Sarge Posted March 2, 2011 Share Posted March 2, 2011 Who says you can't learn anything watching TV? I have used the phrase "Balls to the wall" for all of my adult life and never put much thought into where it came from. All I knew was that it meant you were moving fast. I was watching "Dogfights" on the history channel and learned the WWII fighter pilots would push the rubber balls on the throttles against the firewall to gain a little extra speed in an emergency. Hence "Balls to the wall" was born! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fullauto_Shooter Posted March 2, 2011 Share Posted March 2, 2011 I'd be perfectly content watching nothing but the History Channel and the Military Channel, with maybe a little College Football on the side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alpha-charlie Posted March 2, 2011 Share Posted March 2, 2011 Same thing for me with the phrase "The whole 9 yards." Apparently the ammo belts on the belt fed machine guns on bombers (B-52's etc) were 9 yards long. So, when enemy fighters were approaching, they would yell to each other "Give 'em the whole nine yards!" Pretty cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Santiago Posted March 2, 2011 Share Posted March 2, 2011 You are a plethora of information Sarge...errrrr... Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted March 2, 2011 Author Share Posted March 2, 2011 You are a plethora of information Sarge...errrrr... Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle O Posted March 2, 2011 Share Posted March 2, 2011 When I learned to fly an constant speed prop, I also learned where this saying came from! Same thing for me, 32 years old, heard it all my life, never knew the origin. Good stuff man! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sirveyr Posted March 2, 2011 Share Posted March 2, 2011 This is what I know about balls to the wall: Hail Accept! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Keen Posted March 2, 2011 Share Posted March 2, 2011 This is what I know about balls to the wall: ........ Hail Accept! +100 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silvercorvette Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 Same thing for me with the phrase "The whole 9 yards." Apparently the ammo belts on the belt fed machine guns on bombers (B-52's etc) were 9 yards long. So, when enemy fighters were approaching, they would yell to each other "Give 'em the whole nine yards!" Pretty cool. I looked them up and here are the results. http://www.urbandictionary.com I don't think anyone knows where the 9 yard thing came from. Belts came in many different lengths and there are many plausible theories behind where it came fro but no one will ever know for sure. There have also been a lot of conflicting stories behind balls to the wall. Used since the 18th century to describe a ship. 'Ship' is a pretty homogenous term these days, but back then, to describe a vessel as a 'true' ship, it had to have 3 masts (fore, main, and mizzen) and on each of these were 3 sails (main, top, and topgallant) suspended from horizontal 'yards'. To handle so many sails, a fairly large crew is required. Warships carried much, much larger crews than merchantmen, and so it was only warships and the large, prestigeous merchant ships such as East Indiamen that could be described as having 'the whole (or full) nine yards'. Does not come from military or football. It relates to the clothing industry. It is a term that tailors have used since the 1900's for denoting the extent that one wishes to invest in a custom-made suit. It takes exactly nine square yards of material to create a man's three-piece suit. If an individual desires a suit that is tailored to the "hilt" (double lined, etc.), he would request that the tailor should proceed with "the whole nine yards." Anything shy of nine yards would mean various alterations. This would lessen the overall quality of the suit. This is not about the airforce, football or even the clothing industry; The Whole Nine Yards refers to the amount of conrete that was in the original concrete trucks (9 cubic yards). ================================= Balls to the wall This term significantly predates airplanes all together. The term "balls to the wall" originated with James Watt's invention of the centrifugal governor used on early steam engines (circa 1774, well before the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk). Over the years, these types of governors were adapted for use on various other types of engines, including many aircraft engines. Some aircraft have a ball shape at the end of the throttle control, which is actually a clever reference to the governor mechanism, no doubt conceived by a witty designer. It is easy to see where one could get the (wrong) impression that "balls to the wall" would indicate the position of the throttle lever, when in fact, the term, strictly speaking, is a reference to the position of the weights on the governor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-JQ- Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 I was watching "Dogfights" on the history channel and learned the WWII fighter pilots would push the rubber balls on the throttles against the firewall to gain a little extra speed in an emergency. Hence "Balls to the wall" was born! I thought you were going to enlighten us on some sort of centrifugal force acting upon the pilot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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