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Re:air force: vocabulary, Part 3 of 5
Part 3 of 5
-stall. This word describes what happens to a plane when it's not moving fast enough for air pressure to keep it in the air. The plane begins to drop like a rock, and it usually starts spiraling as it falls, so it can make the pilot really dizzy, which is part of why it's so dangerous. Of course, it's also critical to know what to do if it happens, so I understand that pilots are required to learn how to put the plane into a stall and then recover from it as part of their training. Stunt flyers love to use stalling maneuvers in their routines because they're so scary and so spectacular to watch. One of my favorite tricks is called a hammerhead stall, where a plane flies straight up, another perfect way to force the plane to stall. The plane then falls sideways into a spiral, and then the pilot will recover from that and move into another maneuver.
-skids.—I don't know this one. It may have something to do with parking the plane on the flight line. If you tell me the context you heard it in, I might have a better idea.. IT could refer to the way the plane slides off course to the side if it tries to bank too sharply in a turn (the same way a car can skid when you turn too sharply at high speed, or it could refer to a part of the mechanism that makes the landing gear work. It could also refer to the platforms that cargo is stored on for loading the cargo onto the plane, or it could refer to the design of the mechanisms in the plane that allow workers to load the loaded platforms onto the plane.
-slips.: I don't know what this is all about. Again, if you give me the rest of the sentence, it might help. I know that slips are parking places for boats in a marina. I guess it's not impossible that they have slips for planes, too at some air fields. You also might be thinking of the slipstream. As you know, when a boat is speeding through the water, it leaves a path behind it on the surface of the water that we call the "wake" in English. Naturally, a plane flying through the air also leaves a path of disturbed air behind it, just like the boat disturbs the water. We can't see the "wake" of a plane, but we know it's their, especially if we've ever been standing at the side of the freeway when cars are speeding by. We hear them and we feel them. So when a moving object creates a "wake" in the air it is moving through, we call that "wake" a slipstream. OF course, I don't know if that's what you're looking for. There's also something called a sideslip, where a plane moves sideways through the air—kind of like intentionally making the plane skid sideways as it turns-just like one of the meanings of "skid" I suggested above. .
See part 4 of 5
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Language pair: Spanish; English
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Mark S.
July 17, 2005
# Msgs: 9
Latest: July 20, 2005
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Re:air force: vocabulary, Part 2 of 5
Part 2 of 5
-fourth classman Or this one. Again, I might have a better idea with the context. The only numberings of classmen I know of are ranks and academy statues. Cadets at the academy are either upperclassmen or underclassmen, depending on how long they've been in the academy. I'm not sure, but I think the freshmen and sophomores are underclassmen and the juniors and seniors are upperclassmen. I don't know about the numbers, though. I was briefly an Airman first class when I had two stripes on my sleeve. This is the second promotion you get after you enlist, if you start at the lowest level. There used to be an Airman second class many years ago when the Air Force first split off from the Army, but they changed that to Airman. There hasn't been a second class for years, and I don't think there were ever third class or fourth class airmen. Sometimes, we use the expressions "second class" or "third class" or "third rate" to say that something has poor quality. "I'm tired of going to this second-class school" or "I'm tired of being treated like a second class citizen". I've never heard of anyone using "fourth class" in this way, though.
-to be a seat of the pants. I wonder if you are quoting this one exactly right. I've never heard it said this way, but I have often heard the expression, to "fly by the seat of your pants." If you're flying a plane and your instruments fail, and visibility is poor due to bad weather, you have no way to know which direction to fly. You have to guess and hope you end up flying where you wanted to. It's possible that this expression is also used when visibility is okay but you have to gauge all of your maneuvers by hand and by eye. I don't know why they call this "by the seat of your pants" It may have something to do with the anxiety. You may have noticed that when you're flying in a plane and the weather is bad, people tend to hold onto the arms of the chairs very tightly, almost as if they hope to keep the plain in the air by pulling up on the arms of the chairs. We have a lot of jokes about that phenomenon, because we always do it. Of course, the pilot cant, because he has to keep his hands on the control stick, so perhaps he's clutching tight to the chair with "the seat of his pants" while he's flying the plane. That's just a guess, of course.
-right face (this one could be sth like "vista derecha"?) I don't know, but that sounds good to me. "Right face" is the command your commanding officer gives when you're in formation and he wants everyone to turn ninety degrees to the right.
See part 3 of 5
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Language pair: Spanish; English
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Mark S.
July 17, 2005
# Msgs: 9
Latest: July 20, 2005
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Re:air force: vocabulary, Part 1 of 5
Hi, American,
It's funny, I was in the Air force for eight years, and I never heard of most of those expressions you mentioned. What are you doing, reading a Richard Bach novel or something?
