Commenting on the recent talk of elephant's trousers, ears, eyebrows etc, Nephew Mike Williamson recalls: "In the late 1940s, the French built some (aaah de Havilland) Vampires fitted with the Rolls-Royce Nene. Because the Nene had a double-sided impeller, as against the DH Goblin's single-sided one, additional air intakes were fitted just behind the cockpit, above the wing on both sides. From the front they must have reminded someone of elephant's ears, though they were not very large, and the name stuck." With the first flight coming up of the enormous GE90 engine (with a fan diameter of 3.25m - big enough to swallow whole most narrowbody airliner fuselages), one wonders when anthropomorphical will give way to the mythological.
Source: Flight International
