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Giving Your RV a Name

N42AH

Well Known Member
Hopefully, this isn't a repeated thread.

It is very apparent that a lot of RV's, if not the majority, have been given a name. I have been thinking that maybe my 9A needs a name. How did you come up with the name for your aircraft and what is it?
 
Hopefully, this isn't a repeated thread.

How did you come up with the name for your aircraft and what is it?

"MY SANITY"

I started building it during my first divorce and finished it during my second. Instead of chasing Wild women and drinking, I worked on my airplane. When asked what it cost to build, I say: "Two wives, one girlfriend, two houses, three rental properties, and a car." I might add that it is worth it. Flying 11 years next month. First flight September 1997. Had 2,152.6 hobbs hours when I put it away today.
 
miss kimberly

after my wife. not original but without her support there would not be airplane parts in the master bedroom and a drdt-2 dimpler in the coner of the dinning room. :D:D
 
RE:N74BZ

My Dad was a big influence in my love of everything "AIRPLANE" and fabrication......Many air showes, armed service days, air museums....................plus he was a great builder and fabricator with little or no schooling. It was my dream to give him a ride in my RV7A (still not done and is about to have the paint process begun), so he and I had to settle for the Cessna 150 heavy. On September 9, 2006 he passed away from prostate cancer. Healthy 93 old until three months of his passing, very patriotic having served for 6 years in the Army, (1932 to 1938), and raised a family of four children and his lifes partner (Mike.....real name Eda May) on a hard rock miners wage. Well I could go on and on but I know you have similar stories about your Dad or Mom.

His nick name was Buzz (given name ...Lawrence Edward Stringham).....so my plane is nicknamed BUZZ with the "N' number N74BZ. It will be painted in old school colors similar to the 1956 Ford Crown Vic's

Thanks for the thread and yes there is another that covers this topic......

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=1823&highlight=plane

Frank @ 1L8 ...RV7A ... paint prep............
 
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Naming the RV

My first idea was BAD CHICKEN. A coworker dubbed it that when he saw what I was actually building. "That's one bad chicken!" I went with it for a while. I have several logo ideas for that name. But alas I soon realized just what expenses I will have to endure to fly my own aircraft. So one day after playing with my paint job ideas, two tone copper and silver, and realizing how much my addiction to flying I have will run me, I went with Pretti Penni. My reserved number is N174PP. Last two also sand for Papa' Papa's plane. So how can I dismiss three prominent clue's as to what my plane should be named?
 
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My first idea was BAD CHICKEN. A coworker dubbed it that when he saw what I was actually building. "That's one bad chicken!" I went with it for a while. I have several logo ideas for that name. But alas I soon realized just what expenses I will have to endure to fly my own aircraft. So one day after playing with my paint job ideas, two tone copper and silver, and realizing how much my addiction to flying I have will run me, I went with Pretti Penni. My reserved number is N174PP. Last two also sand for Papa' Papa's plane. So how can I dismiss three prominent clue's as to what my plane should be named?


As long as you say the call sign phonetically its OK. If you just use the letters, it could be misunderstood... :)
 
Some are earned

Some of the best names are earned. Sharpie- Dan Checkoway, Birdstrike, Debris, Glider, etc...

My good friend and fellow helo driver, Glenn Brasch, is building a 9A. He has "earned" the name of Hotline. Seems like every time I talked to him he would start the conversation with, "I called Van's today to ask them about....." So, I commented that he must have a "Hotline," to them. It has stuck but he hasn't accepted it yet.
 
Earned Names

Some of the best names are earned. Sharpie- Dan Checkoway, Birdstrike, Debris, Glider, etc...

My good friend and fellow helo driver, Glenn Brasch, is building a 9A. He has "earned" the name of Hotline. Seems like every time I talked to him he would start the conversation with, "I called Van's today to ask them about....." So, I commented that he must have a "Hotline," to them. It has stuck but he hasn't accepted it yet.

