Here's one for starters (from my Post in 2013):
"I had an unnerving experience in a Vampire one day. It must have been in summer, for when I closed and sealed the canopy it got uncomfortably warm, and I fully opened the "eyeball" fresh air inlet up on the left. Half-way through take-off, I'd just got the nosewheel off when something small hit me hard on the cheek, and it was followed by more tiny missiles. I hastily pulled my goggles down (this was long before helmets and visors); we were far too far down to stop and I took it round for a quick circuit and down. Downwind the fusillade had stopped, but looking in my lap I found two or three small BA bolts.
I climbed out, the cockpit was checked: there were more of them all over the floor and of course others could have gone anywhere in the aircraft. The Vampire was put u/s at once. Maintenance records were checked and the whole sad story came to light.
It seemed that an instrument technician had recently done a job in the cockpit, changed an instrument or something of the sort. To do it, he had taken a little cardboard box of these BA bolts, opened it and found there was no flat surface to put the open box - except that the tiny thing could just fit in the open "eyeball". Of course the inevitable happened: he upended the box and the whole lot went down into the air duct.
He now considered the situation. If he reported the occurrence, half the front end of the aircraft would have to be unshipped to retrieve the bolts, and he would not be Chiefy's blue-eyed boy. On the other hand, the bolts were wholly contained in the ducting and could not possibly escape to do any harm. They could stay down there (wherever they had got to) for the life of the aircraft and no one be any the wiser. And of course, they were "C" stores (consumables); he did not have to account for them.
He took the logical way out and kept his mouth shut. It was just his hard luck that the gale that went through the duct when the aircraft got under way was enough to convert the bolts into the swarm of projectiles which had attacked me. He was for the High Jump: I do not know what happened to him....."
Danny.