Aviation writing verbal tic

[pembquist]

I always noticed and wondered if anybody else had and why it is that more often than not when people are writing an aviation tale they always refer to the aircraft they are flying as "The" as in "I was at 12,000 feet in THE Navion when...."  "....that reminds me of the time we took THE 180 out to Fairbanks..." Its rarely "A" "OUR" "MY" etc.

[Saxman]

People writing/talking about their cars do much the same. I still refer to my old Daytona as THE Daytona, and my current car as THE Accura.

[jeep00]

It's a fairly common sentence structure. "I took my son to his band gig and later we are taking the kids to dinner."
It needs context but it is acceptable especially where you would otherwise use it repeatedly and appear......umm.....repetetiv e. hmmm...

[Selino631]

I always noticed and wondered if anybody else had and why it is that more often than not when people are writing an aviation tale they always refer to the aircraft they are flying as "The" as in "I was at 12,000 feet in THE Navion when...."  "....that reminds me of the time we took THE 180 out to Fairbanks..." Its rarely "A" "OUR" "MY" etc.

Where you from?

[Bizman]

According to what they taught us at school here, the THE would refer to the exact plane the person telling the story is referring to. Exactly THE 180 whe took out to Fairbanks etc.

Although your other suggestions are grammatically sound, they wouldn't match with real life. A pilot won't take just any random plane, he'll take THE plane that is dedicated to him.

Another expression to indicate the certain plane the pilot is flying would be "MY 180 to Fairbanks", but if he doesn't actually own it, "THE" contains all the information needed: The pilot is flying a certain, unique, identifiable plane which has been documented to be under his command at the given time of the event he is telling about. Damn these English sentences need extra reading when _drunk tired

[fbEagle]

Not sure if you've noticed or not but planes are kind of expensive.... Alot of people just rent them by the flight hour. Ie Its not "my" plane but it is "the" plane.

[GScholz]

People writing/talking about their cars do much the same. I still refer to my old Daytona as THE Daytona, and my current car as THE Accura.

Indeed. "The Bimmer" would be the exact translation of what I usual say.

[pembquist]

Not sure if you've noticed or not but planes are kind of expensive.... Alot of people just rent them by the flight hour. Ie Its not "my" plane but it is "the" plane.

Well I had actually noticed but to the second part it would be less natural feeling for me to say: "I rented THE cessna 150 to fly down to Pacific City for a milk shake." than it would be to say: "I rented A Cessna......" Unless whoever i was talking/writing to knew where I was renting from and that they only had one 150.

Now that I think about it what strikes me about the use of THE for airplanes or cars is that it makes more sense to me if the reader is familiar with the writers vehicle fleet.

I didn't intend to argue about it I just always notice it in first person writing in airplane porn. Another tic I see is the use of LAUNCHED instead of took off, as in: "The forecast for our destination at arrival was 5000 broken when we LAUNCHED from BFD at seven o'clock that morning."

[Vudu15]

I always just called em by tail number so there was no confusion. We took 551 and 869 to Munich, but 551 was my assigned a/c so I might say my bird but again might confuse some folks who didnt pay attention.