When flying UH-1's in RVN we had a guy who ended up with the name "Magnet ***". It seemed that on a regular basis he would always end up with at least one round in the aircraft he was flying. A lot of the crew chiefs didn't want him near their aircraft because they didn't want it shot up.
 
I pondered this one for quit a while and than got it. I call my kitfox-kitty. Than I got to think what I can call my RV and my wife's initials before we got married was CAT. So I came up with kittycat. That's the name of both my airplanes. So the name for the kitfox is kitty and the RV will be cat.
 
My first plane was a Cherokee and it didn't have an official name. Our pet macaw, Oliver, enjoyed sitting on my shoulder and going for rides in it. We lost Ollie in 1998 after 16 years of friendship.

After our loss of Oliver I, I named our SeaRey after him, Oliver II. Oliver II was sold in 2002 and construction began on, of course, Oliver III, our RV-7A. Well, Oliver III was sold this year and I am, once again, an empty nester. Will there be an Oliver IV? Maybe. But I'm not sure what it will be. A boat? A plane? Another Macaw?

Roberta
 
Mine will be the "Aluminium Falcon". Should do .5 past light speed............still lookin for a Wookie to fly right seat with me :).


P.S. Yes I am a Star Wars fan ( the original 3 that is ).
 
I love "Aluminum Mistress", but since that seems to be taken :D I'll stick with "Misc. Expense" for the time being.
 
Airplane Name

Curious George.......my wife's favorite children's character......and like Curious George....I got in a lot of trouble building it, but the story has a happy ending..it is finished (sort of) and my wife likes the idea of being able to get places fast.......
 
The first time I saw an rv-4 in person I exclaimed to my wife who was with me "Wow, that's just a LITTLE bird!!" So now I call mine, Little Bird. The luscombe will become the "middle bird" when there's a 206 in the fleet that I'll dub "big bird"
 
"Miss Terri United" for the RV-4/HR/Whatever it ends up being....

Weird, but the kit will be coming all together from a bunch of different places (Miss Terri = Mystery) United (RV-4, and RV-8 parts at a minimum, maybe some from a HR... who knows, all together in one airplane) (Oh yeah, and the first builder was a United captain...)

Also I've always wanted an airplane with the letters Tango Uniform in the callsign :D.

The RV-7 is probably gonna have to earn it's name a little more now, it's go competition. I'm waiting for something hard to turn up in that project.
 
Sojourner....

.....more of an old English/British term for spending time away from home.....
BTW....my ex-boss had a real biatchy wife and his P-51 was named Escape1:D
 
Names

Don't have one for the RV 8 yet, but my I named my 195 during the restoration. I came about the name because of:

Crack=everything, I mean everything was cracked X-rays to prove it
Whore=this aircraft has been in every part of this country, she got around
Bitch=NOTHING was easy on this restoration, she fought me every step of the way!

Ole CWB

There is a Beech Staggerwing flying around with StaggerBitch painted on the Fus.
 
The Chariot

Over the years whenever I went out to preflight the airplane for one of our trips I would always jokingly say to my wife that "I'll go get your Chariot ready." So, when we finished the 7A, I actually put "The Chariot" on the tail this time.

Vic
 
I've always liked "Scalded Cat".

"Aluminum Falcon" is pretty clever - I like that one.
 
Engraved on my canopy latch, are the letters "G.A.A.F.C."
In Vietnam the name on my helicopter was "Griff's Airline And Fertilizer Company"..................because we flew people into the shi*.
 
"AFTER YOU"

If you are single, you might try naming it "After You".
Then when you meet a new lady and offer to take her for a ride, you can say, "Come fly with me, after all, I named my airplane after you."
 
If you are single, you might try naming it "After You".
Then when you meet a new lady and offer to take her for a ride, you can say, "Come fly with me, after all, I named my airplane after you."

Aww Mel, you are smooooth with the ladies. Very clever!
 
