John Brown wrote: We are on a roll: A bunch of Scottish drunkards were standing on a passed out man hailing from Copenhagen. The "Danish" was later turned to a generic "roll" after the drunkards found you could knock the snot out of the Irish too.
hmm, considering the Scottish laid down and died as a nation after the battle of Culloden I'll take the swipe at the Irish for what it is....
Duke wrote: No, he's right about "balls to the wall" - shoving the ball-topped levers forward to the firewall for maximum throttle is the origin of that expression.
Yep. In pilot circles, you still sometimes hear the full phrase which is: "Balls to the firewall." And the abbreviation, BTFW.
Many aircraft still make use of ball top levers for throttle and prop controls. Usually tandem seat acrobatic airplanes. Actually, on the majority of light airplanes, the throttle control is a ball but rather than being on a lever, it's on more of a plunger.
nutherjrfan wrote:John Brown wrote: We are on a roll: A bunch of Scottish drunkards were standing on a passed out man hailing from Copenhagen. The "Danish" was later turned to a generic "roll" after the drunkards found you could knock the snot out of the Irish too.hmm, considering the Scottish laid down and died as a nation after the battle of Culloden I'll take the swipe at the Irish for what it is....
Why do you think we are angry and drunk ;)
there is a great book called Uncle John's Bathroom reader that usually has a few meanings to phrases and words in them. plus other good facts you can read while taking the Browns to the Superbowl. http://bathroomreader.com
The "port" and "starboard" thing comes from the way ships dock. They always put the left aside against the dock, so you'd see the port town on one left and the sky/stars on the right.
hoochmcfluff wrote: taking the Browns to the Superbowl.
Best. Euphamism. Ever.
914Driver wrote: Will it keep me awake at night?
Nope:
Cornhole is actually the butt hole, (at least originally) called that because, as you may have noted at some point, a cooked and eaten cob or corn is quite soft and was used as an effective substitute for toilet paper on farms. Thus what you wiped was called the corn hole.
How it morphed to the now more common meaning is probably just from shortening a phrase...
Salanis wrote:Duke wrote: No, he's right about "balls to the wall" - shoving the ball-topped levers forward to the firewall for maximum throttle is the origin of that expression.Yep. In pilot circles, you still sometimes hear the full phrase which is: "Balls to the firewall." And the abbreviation, BTFW. Many aircraft still make use of ball top levers for throttle and prop controls. Usually tandem seat acrobatic airplanes. Actually, on the majority of light airplanes, the throttle control is a ball but rather than being on a lever, it's on more of a plunger.
The plunger style is on most single engine airplanes. Multi engine airplanes have a round disc shape on the throttles, a crown shaped knob on the propellor control(rpm) and a dodecahedron or thereabouts shaped knob on the mixture controls.
Salanis wrote: Many aircraft still make use of ball top levers for throttle and prop controls.
All modern aircraft should. That is because it is a standardized design:
(Well not entirely ball shaped, but I suspect that is an acceptable variation.)
Flaps (flat, airfoil shaped) and landing gear (tire shaped) are also standardized.
The relief tube is always funnel shaped
Hey, if you fly a Mitsi, do you have any hearing left? Or are they just horrendously loud from the outside? (cool little hot rod planes though, I always though Mitsi racing at Reno would be a hoot)
In reply to aircooled: What did you say? They are not too bad inside, about the same as most other turboprops. Outdoors they scream. They would be fun at Reno.
Salanis wrote: Yep. In pilot circles, you still sometimes hear the full phrase which is: "Balls to the firewall." And the abbreviation, BTFW. Many aircraft still make use of ball top levers for throttle and prop controls. Usually tandem seat acrobatic airplanes. Actually, on the majority of light airplanes, the throttle control is a ball but rather than being on a lever, it's on more of a plunger.
Unless its French. Then the throttle balls go toward your balls.
aircooled wrote:Salanis wrote: Many aircraft still make use of ball top levers for throttle and prop controls.All modern aircraft should. That is because it is a standardized design:
Thought so. I just didn't want to say "all" because absolute statements are so easy to prove wrong.
aircooled wrote: ... a cooked and eaten cob or corn is quite soft and was used as an effective substitute for toilet paper on farms. Thus what you wiped was called the corn hole.
An old farmer I knew said when he was coming up, they kept 3 cobs in the outhouse: 2 from dark maize (red), and 1 from white or yellow corn (white or yellow).
The idea was to first use a red one, then use the white one ..
To see if you needed to use the other red one. 
I would just like to point out that it's, " you can't eat your cake and have it too." Not the more often misquoted, " you can't have your cake and it" which is ridiculous because if you HAVE your cake then you CAN eat it. Once gone however, you can't have it again (least not in the same form!).
aircooled wrote: Anyone want to know where "corn hole" came from?
From the game Jeg's sells? Gotta be related ...
I hear banjos.
RossD wrote: Balls to the walls is for centrifugal governors. It means something is running at maximum speed, hence the balls are reaching out towards the walls.
Close. What you are thinking of is "ball out".
In that case the governor balls would be all out (maxing out the governor), which of course would mean the engine is overspeeding out of control!
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