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And what about "prang"?

When I was a younger rocketeer, my understanding of a prang was a landing other than a controlled one - an unopened chute, or a partial ejection of a recovery device - causing damage to the rocket, but not of a catastrophic nature.
 
According to HBOMR, a prang is when a rocket powered glider has too much lift during the thrust phase and completes a large loop crashing into the ground under thrust.
 
as I understand it, the term 'Prang' dates back to the Bi-plane era and was defined as the sound of an aircraft crashing(likely from the sound of the wires snapping).
Rex
 
as I understand it, the term 'Prang' dates back to the Bi-plane era and was defined as the sound of an aircraft crashing(likely from the sound of the wires snapping).
Rex
It is derived from the name of a pilot who damaged his airplanes often. Dents, dings and crashes.

His last name was Prang and do to prang meant to damage or crassh.

It is RAF in origin and the pilot named Prang may have been Canadian.

You will find the term used in the movie Chicken Run when the character Fowler says something like "We're going to Prang".
 
I learned it when I heard Daniel say o-jeev on the Rocketry Podcast. It was a real WTF moment for me.

Fortunately I don't think I said out loud in front of anyone before...

(I've also switched from Esteez to Estus, because if Vern says it that way it's good enough for me)

I'm pretty sure I say it wrong. My olde-fashioned paper dictionary says it's "Oh-jive" in English. For the longest time I thought it was pronounced like "O-give me a home..." But it's only used by medieval French architects, maybe some geometry teachers, and model rocketeers (who all disagree anyway). "Oh-jive" sounds weird to me, so I can't help saying "Oh-jeev."

BTW, I like "Catastrophic Anomaly at Take Off." Sounds NASA-y.
 
image.jpg

A number of USAF aircraft have had PRANG stenciled on the side in large letters.

Stood for Puerto Rico Air National Guard......:)

Later, they tended to use PR Air Guard, for obvious reasons.
 
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A significant number of USAF aircraft have had PRANG stenciled on the side in large letters.

Stood for Puerto Rico Air National Guard......:)

Lol!

And in 1994, some "Hot Shot" Pilot "Prang'd" a B-52 at Fairchild AFB!
 
Lol!

And in 1994, some "Hot Shot" Pilot "Prang'd" a B-52 at Fairchild AFB!

Thats a story in and of itself, a family friend of mine was the wing safety officer for that unit, his objections to the pilot was overruled by the "good ole boys club", among the wing command staff.
 
Yes, it was a sad, sad thing to have happen. Especially considering that it never should have happened. I had transferred into the B-2 program out of B-52's at Minot AFB, ND, the year prior. I could see it coming before it happened. :sad:
 
Yes, it was a sad, sad thing to have happen. Especially considering that it never should have happened. I had transferred into the B-2 program out of B-52's at Minot AFB, ND, the year prior. I could see it coming before it happened. :sad:

I was ETS'ing from the Army at about that same time, and a number of friends who knew I had family in the area called me as soon as they heard. Fairchild suffered two bad press events between the crash and the incident with Dean Mellner at the base hospital.
 
Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the hospital incident. I do remember after that, I was always hyper-aware of my surroundings anytime I went to the hospital at Whiteman AFB.
 
Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the hospital incident. I do remember after that, I was always hyper-aware of my surroundings anytime I went to the hospital at Whiteman AFB.

My parents lost a good friend that day, Anita L. was a sweetheart.

Now back to CATO's and PRANG's....
 
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You say Cay-to and I say Cah-to
You say Toma-to and I say tom-ato
Cay-to, Ca-to, Toma-to, tom-ato
Let's call the whole thing off...

Sorry Fred & Ginger... had to do it.

You're showing off your age,,, lol..

Teddy
 
I'm taking that as "it's vulgar."

I'd call it "mildly impolite". I think my original joke about "prang" turned out not to be very good, and the additional joke about how you are wise to not look up "dong" is headed the same way. It's the kind of humor that withers under analysis. Let's move on...
 
"Dong": opposite end of a bell's cycle when it has finished "ding". (There may be another meaning. Mind you, the sort of person who uses the other meaning probably applies the same other meaning to pretty well every noun in the English language.)

Slang tends to be localised. Be careful when using slang in another land. You probably don't want to say that you are rooting for your favourite football team when you're in Australia...

Meanwhile, back on the subject of rockets, in the UK the usual term for a rocket which failed to deploy a parachute and plummeted nose-first into the ground is "spack".
 
Great 80's movie BTW.

I was the same age as the characters when it came out --- the exact target audience. My wife and I decided to watch it again last year and we made my nephew, who is about that age, sit through it. He liked it and we felt like it held up OK. The movie is now 32 years old, and we realized that if we had watched a movie that was 32 years old when Sixteen Candles came out, we'd be watching a movie from 1952. I don't think I would have felt a 1952 teen movie to be that relatable in 1984.
 
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