When I was racing and instructing my car became known as the "Hurl Maker" because of the number of people who have succumbed to a road car that can pull over 1.2 G's. I think there is still part of someone's lunch in the defroster vents. :eek:

It was/is the race gang that calls the RV the "Hurl Maker II". Lucky for me N941WR hasn't really earned that name yet.
 
I'm thinking of naming the -4 "Flapjack". It seems most of my flying is to acquire an EAA breakfast of eggs and flapjacks. Catchy as well? We'll see.

My wife wants to name it Woodstock since it's yellow.
 
I have been polishing my RV6, all canopy fairing, etc are polished aluminum. If I can get the cowl worked out. I'm thinking about naming my 6.


"The Shining"




"Here's Johnny!" Ha, yes I am a little crazy.
 
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Miss Diane.....

in appreciation of my wife for tolerating the pursuit of this dream. She (somewhat) jokingly says the project will be the end of us, at which time I will certainly.....Miss Diane.:D
 
Still not quite nailed down a name for the 6

But my 1968 Cardinal is named Austin Powerflow. The plane is sort of a puke kermit the frog green that was popular in the 60's. Each seat has an ashtray and it has those pop out small windows forward of the main window as you would see on a '67' dodge dart . The plane has that late 60's early 70 styling that looks like Austin Powers would have seen it and exlaimed "yeah baby". I'm thinking of installing shag carpet and a bead curtain aft of the pilot seat:D. It is also equipped with a Powerflow Exhaust, hence the last name.

Not sure yet, but I've sort of been calling my 6 Buzz, since that is what is gives me when I fly it. If I stick with the last name being part a selected component on the airplane, Buzz Lightspeed might be in order.
 
"WindDancer"

Engine run ups complete, high speed taxis in progress. Everything is looking good at this point. I am looking at first flight next weekend (8/30/2008). It's been about 2 years on a QB7...

:)
 
Lizard?

A few years ago while searching for an N number, I reserved 72ME since it was short and had some relevance (7 to me). In retrospect, I find it a bit "cutesy" and might release it, or maybe not.....

ANYway, if I keep it, I fear there will be difficulty keeping the plane from being named "My Gecko" (say the call letters 72ME a few times fast). :)
 
TUT!

My bride was really supportive of the building process. She did the upholstry, bucked rivets, and lended that *extra* hand whenever I needed it.

We got to talking about what to name the plane, and she came up with TUT.

When I asked her what that meant, she informed me it stood for *The Ultimate Toy*.

Can't argue with that logic. :D
 
Miss Too Fly

We call our RV-6 "Miss Too Fly". I came up with that one on accident one day in a silly e-mail to my wife. It sounded like an RV name, so we've kept it.
 
Casey

We have three sons, all in their mid 20's and out of the house. Casey was reserved for a daughter's name. Never used it, so we resurfaced it for our "fourth child". Growing very well by the way......
 
STING

We started a company with a product called Stingmate which is used as first aid for jellyfish stings.

Part of advertising was Captain Stingbad and I posed the question to the VAF and "Sting" kept coming back.

My tail art is going to be a jellyfish one day.

jellyfishca6.jpg
 
N457RV

will be named "E-Ticket". Never forget hoarding those precious few E-Tickets for the best rides at Disneyland as a kid, or the hot corvette's plate where I first got the idea. I'll probably have to explain it to anyone younger that 40...

I picked N457RV just so my shortcut response to Air Traffic Control will be "7RV".
 
My -6A still isn't flying yet, but has had a name since about three weeks after the kit showed up :

"Satellite of Love"

What else would you expect from a MST3K fan? :)
 
the "Hornet"

My buddies built simpler airplanes than I did. I have autopilots, EFIS, etc. When one of my friends looked under the avionics cowl, he said it looked like a "hornets' nest of wires". They shortend it to The Hornet, and it stuck:D....my little F-18
Ron
[email protected]
RV-4 with an RV-8 slider canopy.
 
