ORB abbreviations

LDA = Local Defence Area, now known as TAOR = Tactical Area Of Responsibilty.

CAS= Chief of the Air Staff, but also Close Air Support. And there was a complaint from an ex CAS about the use of made up and confusing acronyms such as SAR which most people know as Search and Rescue, but it was suddenly brought in to mean Synthetic Aperture Radar. And of course radar is another acronym and should of course be written RADAR!

Just slightly aside from this, yesterday on the Jeremy Vine programme there was a brief slot about abbreviations/ acronyms. How the English language is being reduced to texting, kids in the classroom are swearing at each other in text which the teacher dosen't understand. At the end of the show he signed-off with TTFN do you know what that means? TTFN was around during the war [2nd] an abbreviation of Ta Ta For Now. What does TNT stand for? I don't mean the delivery lorries.

Trinitrotoluene. See Wikipedia for the explanation. Is the manufacture of explosives a boom industry?

It could well take-off !!

BCF - Bromochlorofluoromethane
CAT - category

RAF transport aircrat use the callsign ASCOT normally followed by 4 figures, ASCOT= Air Support Command Operational Task. At least that was what I was taught!

canberra;54564 wrote:

RAF transport aircrat use the callsign ASCOT normally followed by 4 figures, ASCOT= Air Support Command Operational Task. At least that was what I was taught!

Well you learn something everyday ! I have to admit I hadn't heard of that one.

CAT can also be 'Clear Air Turbulence'. Project Coldcat visited Tengah in 1968 with a Canberra PR9 (WH793) from RAE Bedford & a Martin RB-57F from Yokota in Japan. Its purpose was to investigate CAT at high altitudes - circa 80,000ft.