Anyway, it's a very interesting puzzle, and I thought I'd see how much I could help with. I speak pretty good Spanish, but I have no vocabulary to deal with these terms, so I'll explain to you in English as much as I can, and if you want to ask me questions in Spanish, I'll give it my best shot. Of course, there's bound to be someone around who knows some of these that I don't.
-hit a brace.: I never heard this one. What was the context? How was the expression used? Is it possible you misheard somebody who meant to say either "hit the brakes" or "hit the bricks?" Hit the brakes means to stop a plan that is underway. If I am going to lead an assault on a local village and I discover that the enemy has bombed the bridge I'm depending on to get to the village, I might have to hit the brakes on my assault plans. To "hit the bricks" means to go out on the streets and work at something, usually, looking for a job, or selling a product door-to-door." It basically means to get busy doing work that requires a lot of traveling through the streets. "the bricks" refer to the cobblestones that many streets have been made of—many more in the past than now—at least here en los EEUU. It's also possible that "hit a brace" may have had some very literal meaning. For example, the two-winged "biplanes" flown in world war I were supported by a structure of struts and braces. In a "dogfight", where two planes battled in the air trying to shoot each other down, one plane might have shot out a brace supporting the wing of the other plane. So the enemy might have "hit a brace" shooting at the other plane.
See part 2 of 5
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Language pair: Spanish; English
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Mark S.
July 17, 2005
# Msgs: 9
Latest: July 20, 2005
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air force: vocabulary )2)
here there are some more words i need:
-wing man.
-spot landing
-windmill speed.
-trim
-propeller shaft
Thanx again!
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Language pair: Spanish; English
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american version
July 16, 2005
# Msgs: 9
Latest: July 20, 2005
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air force:vocabulary
Does anybody know what these expressions mean?
If u can provide the spanish for them, i´d be really grateful, if not at least the meaning.
-hit a brace.
-fourth classman
-to be a seat of the pants.
-right face (this one could be sth like "vista derecha"?)
-stall.
-skids.
-slips.
-Flight, atention( could FLIGHT here mean COMPAÑíA?)
-to buzz the field.
-crankshaft.
-crankshaft journal.
ok, thanx.
Look forward to ur answers.
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Language pair: English; Spanish
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american version
July 16, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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aylin t.
July 8, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Re:
hello.
"coolie: an unskilled, cheaply employed laborer in or from the Orient, esp. India and China."
(from The Random House College Dictionary Revised Edition)
according to the dictionary, the word comes from Urdu "kuli", from Tamil "kuli", meaning hire or hireling
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Language pair: Spanish; English
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Camille T.
June 28, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Re:Burlap??? (y swap meet)
Matias Burlap 062305
Hola Matias,
Burlap es una tipa de arpillera menos tupida y de color marrón. Lo suelen usar para llevar papas y tales cosas.
No sé como se dice "swap meet" en español. Mi diccionario dice que es un mercadillo, pero esto no es cierto exactamente. Es un lugar muy grande sin techo donde mucha gente pueden alquilar espacio para vender cosas como manualidades, cosas que se puede coleccionar, y otras cosas muy raras y muy económicas. Así que tal vez el "swap meet" es bien parecido al mercadillo, pero jamás lo he visto en los calles. Lo tenemos uno en California del Sur que hubo desde hace muchos decenios en un lugar que antes era un autocine. ¿Crees que "mercadillo" será la mejor palabra en español para describir eso?
Felicidades,
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA USA
54627 Burlap???
I would like to know what does that word mean, because i couldn't find it in the english dictionary (Is it an english word?). I read it in Nirvana "swap meet" lyrics. Also, what does "swap meet" in spanish? I guess it means "Encuentro para discuciones" o sea, cuando personas arreglan para encontrarse y discutir.
Thanks.
Language pair: Spanish; English
Category: Vocabulary/Translations Matias
June 22, 2005
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Language pair: Spanish; English
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Mark S.
June 23, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Re:Re:¡David! Una sugerencia para Usted...
Reply to message # 53369
Re:¡David! Una sugerencia para Usted... David
Hi Mark
Thaks for your help !!!!!
Is obviously that I need some help about english . Yes , I meant " don't hesitate to see our movies," . `We translate literally from Spanish to English and that is the problem .
Thanks Mark
David
This is a reply to message # 53151
Language pair: Spanish; English
Category: Vocabulary/Translations
Post date: June 6, 2005
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Language pair: Spanish; English
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Mark S.
June 6, 2005
# Msgs: 2
Latest: June 6, 2005
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hi.....
help me someone with arabic,egyptian....in exchange i teach spanish and english....plz...
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Language pair: Arabic, Egyptian; Spanish
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susana c.
June 4, 2005
# Msgs: 3
Latest: August 8, 2005
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