How The U.S. Air Force’s Fork-Tailed P-38 Lightning Became Most Feared Aircraft Of World War II

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Anyone remember the P-38 "mystery" tail at the end of his P-38 book? It was the next page after "The End" page.
 
....are we really...T-H-I-S......A-G-A-I-N

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Why, in western literature do Allied aircraft(and other vehicles) have nick names (mostly) that reflect fear from their opponents while Soviet equipment reflects fatalism (guaranteed varnished coffin? coffin for 6 brothers. ) and Japanese nick names reflect even more spectacular endings (Lighter type I or Zippo type I?)

I suspect a bit of favoritism ;)
Depends on the level of yankee cynicism I suspect.

Nicknames like "Whistling Shitcan", "Crowd Killer", "All Three Dead" and "T-tailed Mountain Magnet" aren't really striking fear into the hearts of the enemy...
 
Depends on the level of yankee cynicism I suspect.

Nicknames like "Whistling Shitcan", "Crowd Killer", "All Three Dead" and "T-tailed Mountain Magnet" aren't really striking fear into the hearts of the enemy...

Somehow, it's true above ... not exactly striking fear into the hearts of millions, is it?

They used to call the A-7 Corsair II a 'SLAT," or "Slow Low Aerial Target" ... or SLUFF, "Short Little Ugly Fat Fu**er." There was a very entertaining article by a former SLAT driver called "Sluffy gets a MiG!." Can't find it now, but it was an entertaining read.
 
Somehow, it's true above ... not exactly striking fear into the hearts of millions, is it?

They used to call the A-7 Corsair II a 'SLAT," or "Slow Low Aerial Target" ... or SLUFF, "Short Little Ugly Fat Fu**er." There was a very entertaining article by a former SLAT driver called "Sluffy gets a MiG!." Can't find it now, but it was an entertaining read.
Pel-Air Express often used our hangar for maintenance work in the olden days, I always liked the nickname for their Fairchild Metro lll aircraft "The DEATH PENCIL"
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Not to be used when near passengers.

I remember these were about the noisiest aircraft we had near our hangar, I was surprised that all that noise came out of such a tiny engine, OK I know it was mostly the props..... but still!

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