Great article mate, but “shear” is something you do to a sheep. You’re looking for “sheer”.

It’s called a fin flash, have a look at the Wikipedia page about them. This particular one that our RAAF use is actually nothing to do with the French flag, it’s just the three colours of our Air Force roundel put into a different form. http://www.pprune.org/archive/index.…

Am Australian. Can confirm. Beer currently in hand.

They actually changed the design regulations here in Australia just to allow Audi to sell the new A6, 7 and 8 which have a very similar design of indicator. Hopefully they do something similar over your way!