ENTERPRISE, my Starship...

We have already heard from the Star Wars builder. I liked the way he spelled aluminum as "aluminium" since that is the way the Brits pronounce it and it sounds like "Millenium Falcon". "She is the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy. She'll make .5 past light speed."

For me, a baby boomer who was in college in 1966 when Star Trek premiered with Kirk, Spock, McCoy, et al, I had to have my own Starship "Enterprise". Also, the 1966 Piper Comanche B model that an old friend owned became the paint scheme for my RV-9A. This is my RC scale model of that 1966 Comanche B.
DSCG0085.JPG


The tail art on one side pays homage to the original Comanche logo and morphed into a psuedo-Delta Airlines emblem, but in my colors.
DSCM0209A.JPG


The tail art on the other side is my own design with my own Star Trek origins. Ask me about it sometime. The main color of the airplane is "Pearl White" just like the Caddy below.
DSCM0208A.JPG


My auto license plate says "N2PRISE" on it. This was the day the airplane was moved to the airport to begin final assembly.
DSCL0263.JPG


The airplane is N2PZ since the British spelling is ENTERPRIZE. You can read about that on the page "ABOUT" my web site via this link: http://www.n2prise.org/About.htm
 
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When I was picking a tail number, and settled on 773 Whiskey Whiskey, someone (I think on here) suggested "Make Mine a Double", and I rather like that. It evokes some wonderful images of tail art for me too, like forties pin up style bomber girl pouring scotch on the rocks :D
 
'Contrary Mary'

I have been kicking around using this name for my yet finished RV-8 for a year or so. My youngest daughter is Mary and I love Danny King's 'Beautiful Doll' paint scheme (Hopefully Danny won't mind :))

We'll see...

http://www.mykitlog.com/users/display_log.php?user=owens&project=236&category=2034&log=32840&row=1

FP14042007A00002.jpg

Contrary Mary was flown by Lt Col Roy B Caviness of the 84th Fighter Squadron under the 78th Fighter Group (they have checkerboard noses). They flew out of Duxford England and this Fighter Group was known as the Duxford Eagles and were one of the shining stars of the 8th Air Force in England.


Here's the real 'Contrary Mary'! Note the cleco's in her hands - she loves to help on the plane.
FP14042007A00004.jpg
 
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LOTR

We started a company with a product called Stingmate which is used as first aid for jellyfish stings.

Part of advertising was Captain Stingbad and I posed the question to the VAF and "Sting" kept coming back.

My tail art is going to be a jellyfish one day.

jellyfishca6.jpg

This whole time I thought "Sting" was a Lord Of The Rings reference, making me the nerd for assuming such.

On a side note, a friend's dad is a commercial fisherman and modified his boat to be exceptionally fast (gets him more off-season work.) He named it "Shadowfax." Could be a cool RV name, if one were so inclined. I'm not using it, so feel free to do so yourself.

(For you non-nerds, "Shadowfax" was Gandalf's exceptionally fast horse and "Sting" was Frodo's swo.......nevermind. My nerdiness almost got the better of me.);)

N74VB: 74 is the year both my wife and I were born, and VB is our initials. "Victor Bravo" rolls off the tongue decidedly better than "Bravo Victor."

As for a name, we haven't decided yet, but have discussed "Fiesty" on a Blue-Nose P-51 paint scheme. We have a Fiest dog: small, energetic, blazingly fast, nimble, and a bit aerobatic when catching frisbees. We looked up Fiesty in the dictionary, and "Bundle of nervous energy" seems about right for the 390-powered RV8.
 
Not an RV, but amusing....my buddy Bill has a 2005 Legend Cub. The Legend folks are nice, but they were on a learning curve producing the early serial numbers. Bill named the airplane "Enigma", because the most common phrase heard in its vicinity has been "Why in the **** did they do that?!!"
 
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