What's in a name?

It was the day after the Dutch Air Force show and me and my mates were heading down to the museum aircraft museum at Soesterbourg. As it didn’t open until lunchtime we had a morning to kill. A friend had done some research into locations of aircraft that are now used for display and other purposes. There was one on display at the gate to an Air Traffic Control centre. One used in a display at a children’s theme park and a couple more which seemed to be scattered around a field. There purpose still isn’t clear to me.

He used a variety of websites to locate these aircraft and that is when the thought struck me. Why not do one website with details of all these aircraft on it. Now there is no way I could keep all the information up to date, so there would have to be some form of user interaction. So why not make the whole thing a user generated website and totally embrace Social Media.

It’s an idea I’ve been toying with the past six months or so. Lack of time meant I didn’t do much with it but as I recently resigned as webmaster of the Bournemouth Aviation Museum I decided to get this project up and running. Writing the code is well on the way and next week I’m going to show some sample screen shots at a talk I’m giving to the members of a local branch of Air-Britain.

My one bog issue I have is what to call it. Now me and all my friends refer to such aircraft as ‘Migs on Sticks’ This was a phrase coined by a Russian lady called Olga. A friends runs aircraft spotting trips all over the world and Olga is his Russian Tour guide for when he does he annual trips to Moscow. She helps with the organisation and all the paperwork needed for a aircraft related trip to Russia. On these trips they like to visit aircraft memorial and the like. So on days when they are not at airports, Olga says that they are looking for Migs on Sticks. The name has stuck and now many of us use that name to define any aircraft placed on a pole or mounted for display purposes,

I’d love to use that name but I don’t want to fall foul of the MiG aircraft company for using their name (though I’ll use a small g rather than a capital G). The site will of course state that it has no connection with the MiG aircraft company. Asking for permission isn’t really an option here. We are talking Russia, even in this day and age, no-one dares to make a decision in case it’s the wrong one and they end up in their bosses bad books. Also the site will cover all aircraft not just MiG’s but many of us in the aircraft enthusiast community know that a Mig on a stick won’t necessarly be a MiG. Is it worth calling the site what I really want to, or shall I play safe and call it some generic?