You will hear Apollo astronauts occasionally say "all balls" or "five balls." After performing maneuvers, they would check their trajectory by taking fixes on stars using the telescope/sextant, this data would be fed into the guidance computer, which would compute their deviation from their intended course. If they were perfectly on their intended course, it would display a variation of 00000. "All balls." Perfectly accurate.
this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2024
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I can Accept that
Based on the video for that song, the band was unaware of this.
Yeah probably. I like their interpretation though
Interesting. Similarly, balls out has nothing to do with testicles
Another fun one is that in the phrase "three sheets to the wind" Sheets do not refer to the sails as many believe, they actually refer to the ropes that tie down the sales. So you lose a sheet, the sail becomes less predictable. If you lost 3 sails I think you'd just be dead in the water most times, not stumbling about
Patrick O'Brian has a bunch of opinions about these. "The devil to pay" was spreading pitch on, or paying, the hard-to-reach seam between deck and hull called the devil. At loggerheads means fighting with the long poles with a hot iron ball on the end , or loggerheads, used to heat pitch.
Oh shit sam o nella was right
Who?
"Just under the wire" has a similar aviation lineage. According to my dad some WWII fighter planes had a wire attached across the throttle lever slot to mark the point that was considered "full throttle". The wire was breakable, so a pilot in a desperate situation could push the throttle farther forward if necessary, but I think there was a danger of blowing up the engine. So being just under the wire meant not quite past that point.
Cool story, but not where that comes from and not how that phrase is used.
"Just under the wire" means "just in time", "at the last second", etc.
It comes from horse racing and the wire they would strong across the finish line. Same as "down to the wire"
Interesting - I know about the horse-racing wire, it was to trip the photo-finish camera.
WEP, war emergency power. Depends on the aircraft how long you could use it.
The Corsair had water injection as a WEP, I forget by what mechanism it worked but it could make that big ol' Pratt & Whitney eat its own guts for more horsepower.
Water methanol injection, cools the air charge which makes it denser, more air you can cram in the more fuel you can cram in with it.
https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/the-f4u-1-and-water-injection.40598/?amp=1
Thanks, that's a lot more than my sketchy memory of what my dad told me (WWII pilot). Might not be where "under the wire" came from but it's fascinating.
TIL you can increase engine power by mixing water into the fuel.
You can also increase speed by not using any propellers or moving parts. At supersonic speeds you capture the air, compress it into a chamber than hit it with a spark and blow the fucker up. That's how a ramjet engine works. China just made one that uses pulse like combustions in a engine that's only about a foot wide, and maybe 13 feet long. Speeds up to mach 4.. or 5000km/h (3100mph) at about 65,000 feet.
It needs to be injected into the air charge with the best atomization you can manage for best results.
Thanks for the read, that sent me down an interesting rabbit hole
Another fun phrase with similar etymology is "pulling out all the stops". It comes from church organs, where the stops are all of the levers that can change the timbre
Ohhhh this makes sense too! I actually have a pipe organ in my garage so I know exactly what you’re talking about!
I want a pipe organ in my garage.
I wish I owned a garage. Or a house. Or a fucking shed. Need to start smaller. Maybe food first. We'll work our way into it
*our way
Yeah i didn't catch that, thanks
That's what she said
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Going "balls out" refers to governors on steam engines which used centrifugal force on a pair of balls to regulate the speed of the engine. At full speed the balls were out at the maximum.
So much better in Scots pronunciation
BAWZOOT MIN
Now i wonder what the origin of "tripping balls" is?
Have you ever accidentally stood on a ball (football/dodgeball) and tripped? If you have you may have an idea where the expression comes from. You trip really hard.
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Kind of like 'having one's balls in a vice'. It actually refers to the old days when ball bearings were made by hand. It was tedious work and the pressure to make ball bearings for the burgeoning industrial revolution was intense. They were cut out of metal and then polished smooth, secured in a vice. Hence, 'having your balls in a vice' meant being under intense pressure.
Nowadays I just keep my dick in a vice, as AvE recommends
10/10 shitpost
Now I'm confused. Was OP just kidding about the balls in a vice saying?
So is the term "grounded" and I genuinely wonder what parents used to say to their misbehaved children before airplane terminology was commonplace.
Not to be confused of course with "balls deep", which is exactly what it sounds like
It's when your shaft is so damn deep that you can only barely make out your ball amidst the shaggy rough entanglement. Courses like Oakmont Country Club, Ko'olau, and Pinehurst are some examples that can challenge even top golfers.
This thread is a doozy, can't tell whats real and what isnt anymore
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