Names and pronunciation

[John C Flett]

Apologies if this seems too obvious to some but on the basis that no question is stupid if you don't know the answer...

 

 

So how do you say the names of some of these aircraft, specifically the type and manufacturer codes.

 

 

US aircraft seem pretty obvious. One or more letters in capitals and numbers;

 

 

a "You Aitch one", an "Eff Fifteen", a "Kay Sea 10".

 

 

 

But the Russian aircraft are a bit less obvious. A capital and lower case letter suggest they should be a single sound;

 

 

a "Me twentyfour", a "Sue twentyfive", a "Too nintyfive"?

 

 

 

Or are both conventions used?

[Flagrum]

Afaik you spell american names letter by letter as they are meant as abbreviations to separate words. I.e. F=Fighter, F/A=Fighter / Attack Plane. So it is Eff Ay Eighteen, not Fa Eighteen.

 

 

Russian names are shortened manufacturer names, like Su = Suchoi (sp?) and it seems more natural to pronounce them as such. Also, as they are the beginnings of actual words, it makes it possible to pronounce it as such - which might be not the case with some obscure collection of more or less random letters.

Edited July 23, 2020 by Flagrum

[Emmy]

The Russian names being truncated design bureau names, you say each letter.

 

You don’t say “Sue-27”, you say S - U -27. T - U - 95 and not “Too 95”

 

The exception is MiG which is a contraction of two names (Mikoyan-Gurievich)

[AlphaOneSix]

The Russian names being truncated design bureau names, you say each letter.

 

You don’t say “Sue-27”, you say S - U -27. T - U - 95 and not “Too 95”

 

The exception is MiG which is a contraction of two names (Mikoyan-Gurievich)

 

The Russians themselves don't do that. They say it as the beginning of the word. I.e. the Mi-8 is pronounced Mee-8, not M - I - 8 separately. I will admit that where I work we do call it M-I but that's because we're Americans and that's how we roll. But the Russians definitely do not do that.

 

And Su-27 is most assuredly pronounced Sue-27.

[Lucas_From_Hell]

AlphaOneSix is correct. If in doubt, go with the English reporting name.

[John C Flett]

Thanks all. I'm glad I asked this. Even if it's mostly as I expected it's good to hear other people's take on it.

 

 

Myself I obviously used "Mig" as a name and I was fine with "Sue" for Sukhoi but thought the others sounded better as letters. A T-U 95 for example rather than "Too 95" which could then be mistake for "2-95".

[Cake]

Or, if you’re flying a NATO aircraft, wouldn’t you just use the NATO reporting name? E.g., Su-27 = Flanker

[John C Flett]

I do use the NATO reporting name, especially in a reporting situation, but when talking about the aircraft more generally I'd tend to use the full description.

[Nipil]

One more remark. Su is pronounced as "soo" in Russian, and Tu as "too". I am a Russian myself (да), so trust me. Hover, I can't tell about Western conventions on Russian aircraft name pronunciation.

[Seaeagle]

The Russian names being truncated design bureau names, you say each letter.

 

Yeah I always did that too, but as AlphaOneSix said, in Russian they actually do say "Sue-27".

 

The exception is MiG which is a contraction of two names (Mikoyan-Gurievich)

 

Yup - the lower case "i" in the middle simply means "and", so I guess an English translation could be something like "M&G" :)

[probad]

i dont think so, it just follows 2 letter truncation of the first designer and then subsequent designer first initials

 

lavochkin gorbunov gudkov = lagg

[Seaeagle]

i dont think so, it just follows 2 letter truncation of the first designer and then subsequent designer first initials

 

lavochkin gorbunov gudkov = lagg

 

Well I don't know, but I don't think so - originally, the design bureau was called "Mikoyan and Gurevich"(Микоя́н и Гуре́вич").