• sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip
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    2 months ago

    Not 100% sure on this, but it may be due to ‘helo’ being more audibly distinct than ‘heli’ over a shitty garbled radio?

    It could also be from different regional/national accents of English pronouncing helicopter as basically hee-lo-copter, sort of like how there are different pronunciations of Uranus or nuclear?

    • taladar@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      shitty garbled radio

      Which is the standard method of communication aviation has somehow agreed on using “for safety reasons”.

      • sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip
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        2 months ago

        Well, to expand on that theory, ‘helo’ would have originated almost entirely with the radio tech of 50s and 60s military.

        A whole lot of lingo basically makes sense if you understand its origin, but when the term keeps being used for decades and decades, its removed from that context and doesn’t seem to make much sense in a modern context.