@scianoir, but would you refer to a modern Airbus or Boeing as a "tubeliner"? That's the term used by quite a few here and it's perhaps just slang. I've never seen it outside of AvSim.

Hmmm.... Tubeliner was used in 806 posts in Avsim history and the 1st recorded time was January 20th, 2006 by @1mikel151. Ask him, Ray ! 

By the way the 15 year-old thread is hilarious. Retrospectively. So Avsim-like.

 

Edited February 10, 20215 yr by Dominique_K

@Dominique_K, fantastic bit of research! 👏 

@1mikel151, why did you use this word to describe an airliner? Imagine how much energy you could have saved by typing one character less each time you used it. 😁

When I use to fly from Houston to Dallas on the regional planes we affectionately called them the tubes of death. That was in the 90es. Lol

Regards 

It's almost certainly US in origin. Quite a few aeroplanes have had a 'tube' monicker, for example the F-104, which got a lot of nicknames, but one of them was the Aluminium Death Tube.

7 minutes ago, Chock said:

for example the F-104, which got a lot of nicknames, but one of them was the Aluminium Death Tube.

and flying stovepipe! 😀

From one of my favorite Star Trek Original series:

 

22 minutes ago, Chock said:

It's almost certainly US in origin.

I think we can wager our houses on that. I’ll have to learn to mentally block it out. Imagine what they might have called Concorde. 😢

Actually the Americans are far more pragmatic with language most of the time; they're not afraid to bypass tradition in favour of more sensible usage, for example spelling tonite as opposed to tonight.

4 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

@scianoir, but would you refer to a modern Airbus or Boeing as a "tubeliner"? That's the term used by quite a few here and it's perhaps just slang. I've never seen it outside of AvSim.

Yes I think it is terminology peculiar to Avsim as I’ve read a lot of aviation literature of one sort rather other over the years and I too can’t recall ever coming across it anywhere else.

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Imagine what they might have called Concorde. 😢

Concorde flashed through my mind as I was typing the post about the Metro but I thought I’d better not upset Ray now that he’s a moderator 😉!! Actually I was easily able to stand upright in the aisle of Concorde (sadly only ever in the preserved specimens and not when it was in service) so it didn’t have any claustrophobic effects on me like the metro, which truly resembled a tube both in shape and size!

Bill

since the B707, the aerodynamic idea which has become the standard is a cylindrical fuselage like rockets = tube which is also industrially the most economical because many sections of the fuselage remain identical (except the cockpit and the tail). Thus these sections could be reused in other models of the same circumference. Airbus Industrie has also become a champion in the choice of its tubes ...

I remember an article in Airways where the author refered to flight attendants as Lords of the Tube. I don't think it was meant to be complementary. It was a tongue in cheek article about power struggle between the flight deck crew and cabin personnel.

42 minutes ago, Chock said:

Actually the Americans are far more pragmatic with language most of the time; they're not afraid to bypass tradition in favour of more sensible usage, for example spelling tonite as opposed to tonight.

Hmmm. Not sure about that. It’s not tradition, it’s rules. It should probably be called American rather than American English. I don’t mind if it stays over there but we now have our politicians referring to “road maps” when they just need to say “plans”. No roads and no maps so how can it be a road map?

Much like "Study level" there is no dictionary definition of tubeliner. My guess is that both are inventions of the flight simulation community.

My own pet hate is the transatlatic crossing of the need to add "ation" to the end of words that already have full meanings. There is no context in the English language where the word "transport" does not mean the same as "transportation".

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Hmmm. Not sure about that. It’s not tradition, it’s rules.

It's not really rules, and even if it was, they change. Language evolves.

If this wasn't true, those rules would be suggesting we should all be going around with, methinks and suggesteth, the collocation thou doth conclude herein, be more proper retained thusly; whence thou didst inscribe and spake.

Edited February 10, 20215 yr by Chock

25 minutes ago, Chock said:

It's not really rules, and even if it was, they change. Language evolves.

I know it does and the exact same thing was said to me by a friend. But I’m old-fashioned maybe in thinking some changes are not improvements- they’re just changes. My latest example irritates me because there’s no logic in it.