Hairy Fifinella - [Aviation Gremlins]

Hairy Fifinella. - [Aviation Gremlins] - (Latin: Fuzzicus Fifinellica) - aka "Fluffy Fifinella"

• About this Gremlin: The Hairy Fifinella is a Flamboyant Fluffy Femlin, who flies around causing causalities, but also has the the hobby of a capricious cupid: she frequently lets fall her hair and lets the frizzy-fractal-ing follicles fall from her forehead onto the formal wear of the aviation infantry, resulting in fights between them and their foolhardy fiancées! ... The problem that this Pesky Pixies hair invites; although it initiallycauses chaos, will almost always result in a regimen of kisses between the fighting couple! For a time, the future mates will bicker and bumble, accuse and attack each other but eventually, through all of the bickering, their relationship becomes bolstered and they begin to act betrothed, the boyfriend eventually becomes the beloved & the two regenerate their romance~! (...Or not.) These Fifinella are also known to get jealous and order other gremlins around with an envious eye toward coupled female pilots, Thus the Hairy Fifinella often aims to causes far more damage to pilots personal lives than her contemporaries do. Although aviators often change their outfits, these Fluffy Fifinella are not tricked so easily, their color changing plumage is fired like a porcupines quills with perfect accuracy, they never miss their mark. Although they may be befriended by their adoration of Applesauce, they do prefer the pungent smell of perfume over postage stamps.

[Note: 'Hairy Fifinella' should not be confused with the 'Silver Winged Fifinella' nor with the similar 'Lipstick Fifinella' or 'Dingbelle' - Fifinella and Gremlins were both defined in various aviation dictionaries by January 1st of 1942, and although disney and co tried to copyright these concepts, they where already in the public consciousness and belonged to folklore, the public domain, & to aviators as a whole. For a more in-depth dive into this, see also the "'Lipstick Fifinella" & my section on Gremlinology as a whole.]

• History: In "Gremlin Americanus" [Dec 1942 by Eric Solane] - Eric gives two unique examples of folkloric "Fifinella" from his time in the air force, the "Lipstick" & "Hairy" Fifinella. - The entry, with correspondence allegedly from "Dome" Harwood, goes as follows: 

Hairy Fifinella  - (Latin: Fuzzicus Fifinellica)

"The fliers of the world know her as the Hairy Fifinella, This hirsute charmer is endowed with the gift of changing the true colour from red to brunette to blonde at will. She deems it the greatest of sport to shed some of her hair on the shoulders of fliers. indeed men who have been the victims of her pranks assert that her hair shoots out like a porcupines quills.

Hairy Fifinella are most careful to leave hairs on a coat that are distinctly different in color from the hair of a fliers sweetheart or wife. it is her greatest glee to further the course of romance this way.

Another favorite trick of hers is to scatter blonde hairs on any blue serge suit she happens to meet. it fascinates her that alone hairs show up so well on blue serge. Many desperate pilots has tried wearing cotton suits (that dont catch like blue serge.) all to no avail. Hairy fifinella was neither fooled or confused.

Dear Eric – The female of the gremlin species is certainly more deadly than the male, particularly in the gremlin clan. Fifinella are a nuisance not only to the army and navy airdrops but to private pilots as well. unless something is done about them my little black book will soon be useless. – "Dome" Harwood C. A. A. La Guardia Field"

...The Addenda at end of the book also mentions the following about fifinella: "Female gremlin are always addressed as Fifinella. Fifinella are one of the rare females who really take an interest in her husbands work. often she becomes a successful career-woman, competing with the best of the males in the field of making pilots lives unhappy hours in the air. More often Fifinella is content to reign as the belle of the airfield and goes on flights merely for the "ride". Then she is the back seat pilot and realizes the importance of heckling and kidding the pilot. She often sits upon the pilots shoulders, making sputtering noises like a quitting motor. The male gremlin consider this great stuff."

• About the correspondence: "Oren P. (Dome) Harwood" seems to be an interesting guy with sadly little written about his exploits. What i do know is that he was a World War I pilot, daredevil, wing-walker, barnstormer, and a general sales man for various eastern wartime businesses, he was also former head of the Civil Aeronautics Administration. - So as a result the guy knew pretty much everyone in the flying biz & so I have no reason to doubt that Solane (the author) would be an exception. - Should this correspondence be believed, then I'd suppose that Dome was 'in' on the 'Gremlintrix' of the time [Blaming gremlins for every little odd thing that bothered pilots.] it seems that this extended to being unlucky in love, theres a gremlin for every situation and any mistake. The mention of a black book is a perhaps a double entandre; as a 'black book' is both either a list of business contacts (sometimes kept with romantic intent), or a particular list used by engineers in automotive & airplane repair. - Regardless, the start of his quote matches the earliest dictionary description of Fifinella:

[illustrated aviation dictionary. January 1st 1942]

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Although there are no direct 'design' parallels i've come across as of writing, yet another "Fluffy Fifinella" was also mentioned as the "ringleader" of the "Windsock gremlins" (another type which Solane included in his bestairy, more on them another time!!) - they are mentioned along with a fifinella 'ring leader' appear in various papers from 1942:

[Art stickers by samkalensky part of my series on wartime gremlins and gremlinology check my shop and follow for more!]