What is a P-39?

If it flew combat between 1935 and 1955, here's the place to talk about it!
Also a great place to talk about Competition!

Moderator: hbartel

Post Reply
ZenManiac
Posts: 296
Joined: Wed Apr 07, 2004 2:14 am
Location: Near Madison, WI USA

What is a P-39?

Post by ZenManiac »

So I was visiting an RC Slope site (slopeflyer.com), and noticed a model that was recently reviewed, the P-39 AirCobra.

"AirCobra" didn't seem right, so I started an email to Greg Smith, who runs this website, that the name of the plane is "Air<font color="red">a</font id="red">Cobra". Before I clicked "send", I looked it up on the Internets (sic GWB), and found 25,000 hits when I Googled "AirCobra". When I Googled "Air<font color="red">a</font id="red">Cobra", I got 125,000 hits.

That difference between the number of hits between the two spellings seems too close to have had this been a mistake on Greg's part. So I didn't send the email. But it's got me thinking as to why there are two different "common" names for this plane. It must have been something that happened long ago, or the error wouldn't have become so much a part of the culture.

I'm sure one of you Scale guys must know the history of this...
User avatar
Ed Kettler
Posts: 3437
Joined: Sat Dec 15, 2001 6:05 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Post by Ed Kettler »

The correct spelling is Airacobra.
ZenManiac
Posts: 296
Joined: Wed Apr 07, 2004 2:14 am
Location: Near Madison, WI USA

Post by ZenManiac »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Ed Kettler</i>
<br />The correct spelling is Airacobra.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"><font size="2">Well, yeah, I kinda figured that. But why are 1/5 of the references wrong? Just because Aircobra sounds better?

Just like TV, I trusted the Internets. [;)]</font id="size2">
Post Reply