Nathan spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> Hello,
Pilots landing on Aircraft carriers come in on a virtual 10x10 grid to let the
air traffic guys and the guys on the deck know if they
are low/hi/off left/off right. 5x5 is dead centre on the grid. Now
when people ask "what's your status?", 5 by 5 is now taken to mean
all systems a-ok. The Colonial Marine dropship pilot in Aliens uses
the phrase "In the groove, five by five." to indicate that the dropship is on
the correct approach vector and everything looks good.
Tom.
/************************************************
While this is a correct interpretation of what the term means in Aliens, it is
not the original meaning of the term, which comes from communications.
Los
> Thomas Barclay wrote:
> Nathan spake thusly upon matters weighty:
Yes, Los is completely correct. This is a comms code to verify strength and
clarity of signal. This was originally before strength signal LEDs etc. All
people who used radio comms on a regular basis (such as pilots,sailors) became
familiar with the term and it became common practice to rate anything achieved
with a 100% success to be 5X5. the trick was of course learning the degrees of
quality eg if 5x5 is clear and strong, what exactly does 4x3 sound like? I had
a comms instructor who swore he could tell the difference and rate each signal
accordingly and accurately. But then he was artillery and I don't believe he
could hear much at all let alone the difference between signals!!
On shorthands, it took me a little while to understand what Yanks meant by
24,7. And then every time I turned on the TV somebody was using the term!
John Shoemark
> While this is a correct interpretation of what the term means in