Do you name your plane?

FORANE

FORANE

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FORANE
Does your plane have a name?
What is it?
What's the backstory?
 
Screaming’ Canary. It’s not big enough or fast enough to be an eagle, plus it’s bright yellow.

Since there’s a 2’ high Woodstock on the tail, it gets called Woodstock a lot.
 
The plane.

The car. (Seriously, you are actually going to name it Christine?)

The boat.

The truck.

The kitty.

The puppy dog.

The fish.
 
There’s not really a practical reason to name planes so we typically do not. That said, many folks have informal names for their aircraft. Some airlines name aircraft, presumably for marketing purposes.

Boats on the other hand use the vessel’s name as a radio call sign, so a name has a practical purpose. I didn’t name my Cessna 182, but I didn’t name my 15’ Boston Whaler, leading me to question how I might identify myself on the marine VHF.
 
Myunn is the name of my plane.

A lovely southern belle of a lady at Church uses the term (with the appropriate southern drawl) to describe things she has. She means to say "my own" but comes out "my un" so I told her I was naming my plane after her.
 
My Dodge P.U. is "The great white." I had some good and bad nose art back in military days.
 
My RV-8A is “Dynamite Debbie”, named for my wife. It was her support that gave me the push to finally become a pilot, and her brains that put us in a financial position to afford aviation. Sadly, she only got to fly in it twice, as she was diagnosed with leukemia shortly after I got the plane and flying got to be too much for her.

I named the plane in her honor shortly after she lost the battle. I had the idea before, and wish she would have gotten to see her name on the cowling. No nose art, Deb would definitely have not approved!

Can’t seem to attach a pic right now.
 
ateamer said:
My RV-8A is “Dynamite Debbie”, named for my wife. It was her support that gave me the push to finally become a pilot, and her brains that put us in a financial position to afford aviation. Sadly, she only got to fly in it twice, as she was diagnosed with leukemia shortly after I got the plane and flying got to be too much for her.

I named the plane in her honor shortly after she lost the battle. I had the idea before, and wish she would have gotten to see her name on the cowling. No nose art, Deb would definitely have not approved!

Can’t seem to attach a pic right now.
Click to expand...
I’m so sorry for your loss, but that’s a great tribute to her.
 
nauga said:
#@%&^*^@ #&#(*

Nauga,
who always busts his knuckles when he's wrenchin' up his...airplane
Click to expand...

Been there! I did a very short video (18 seconds) with the answer you seek:

 
170 and Baron never had names.

First airplane I named was the Waco. Called him Woody in honor of the gentleman I bought it from and the one who completed the restoration.

The Beech 18 is known as the Twin Beast, or just Beast for short.

And the T6 is ‘AJ’. Previous owner named it in reference to the original RAF side number and I’ve kept it.
 
FORANE said:
Does your plane have a name?
Click to expand...
Why...yes, as a matter of fact.
moonraker_logo.jpg
It was a wandering path. I have a keen interest in naval history in the Napoleonic era. Our home is decorated with prints of sailing ships and battles, and, of course, I've written and had published novels set in the US Navy in the War of 1812.

Anyway, I wanted a name that evoked that era. Best bet would be the nickname given to the sails that were highest above the deck...so high, that they raked the stars and the Moon.

So I was going to name my airplane "Star-raker."

"STAR-raker"??? What the heck???

There was a reason for that. I am a voracious reader...always had been. My mom had boxes of old book-club books; I read most of them. She subscribed to Reader's Digest Condensed books; every month she'd get a fat volume that had abridged versions of five (count 'em!) books on varying topics.

And joy of joy, some of them were about airplanes or were by airplane writers. I remember reading "Stranger to the Ground," by Richard Bach. "Of Good and Evil," a non-flying book by Earnest Gann.

And... "Star-Raker," by Donald Gordon. It was a British book, a technical-detective novel about a group trying to develop an SST where the flight crews were developing cancer at an accelerated rate.
starraker.jpg

So, "Star-Raker" it was going to be.

Except...well, except for that damn hyphen. It makes the word look awkward. Just deleting it would mean people would pronounce the term as separate words... "Star Raker", which is a bit awkward. Running the two terms together would probably mean "Starraker" would get pronounced as "Star Racker". Ugh.

