Re: Self-selected literati bull*** SF

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 07:26:00 GMT+1, Tina Hall <Tina_Hall@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Anthony Nance <nance@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Lawrence Watt-Evans <lwe@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> "Nicholas Waller" <testo888@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>>> A case in point is _Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow_, which I
>>>> enjoyed for its visuals and its pulp sensibility, and in this case
>>>> couldn't give a toss whether it had stylised cartoony characters or,
>>>> indeed, implausible amphibious Mustangs.
>>>
>>> Those were P-40s, not P-52s.
>
>> Damn. Having not seen the movie, I was rather enjoying the
>> "Mustangs = horses" version playing in my head.
>
> I saw the horses, too. Am still wondering what the Ps are about.

In this context, 'Mustang' refers to a type of fighter plane that the US
(and Britain, and some other countries) used during WWII. The numbering
scheme that the US Air Force[1] used for fighters at the time was
P-(number), where P I believe stood for 'Pursuit'. The Mustang was the
51st type of fighter given a number under that system.

Soon after the war, the P was changed to F for fighter, but the sequence
of numbers remained unbroken. By the early 1960s (I think), the numbers
were up around 110. In the mid 60s, the numbering system was reset back
to one, and current planes are numbered in the teens and twenties.

-dms

[1] US Army Air Force to be fully correct; the AF didn't become fully
independent until after the war.
.

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