Little Blue's flying words

The words

Every one of these is a real flying word, and every one is sung somewhere on Wings & Prayers. On each song’s page the word is explained beside the line that carries it, in the Little Blue Pilot Notes; here they are gathered, in the order the record meets them: from the first flight to wheels down.

Tailwind

Wind from behind you, pushing you along. With a tailwind you go further and faster on the same effort, and you can stop flapping and simply glide.

Sung in Tailwind (Up, Up, Up) — “Tail-wind”.

Headwind

The same wind, turned round: it comes at your nose and pushes back the whole way. It is also the wind an aeroplane takes off and lands into, because it lifts the wing sooner.

Sung in Tailwind (Up, Up, Up) — “let the happy wind decide”.

Reading the sky

Watching what the air is doing before you fly into it: the clouds, the breeze, the smell of rain. Somebody in every crew is the one who watches.

Sung in Tailwind (Up, Up, Up) — “Wind Reader checks the sky” and Read the Storm — “don't fight the storm—read it”.

Cruising

Flying steady and easy: not climbing, not diving, just going along comfortably at a pace you can keep.

Sung in Tailwind (Up, Up, Up) — “Cruising Captain”.

Tip a wing

Leaning the aircraft over to one side. It is how you turn, how you let a gust slide past instead of taking it square on, and how pilots really do say hello.

Sung in Tailwind (Up, Up, Up) — “Cruising Captain” and Read the Storm — “tip a wing”.

Loop-the-loop

A full circle drawn in the air: up, over, upside down for one thrilling second, and back round. Going round the circle presses you into your seat the whole way, which is why nobody falls out at the top.

Sung in Tailwind (Up, Up, Up) — “Loop-the-loop”.

Aviation

The grown-up word for everything to do with flying. An ace is somebody spectacularly good at it.

Sung in Tailwind (Up, Up, Up) — “Aviation Ace”.

Cumulus

The puffy, pile-of-cotton-wool clouds. The name is Latin for heap.

Sung in Tailwind (Up, Up, Up) — “the cotton clouds”.

Hold your line

A pilot's line is the path they have chosen. Holding it means keeping your direction while the wind shoves you sideways: the wind does not stop pushing, and you keep steering.

Sung in The Little Blue Pilot — “held his line” and Read the Storm — “Hold the Line held tight”.

Goggles

Swim goggles for the sky. They seal all the way round so the wind cannot sneak in, and a pilot in an open cockpit wore them so their eyes could stay open while the world rushed past.

Sung in First Wings — “Goggles”.

Lift

Air is not empty; it has weight. A wing pushes air downward, the air pushes the wing up, and that push is the only reason anything stays in the sky.

Sung in First Wings — “lean into the air”.

Tarmac

The wide flat apron where aircraft park and taxi, named after the tar it used to be made of. An aeroplane car park.

Sung in Wingtips and Dew — “Morning on the tarmac”.

Dew

Tiny drops of water that appear overnight, when the air cools and leaves its dampness on everything that stayed still. Dew on a wing is fine; ice is not.

Sung in Wingtips and Dew — “dew along the wing”.

Brief, and scan

Two habits, two jobs. A brief is talking the plan through before you fly, even if the only person listening is you. A scan is the loop your eyes keep running over the instruments the whole flight long. One happens once; the other never stops.

Sung in Wingtips and Dew — “So I brief it, and I scan it”.

Checklist

A written list of things to check, worked through in order, every time. The point is not remembering; the point is not having to, so that all of your attention can go on flying.

Sung in Wingtips and Dew — “a checklist in my head”.

Cockpit

The small room where the pilot flies the aeroplane. Part office, part control room. During the busy parts of a flight, crews stop chatting on purpose.

Sung in Wingtips and Dew — “quiet in the cockpit”.

The frame

The airframe: the body of the aeroplane, the part holding everything else together.

Sung in Wingtips and Dew — “I just steady the frame”.

Glide

Flying without pushing: easing the speed off and letting the air lower you gently. It is how a landing works, and the soft landing is the difficult one.

Sung in Wheels Down — “Slow it down, glide it in”.

Wheels down

The wheels are the landing gear. On many aeroplanes they fold up for the flight, so wheels down is something a pilot confirms: the gear comes out, locks, and three green lights in the cockpit say so.

Sung in Wheels Down — “Wheels down” and The Little Blue Pilot — “wheels down”.

Two of them, at length

What is a tailwind? — what it does to an aeroplane, and why pilots take off into the wind anyway. What does a pilot do before takeoff? — the walk-around, the checklist and “Clear!”, with a checklist for a flight of your own.