50-VE":
Speaking of which, your counter-argument examples of British or other non-US types are apples versus oranges. The British in particular have (always?) used a name based system and “mark” numbers, sometimes also including type or role designations (e.g. a “Supermarine Spitfire PR Mk. XIX” for a late-model photo recon variant) but AFAIK they have never used an alphanumeric model designation system in any way comparable to the US systems that are the subject of this discussion and that specifically designate the actual manufacturer or “builder” of the particular aircraft in question – as exemplified by an “FM-2” or as above by a “B-17G-50-VE”.
Invader26 wrote:
Quote:
By the same token, there is no such thing as a "Grumman TBM" - an Avenger built by Grumman is by definition a TBF; an Avenger built by Eastern Aircraft/General Motors is a TBM and would be properly identified as an "Eastern" or "General Motors" TBM Avenger.
Well then the US Navy thought it was as attested in the Flight Manual of my TBM-3E Avenger!
Using your logic we should have Ford B-24's and some Douglas B-17's and a few Bell B-29's too....
I don’t know about your Flight Manual. Maybe it was only a half-ass, reproduction copy that you picked up from some place like Essco for all I know. But you obviously missed the real point; of course the distinction mattered to the US Navy, that’s who created the different designation for the Eastern-built Wildcats and Avengers in the freakin’ first place! (And why.) If it had never “mattered” to the US Navy, they wouldn’t have ever called them an “FM-2” or “TBM” and every single Wildcat ever built would have been just another “F4F” and every single Avenger ever built would have carried just a “TBF” designation instead.
And yes, that’s exactly right; we
should have “Ford” B-24’s and “Douglas” B-17’s and any more B-29’s, regardless of who actually built them, would be a welcome miracle!
In fact, now that you mentioned it, the B-17 owned and operated by the Collings Foundation, although painted up to represent the famous “Nine-O-Nine” which in fact was a Boeing
B-17G-30-BO, s/n 42-31909, is actually itself a Douglas-
built B-17G-85-DL, s/n 44-83575. Surely you guys can see the stupidity of calling a “
B-17G-85-DL” a “Boeing” (once again, yes the general Flying Fortress “design” or “type” belongs to Boeing, but the specific aircraft in question was actually built by Douglas –
and the people and company who built it deserve both credit and recognition for that fact.
Invader26 wrote:
how about a nice Boeing A-20 Havoc or a Studebaker R-1820? My T-28 had a Lycoming R-1820-86A [no reference to Lycoming in the PFM!]...
I did see a Curtiss P-47G once...or twice..
60 Canadair built Sabres for the USAF were referred to as North American F-86E Sabre.
I have no problem with a “Boeing” A-20 Havoc if in fact Boeing built some. And of course, that was the whole point of the “
P-47G” designation - it was
not a “Republic” aircraft. If it actually had been a “Republic” product, it would have been identified as a P-47C or P-47D as applicable. From what I’ve read elsewhere:
Curtiss P-47G-1-CU = Republic P-47C-1-RE
Curtiss P-47G-5-CU = Republic P-47D-1-RE
Curtiss P-47G-10-CU = Republic P-47D-5-RE
Curtiss P-47G-15-CU = Republic P-47D-10-RE
As for the “60 Canadair built Sabres” that you mentioned, by whom were they referred to as “North American” F-86E’s? You didn’t say – and apparently that does matter, too. Your brother for example or your best friend from high school don’t count. If you mean the USAF called them F-86E’s, of course they did – that was their designation system. But you need to go farther and use the full, correct form of the USAF designation. What was the USAF code for Canadair? I believe it was “CAN” and it turns out that they were actually designated as “F-86E-6-CAN” Sabres by the USAF. It would be perfectly valid to refer to F-86E’s in general terms as “North American” aircraft, but it would not be so valid to refer to a particular Canadair-built “F-86E-6-CAN” as a “North American” aircraft (OK yes, to all you wags out there, Canada is in “North America” so a Canadiar aircraft is a North American aircraft – but not a North American Aviation Inc. aircraft.)
Mike wrote:
So what you're telling us is that, since the "Grumman FM-2 Wildcat" referred to in Elliott's opening post is operated in the UK, under the registration and jurisdiction of the CAA, your point is enitirely irrelevant in any case.
No, I’m not – especially not as you said “in any case.” Even though it is not under the jurisdiction of the FAA regulations, “logic” still applies to the FM-2 in the UK and “Grumman FM-2” is still “in any case” a contradiction in terms, i.e. an oxymoron. (Surely you’ve heard of an “oxymoron” and don’t need to look it up, but “entirely” on the other hand and regardless of whether or not you choose to look it up, has only one “I” in it.)
C VEICH wrote:
We're a tough crowd Rajay!
I had a couple of other adjectives in mind.
I also have never understood why some people not only so vigorously defend their right to be wrong, they also seem to joyously celebrate it. But of course, this IS America and our right of free speech is protected – regardless of whether or not what we say is “correct” or not.
In general however, my experience with the Warbird community elsewhere has been that they more often than not bend over backwards to nit-pick the details to get things actually “right” even in terms of the most miniscule details – at least that seems to be the trend of the last decade or two compared to the “old days” of Warbirding such as when a P-51 Mustang could be painted overall pink of all things! I can only imagine that the simple mentality that it took to do a thing like that might also produce the sentiment that regardless of who actually built it, all B-17 Flying Fortresses are “Boeings” and all Wildcat, Avengers, and Widgeons too for that matter, are “Grummans”.
OK, so maybe if FAA regs and logic don’t do it for you, let me try a new tack that I touched on just a minute ago. If you had been one of the many General Motors workers in Trenton, NJ who built FM-2 Wildcats and TBM Avengers, how would you feel if years later, nobody gave a darn about what you did or the effort that you put in and they blindly or ignorantly (or for whatever other reason) gave all of the credit and recognition only to Grumman? Is that fair or “right”? I don’t think so – and that’s one more reason why I’m willing to keep wasting my breath here.
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