est victime d’un cheval de bois...

[T J Johansen]

says a french website regarding an accident that befell an aircraft. The interesting thing is that this plane became the victim of a "wooden horse" twice. That is what I get when running the website through Google Translator. I am fairly certain no wooden horse has ever put a heavy airplane out of commision twice, so this must be slang or a saying in french which Google does not pick up on.

Does any of our more fluent french speakers know what actually happened when a plane "est victime d’un cheval de bois"?

T J

[Baldeagle]

I've seen that expression used in World War 1 writings, and I always thought that it meant "a horse in the woods", in other words swerving back and forth (to avoid trees). In essence a ground loop.
Even American pilots used the term.



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[Fred41]

Thats Right "cheval de bois" = "ground loop"

Les chevaux de bois are that too:




The expression comes from the similarity of the movement of the plane and that of the carousel ....

[Fred41]

It's always in France ...
Others not mine ...

http://www.pictaero.com/fr/search/searc ... &a4=F-AZNF

[airnutz]

There's quite a few photos available online of F-AZNF. Some as early as this summer in its current yellow paint scheme...JetPhotos is one of the sources.

[T J Johansen]

Thanks for the answers. Glad to get the correct translation on the incident in question.

I guess that means that no wooden horses were harmed in the making of this thread...

T J