Aircraft naming systems ?

[NARSES2]

In the past I think I've understood the RAF/RN ones and then realised I don't  , but this is about USAAC/USAAF/USAF/USN/USMC

I have looked but can't find anything so did any of the above US Services have an official naming system for their aircraft or was it haphazard or left to the manufacturers ? If the latter did they have any system ?

I find naming my creations one of the most difficult parts of the build and any help would be of use.

Cheers in advance

Chris

[reddfoxx]

I think the British names are more "top-down" than the US, but both countries seem to use names from the manufacturers.  In the British case, it seems like the names might come from the government but are based on the company name, and often are British cities.

US names tend to come from the company.  Look at Grumman, of course: Tomcat, Bearcat, Panther, etc., etc.

I have books that touch on this; lemme go check them.

[reddfoxx]

Here are the books I have.  I will gladly look through them and answer any questions you have. 

[Dizzyfugu]

Yup, American manufacturers, starting with WWII, tended to follow certain "themes", so that their origin became clear. But that was rather a marketing stunt, and IMHO turned into a kind of fashion trend. Grumman started the cat-theme, Republic used "Thunder-X" for many of its designs that went into service, Curtiss had the "Hawk" theme and Douglas used a "Sky-X" designation. Not certain who started these family name trees, I guess it was Curtiss?

[Gondor]

US Army helicopters usually have Native North American Indian tribe names.

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

Lockheed used stellar connections like 'Constellation' and 'Hercules' etc. or prefixed the name with 'Star', as in 'Starliner' quite often. Hawker had a series of winds, Hurricane, Tornado, Typhoon, Tempest etc. that didn't seem to have any Ministerial input.

[Gondor]

Hawker had a series of winds, Hurricane, Tornado, Typhoon, Tempest etc. that didn't seem to have any Ministerial input.

Oh I don't know. Hot air from Whitehall and all that....

Gondor

[reddfoxx]

I think the US Army helo names are official ones, chosen by the Army, and yeah, they try for tribe names.

WW2 British names were, in theory, chosen from certain subjects for certain categories of aircraft.  Fighters had "aggresive" names.  Bombers had place names.  Transports had county names.  Flying boats, of course, coastal town names.  Army co-op, classical names (hence Lysander.) (Since many on here are Brits, you already know this, but as an American I am still learning...)

Anyway, back to US names.  Curtiss had birds, often hawks, as Dizzyfugu mentioned.  Boeing almost always used numbers.  Martin used "M" names, most of the time.  Brewster had "B" names, Vultee "V."  All chosen by the manufacturer.  Northrop seemed to have no pattern. McDonnell had "fantastic" names (Phantom, Banshee.)  Vought with all the pirates...

[jcf]

Lockheed used stellar connections like 'Constellation' and 'Hercules' etc. or prefixed the name with 'Star', as in 'Starliner' quite often.

The Lockheed star association goes back to the early days, they had a star logo and of
course their first famous products all had star names: Vega, Orion, Altair, Sirius.

The first Northrop company used Greek letter based names: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta.

Curtiss used the Helldiver and Hawk monikers for years on various aircraft before
they were ever officially assigned or recognized names, ditto Vought with Corsair.

The simple answer is: No, there was no official system and the approval system today for US
service popular names is completely different and bears no relation to previous periods.

[NARSES2]

Anyway, back to US names.  Curtiss had birds, often hawks, as Dizzyfugu mentioned.  Boeing almost always used numbers.  Martin used "M" names, most of the time.  Brewster had "B" names, Vultee "V."  All chosen by the manufacturer.  Northrop seemed to have no pattern. McDonnell had "fantastic" names (Phantom, Banshee.)  Vought with all the pirates...

Thank you my friend. That gives me a steer as it's a Vought project I'm building. So although it would have almost certainly have been called Flapjack by those who worked with it I'll try and come up with something piratical for the company name. Any suggestions gratefully received.

Interesting pair of books by the way

[NARSES2]

The simple answer is: No, there was no official system and the approval system today for US
service popular names is completely different and bears no relation to previous periods.

Thank you Jon, I thought that was the answer but I wanted to check as it might have made my life easier. Modern day types and systems don't concern so I can happily park that.

I don't know why I have such trouble with names, even RAF ones where I vaguely understand how it was done (in the pub after a  sometimes I think) but any name I invent always sounds daft to me whereas others come up with names that always seem right 

[Old Wombat]

Thank you my friend. That gives me a steer as it's a Vought project I'm building. So although it would have almost certainly have been called Flapjack by those who worked with it I'll try and come up with something piratical for the company name. Any suggestions gratefully received.

Nicked from the thesaurus:

Buccaneer, (sea) raider, (sea) rover, filibuster, marauder, corsair, (sea) wolf & freebooter.


Vought also used Crusader, which is not related to pirates but is related to:

Champion, warrior, defender, guardian, paladin, protector, samurai, conqueror & centurion.

[NARSES2]

I'd thought about Buccaneer and was searching my brain for another hiding in there but it wouldn't come out. Freebooter is it 

Sea Raider sounds good though, might go with that. Cheers mate

[Weaver]

Thank you my friend. That gives me a steer as it's a Vought project I'm building. So although it would have almost certainly have been called Flapjack by those who worked with it I'll try and come up with something piratical for the company name. Any suggestions gratefully received.

Nicked from the thesaurus:

Buccaneer, (sea) raider, (sea) rover, filibuster, marauder, corsair, (sea) wolf & freebooter.


Vought also used Crusader, which is not related to pirates but is related to:

Champion, warrior, defender, guardian, paladin, protector, samurai, conqueror & centurion.

They actually used Sea Wolf in the sense that the TBY Sea Wolf was designed by Vought but built by Consolidated.

Also used were Pirate (of course), Cutlass (pirate weapon), Kingfisher (no clue) & Vinidicator (a 'doer of noble things' name like Crusader).

Some other piratical-ish ones: Privateer, Bandit, Brigand, Viking (works with alliteration AND warrior types like Crusader too)

[jcf]

Kingfisher as in the bird.