Tornado F3 guarded switch in RH under carriage bay.

[Taffwilf]

Hi
I am just wondering if anybody knows what the yellow and black guarded switch in the RH undercarriage bay was used for?

[Dark Helmet]

There used to be a switch to open the undercarriage bay door fully. (In the very early days the undercarriage doors would half close after the gear was locked down. It didn't really give any aerodynamic benefits and used to crack the doors.)
Don't remember what colour it was though.

[BeeBopp]

Apu emergency shutdown

[Classic]

It was for ground crew safety - if selected to safe, the APU couldn't be started.

[Taffwilf]

Cheers guys for the answers much appreciated

[Dark Helmet]

Did the GR models have it as well? I don't remember ever having seen one in there! Anyone have a picture?

[Tashengurt]

Slight drift but I recall when the Tornado canopy was being lowered the lineys would duck under the fuselage or into the HAS cabin for cover.
Anyone know if this was due to something that had once occurred or just in case?

[Moi/]

Yeah,

I remember tails of the canopy alignment bracket being out of aligment could set the MDC off, so we hid under the belly during closing. By the point of closing, you had straddled the rear cockpit (facing rearwards) to help strap in. You then turned around and stood over the front seat to lift the back pad of the pilot. You would then remove both the rear and front canopy MDC pin and they would be stowed by aircrew.

One incident which i was told of happened overseas (maybe TLP)

• Nav Unstrapped on Taxi in
• Shoulder strap went over canopy MDC cable.
• Canopy up with pins out.
• Strap pulled cable down.
• Bye bye MDC.

The Pilot/Nav would stand up and fit the Canopy MDC pins prior to exit.

[NutLoose]

There used to be a switch to open the undercarriage bay door fully.

Watched a Jag nose doors close on an electrician ( AB ) and lift him off the ground during a running defect fix, I was in the Jag beside it. Not good, rushed over and got the pilot after lots of frantic hand signals to open the doors and out he dropped. He was extremely lucky as the doors did not need to complete the cycle before it could be reversed, he suffered various broken ribs.. and ended up in the med section, he had tried unsuccessfully to get the evening off to watch the match, so was happy to lie in a hospital bed and watch it.
I remember rushing in and asking them to call an ambulance, it went over everyone's head, I repeated it several times and then they all rushed out past me to see what had happened...Duh!!!!! Then came the how on earth did it get back in and turned around in here with another Jag there.... the, well I was over the other side of the garden fence outside the soft bouncing the pitot up and down and pushing like heck to castor the jet round didn't go down well LOL.

[k3k3]

I was seeing a Jaguar off once, after engine start I stood up in the nose wheel bay to close the selector panel door, as I ducked down the other member of the see off crew closed the ground power cable door, and with it the nose gear door switch. The doors took my ear defenders off my head, if I'd been half a second slower they would have crushed my head.

[Dark Helmet]

@Tashengurt: Yes, on a see-off the pilot closed the canopy and the MDC fired. Cuts and bruises to the see-off crew but luckily no one died.
After that we used to duck under the fuselage whilst the canopy was closing.
I think the original incident took place on 31 Sqn at Bruggen.

The fault was traced to one of the (ridiculously over complicated) MDC cross shafts. I think we painted tell-tale marks on them and the cockpit sill so that you could see if they were out of alignment.

[Timelord]

Can someone explain this Jaguar stuff to me?

So you could open and close the nose wheel doors on the ground from the cockpit AND from outside?

[NutLoose]

That was one thing that I could never figure out, we had the ground switch to open them in the panel on the left and also a manual pumping handle mounted on the door, I often wonder if it was AB working on the wigglies in the nose bay that initiated it, and also released it. I was a sooty BTW

[Just This Once...]

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet

@Tashengurt: Yes, on a see-off the pilot closed the canopy and the MDC fired. Cuts and bruises to the see-off crew but luckily no one died.

I think the original incident took place on 31 Sqn at Bruggen.

It was indeed a GR1 at Bruggen. T**d S was in the front, said it was like have shotguns fired next to his ears. Cannot remember who was in the back seat. Groundcrew strapping in procedures were cited, so these were changed to avoid feet vs MDC shaft.

[Vendee]

There was a Jag incident at Prestwick in the 70's involving the u/c doors. A 2 ship had landed away there and on startup it was found that one of the Jag's battery's was u/s. So they started the good one and the pilot got out to remove the battery with the intention of using the good battery to start the other Jag. They put a naval rating in the cockpit and shut the canopy on him. The two Jag pilots disappeared up the nose u/c bay to remove the battery. Another naval rating on the see off team was walking round the aircraft and spotted a small panel open on the port side and decided to close it. Unfortunately this was the panel which had the u/c close switch inside and it had a striker which moved the switch to close when the panel was shut. The u/c doors closed. One of the pilots in the nose managed to get out but the other got trapped sustaining broken ribs. The guy in the cockpit knew something was wrong but didn't know what to do. They hadn't even told him how to open the canopy.

[Tashengurt]

Thanks DH. Brown pants all round I'd imagine.

[Lima Juliet]

IIRC there was a switch in one of the U/C bays of the F3 that allowed the armourers to test the Mauser? Or did I dream that up?

LJ

[57mm]

No Sir. It was the ASGTS (Armament Safety Ground Test Switch).

[glad rag]

Hmm butt switch. Safety pin in master ts.
Used to sell loads of swizzle sticks and other lollipops in t bar.
What do you think happened on **** shift one night........