The U.S. flag is very asymmetric to left-right image flips. So, it’s very obvious when a flag is depicted on a right shoulder that it’s been flipped left-right, to mimic how a flag on a pole in motion appears. And the U.S. has very flag-forward fashion, making the flip easy to find.
After watching the Olympics, I’m not sure how often other countries do this. For example, the U.K. flag and South Korean flag are not symmetric, but the difference is relatively subtle. Do those countries flip the flag on their right shoulders?
And it seems some flags, when flipped left-right, look like the flag of another country. The famous pair is Ireland and Ivory Coast, but there’s likely others. Do these countries flip their flags on their right shoulders?
I don’t know for sure, but I assume that countries with text on their flags, like Brazil or Saudi Arabia, don’t reverse themselves and look identical from both sides.
Does the Australian flag change the the Southern Cross the right away around when the Union Jack is on the right? Or is it just a random cluster of stars?
From what I can tell, the Australian military reserves the right shoulder for unit and/or operation patches. if the unit/operation patch contains the Australian flag as part of the design, it is not reversed.
On aircraft, Australian flags on the right-side ARE reversed.
According to this video, it flips the entire flag around, so the Southern Cross also becomes its mirror image (not exactly a random cluster, though). I find that surprising; I would have thought they’d just move the Union Jack canton and the line star from left to right, the Aouthern Cross from right to left, but leave the layout of the Southern Cross stars intact.
Ireland is a 1:2 flag ratio (i.e. twice as wide as it is tall). Ivory Coast is 2:3. You can’t rely on all representations of a flag being the correct ratio, but that’s a tell.
I’ve seen UK flown upside down and it’s kind of an uncanny valley because it looks wrong but you might not place your finger on it. I’ve also seen it intentionally upside down in the form of the Hawaii flag as a distress signal, not sure what ideology is behind it.
I don’t know about the military patches, but putting flags backwards on the right of planes is not uncommon. E.g. this Qantas plane
