Random reminder

Press, 1 February 1988, Page 13

Random reminder

FLIGHTS OF NOT SO FANCY ANY MORE

As Mrs Thatcher hurtles towards’ the twenty-first century showing no sign of metal fatigue, the Rolls Royce company has announced that the different members of its famous RB-211 family of aero engines are to have new type-names. Clients around the world — airlines, manufacturers of aircraft, air forces, and engineers — will no longer have to refer to, for example, the 26-tonne thrust RB-211-524D4D. Its new, simpler name is the RB-211-524 G. The more powerful twenty-seven-and-a-half-tonne thrust aero engine will be called the RB-2U-524H.

The 30-tonner, previously known as RB-211-700, now appears on the invoice as RB-211-524L. We shall have a dozen thanks. It is as well that the new, short, sweet, simple names are so much easier to use than the old, long, clumsy, complicated nomenclature. A moments inattention while ordering, a brief lapse by the docket-checker, a careless thumbprint to obscure the number — before you know it, the planes are rolling out of the putty shop with 26 tonnes of thrust on one wing and 30 tonnes on the other, and the whole world is flying in circles.