So, "Moonraker" it had to be. I wasn't too fond of the idea, since folks would just assume I named the plane after the James Bond movie. Why not just name it "Millennium Falcon" and be done with it?

But then, I realized the "Moonraker" was a pretty good pick. In the movie, "Moonraker" was the name of a space shuttle...and when I thought about it, it was a good tie-in to my then 20-year career in space operations and space mission design.

Another axis kicked in. In my 20-year career at that point, ~15 had been spent in windowless buildings that I can't talk about. A spy movie wasn't a bad in-joke to refer to that aspect of my life. (the first building had doors like "Get Smart"...seriously!)

The final axis tipped the scale. Space Shuttles had notoriously poor glide angles, but I figured the Fly Baby probably matched them. So "Moonraker" was a pretty good pick, after all.

When I do the artwork for my nautical novels, I do the titles in a special font called "Black Chance"... a very nautical, piratety look to it. So, naturally, I used that font to do the name.

I felt I needed a bit of artwork to go with it, to give a better clue of what the name came from. So I drew up am image of a tall ship sail against the night sky, with the moon and the stars.

Two things wrong with that idea. First, I already *had* nose-art on the airplane, and didn't want to have two images. I was kind of fond of the Far Side "Lets Get This Baby Off the Ground!" cartoon, and wanted to keep it.

Second...I'm a lousy artist. I can do technical drawings with the best of them, but I've got no artistic talent in the sense of making a pretty picture. I did a drawing, but just decided it wasn't good enough to put on the airplane.

So, since then, it's been "Moonraker" in Black Chance, and a modified version of the Gary Larson cartoon.

Ron Wanttaja
 
I call the Venture Tinker Bell. She has a similar stance on the ground with its narrow gear and long wings and it seems to need constant tinkering.
 
Sac Arrow said:
The plane.

The car. (Seriously, you are actually going to name it Christine?)

The boat.

The truck.

The kitty.

The puppy dog.

The fish.
Click to expand...

The wife

The girlfriend

My dog gets a name - best buddy.
 
Haven't picked up plane yet, so not sure if it will get named.

My girlfriend named my Fiat 850 Spider Brunhilde, shortened to Brunny, in college.

Current Fiat 500 Abarth got named The Buglet. Same women, but now wife.

Sailboat was named Kim Chee.

Other cars have not been named.
 
Man tells a young lady that she should see his boat. He told her, "I named it after you!"

Sure enough when she got to the dock there was his boat named - After You ... ;)
 
My current Luscombe is the first of my birds to wear a name...

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cd33_guuR16/

She goes by "Faith"

Inspired by a Taylorcraft I used to own that now goes by "Grace" that lives on the same airfield, and also with a tip 'O me hat to a Gloster Gladiator of the same name that was famous on Malta during WWII. Ironically, my Faith was also flying in that era. since she's a '39.
 
Previous Cessna 140_Birdie
Current Cessna 150_Jumpster

I don't really have a story for either name.

Just for fun... the dog is named Baylee, a female mixed lab sort of thing. She's a rescue but my dad nicknamed her Cisco.

Anthony
 
I've been trying to decide on a name for my baby Beech. It's a Musketeer, so I've considered "d'Artagnan." Or possibly "Annette," after everyone's favorite mouseketeer.

OTOH, "Debit" might be somewhat appropriate, with this for nose art:


upload_2022-7-18_11-4-21.png
 
texasclouds said:
I call mine “Charlie” since tail is 81C
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Years ago, I was partners in a Stinson with the tail number 95C, we also called it "Charlie." Young Eagles was just getting started, and we hauled a bunch of kids in that 108-3. Used business-card stock in the printer to create souvenirs for the kids....
charlie cards.JPG
Ron Wanttaja
 
We typically don’t name our cars, but the Mercedes was referred to as “The rocket sled” while I owned it.
 
CAP paint scheme so my wife named our aircraft Patriot...
 
2F3EE10D-822E-4AE8-8DE7-AC4CD1C17920.jpeg Broom Hilda

because she is evil when I try to work on her.

2F3EE10D-822E-4AE8-8DE7-AC4CD1C17920.jpeg 10E327CA-EF8A-429F-9BBD-337A0B7A3989.jpeg
 
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"River" kind of stuck after I made this video:

 
I have never names a vehicle that I can think of except my Diesel Mercedes.

He is Rudy (Rudolf Diesel).
 
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