Useless trivia question

[DoinTime]

Who knows of the origins to the term "balls to the wall"

I have heard that a specific aircraft type had ball shaped knobs on top of the power levers and when fully advanced they nearly touched the instrument panel. No idea on the authenticity of this.

 

[WrightAvia]

Balls to the Wall
The phrase balls to the wall, meaning an all-out effort, sounds as if it is a reference to a part of the male anatomy, giving rise to some confusion as to what it originally meant. However, the original usage has nothing to do with anatomy, coming rather from the world of aviation.

On an airplane, the handles controlling the throttle and the fuel mixture are often topped with ball-shaped grips, referred to by pilots as (what else?) "balls." Pushing the balls forward, close to the front wall of the cockpit results in the most and richest mixture of fuel going to the engines and the highest possible speed.

The phrase dates to the early 1950s. Several veterans have written me noting their use of the term during the Korean War era. The earliest written citation is a bit later. The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang contains a quote from 1966-67, in Harvey's Air War:

You know what happened on that first Doomsday Mission (as the boys call a big balls-to-the-wall raid) against Hanoi oil.
Like balling the jack, this phrase is often thought to have arisen from railroad work. A speed governor on train engines would have round, metal weights at the end of arms. As the speed increased, the spinning balls would rise--being perpendicular to the walls at maximum speed. But there is no evidence to support this story. No use of the phrase is known to exist prior to the mid-1960s, and all the early cites are from military aviation.

 

[Typhoon1244]

"Balls to the wall" goes back to the Industrial Revolution. When any big piece of machinery (locomotive, factory equipment, ship engine, etc.) was operating at full power, its governor was probably fully extended...that is the "balls" on the governor were swung out all the way "to the wall."

I'll try and find a reference for that, but I swear it's true.

 

[WrightAvia]

Like balling the jack, this phrase is often thought to have arisen from railroad work. A speed governor on train engines would have round, metal weights at the end of arms. As the speed increased, the spinning balls would rise--being perpendicular to the walls at maximum speed. But there is no evidence to support this story. No use of the phrase is known to exist prior to the mid-1960s, and all the early cites are from military aviation.Like balling the jack, this phrase is often thought to have arisen from railroad work. A speed governor on train engines would have round, metal weights at the end of arms. As the speed increased, the spinning balls would rise--being perpendicular to the walls at maximum speed. But there is no evidence to support this story. No use of the phrase is known to exist prior to the mid-1960s, and all the early cites are from military aviation.Like balling the jack, this phrase is often thought to have arisen from railroad work. A speed governor on train engines would have round, metal weights at the end of arms. As the speed increased, the spinning balls would rise--being perpendicular to the walls at maximum speed. But there is no evidence to support this story. No use of the phrase is known to exist prior to the mid-1960s, and all the early cites are from military aviation.Like balling the jack, this phrase is often thought to have arisen from railroad work. A speed governor on train engines would have round, metal weights at the end of arms. As the speed increased, the spinning balls would rise--being perpendicular to the walls at maximum speed. But there is no evidence to support this story. No use of the phrase is known to exist prior to the mid-1960s, and all the early cites are from military aviation.Like balling the jack, this phrase is often thought to have arisen from railroad work. A speed governor on train engines would have round, metal weights at the end of arms. As the speed increased, the spinning balls would rise--being perpendicular to the walls at maximum speed. But there is no evidence to support this story. No use of the phrase is known to exist prior to the mid-1960s, and all the early cites are from military aviation.Like balling the jack, this phrase is often thought to have arisen from railroad work. A speed governor on train engines would have round, metal weights at the end of arms. As the speed increased, the spinning balls would rise--being perpendicular to the walls at maximum speed. But there is no evidence to support this story. No use of the phrase is known to exist prior to the mid-1960s, and all the early cites are from military aviation.Like balling the jack, this phrase is often thought to have arisen from railroad work. A speed governor on train engines would have round, metal weights at the end of arms. As the speed increased, the spinning balls would rise--being perpendicular to the walls at maximum speed. But there is no evidence to support this story. No use of the phrase is known to exist prior to the mid-1960s, and all the early cites are from military aviation.Like balling the jack, this phrase is often thought to have arisen from railroad work. A speed governor on train engines would have round, metal weights at the end of arms. As the speed increased, the spinning balls would rise--being perpendicular to the walls at maximum speed. But there is no evidence to support this story. No use of the phrase is known to exist prior to the mid-1960s, and all the early cites are from military aviation.