Some of the commoner RFC slang phrases and technical aviation terms included:
ack-ack: | anti-aircraft gunfire. This was how ‘AA’ was pronounced in the British army signaller’s phonetic alphabet (see also ack toc, ack emma, pip emma, Toc H) |
ack emma: | army usage for a.m. Also RFC usage for air mechanic |
ack toc: | absolutely turtle (as in: the aircraft turned ack toc) |
Alphabet, | the RFC used the army’s alphabet, which ran: |
Phonetic: | Ack, Beer, Charlie, Don, Edward, Freddie, Gee, Harry, Ink, Johnnie, King, London, Emma, Nuts, Oranges, Pip, Queen, Robert, Esses, Toc, Uncle, Vic, William, X-ray, Yorker, Zebra |
Archie: | RFC slang for hostile anti-aircraft fire, supposedly derived from a pilot who, on being shot at, shouted out ‘Archibald – certainly not!’: the refrain from a popular music hall song by George Robey |
art. Obs.: | artillery observation |
Blighty: | Britain. To ‘cop a blighty’ was to sustain a wound bad enough to earn repatriation but unlikely to be fatal |
Boche: | dismissive (French) slang term for any German |
Bradshawing: | Navigation in the air by following railway lines |
Bus: | RFC slang for aircraft |
Chocks: | big wooden wedges put under an aircraft’s wheels to stop it rolling |
CFS: | Central Flying School |
CO: | Commanding Officer or Conscientious Objector (conchie) |
Comic Cuts: | the RFC’s sarcastic nickname for the army’s official weekly newssheet, generally considered to be full of ‘hot air’ |
contour-chasing: | very low flying, hedge-hopping |
Crate: | RFC slang for aircraft (the German air force used the same word, Kiste) |
Dud: | anything useless or unserviceable or, in the case of a bomb or shell, that failed to explode. Dud weather was weather too bad for flying |
EA: | Enemy Aircraft |
Eggs: | bombs |
Effel: | wind sock (from FL: ‘French letter’ or condom) |
Emil: | German generic slang for a pilot |
Fizz: | champagne, as in a ‘fizz lunch/dinner’ meaning celebratory |
Franz: | German generic slang for a observer/navigator |
GOC: | General Officer Commanding |
gone west: | dead |
Gong: | a medal |
HA: | Hostile Aircraft |
Harry Tate: | RFC rhyming slang for the R.E.8 aircraft. Harry Tate was a popular music hall comedian, the Harry Tate a less popular aircraft |
Hate: | a ‘hate’ was a bout of enemy shelling, as in ‘the usual evening hate’ |
HE: | Home Establishment (i.e. Britain) or High Explosive |
HD: | Home Defence |
hot air: | a politer alternative to ‘balls’, it could mean anything of dubious truth. It might include any official pronouncement, a chaplain’s (or padre’s) sermon, a commanding officer’s pep talk or an airman’s boasts about his combat or amatory prowess |
Hun: | either any German or a British trainee pilot. Usually more dismissively jocular than seriously derogatory |
IdFlieg: | Inspektorat der Fliegertruppen: the German Army’s aviation administration arm until the ‘Fliegertruppen’ became the ‘Luftstreitkräfte’ in October 1916 and IdFlieg disappeared. Its place was taken by the Kogenluft, q.v. |
Jagdgeschwader: | a group of Jastas assembled for a particular task, much like a ‘wing’ in the RFC/RAF |
Jasta: | Jagdstaffel, a German fighter squadron |
Kofl: | German abbreviation for Kommandeur der Flieger, a rank analogous to that of Hugh Trenchard as Officer Commanding the RFC in France |
Kogenluft: | German abbreviation for Kommandierender General der |
Luftstreitkräfte: | (Commanding General of the Air Forces), to whose office all claims of combat victories were sent, together with witness reports, corroborative evidence etc. |
MO: | Medical Officer |
Nacelle: | the boat-like housing containing the cockpit(s) in a ‘pusher’ aircraft. Nowadays the term is used for the external aerodynamic pods on aircraft that house engines, fuel, radar equipment etc. |
Pancake: | either a noun or verb usually describing a stalled aircraft dropping more or less flat to the ground or water from a few feet up |
PBI: | Poor Bloody Infantry: how RFC airmen thought of their earthbound colleagues |
Pills: | bombs |
pip emma: | army usage for p.m. |
Planes: | an aircraft’s wings |
Quirk: | the B.E.2c |
radial engine: | a stationary engine whose cylinders are arranged in a circle about its revolving crankshaft |
RAMC: | Royal Army Medical Corps |
Rumpty, Rumpity | |
or Rumpety: | the Maurice Farman M.F.11 |
rotary engine: | one that revolves about its fixed crankshaft |
Sheds: | ‘the sheds’ was the usual name for an airfield’s hangars |
Show: | ‘a show’ was a sortie or mission, as in ‘a dawn show’ or ‘a good/bad show’. Clearly derived from the theatre or music hall |
split-arse turn: | usually any very abrupt turn whose centrifugal force is likely to separate a pilot’s nether cheeks, but sometimes applied to a particular kind of turn resembling a reversed Immelmann |
Staffel: | the German equivalent of a squadron |
Stunt: | an aerobatic evolution |
Toc H: | TH, standing for Talbot House in the army’s phonetic alphabet. A Christian club and rest house for soldiers founded in 1915 in Poperinghe, Belgium |
Verfranzt: | German pilot’s slang for ‘lost’, implying it was the observer’s fault |
Very pistol: | often misspelt as ‘Véry’ (the inventor was American, not French): a pistol for sending up signal flares of various colours |
Volplane: | a controlled downward glide with the engine shut off |
wash out: | either a noun or a verb meaning cancellation, as it might be on account of bad weather |
Windy: | unduly nervous behaviour, with distinct overtones of cowardliness |