posted on Apr, 6 2011 @ 06:00 AM
reply to post by rand
-[I know this is an old thread...but I thought I'd throw in my thoughts] I've been trying to find a definition of the word that fits. I could only
find two uses of the term....each of those terms have been divided into two slightly different meanings over time. The first set refers to ships. One
meaning is simply of a ship that never goes out to sea....think of a house boat where someone lives in it, but never goes anywhere....only keeping it
parked in the dock always. Sort of like how most motor homes never really go anywhere. A variation of this is a mock up of a ship that it used for
Navel Recruitment purposes. Basically a wooden 'ship' that is not really even built to actually go out to sea, but only to sit on the shoreline as a
way to drum up interest in joining whatever Navel force that is officially used in the country.
The other meaning that I found was of a tank. I guess up until the end of WWII the British used navel terms to define their tanks. I'm not sure if
'landship' was an official term, but it is what they called tanks back then. A varient, and slightly more modern usage of this term is to call a
particular type of Super Heavy Tank a 'landship'.
As for Kenneth Arnold's meaning....it is sort of hard to say. I imagine that he was either using the term wrongly, or the term was simply a pet-name
that he used for his airplane. He may have been referring to its size.....if it was an incredibly large plane (I don't know how big his particular
model of plane was myself) then he may have been using the term as a reference to the Super Heavy Tanks. Otherwise if he rarely flew the thing (this
doesn't seem to be the case...but none the less) he may have been punning on the way 'landships' never left dock.