Confessional
Ladies and Gents I have a confession.
Like many that did, and do wear the blue suit I made a screw-up, in my eyes a pretty big one, and no I'm not talking about walking past the afco!
I was on a heli pets engineering course at shawbury about 5 years ago and all was going swimmingly, right up until the practical phase. We were tasked with a training exercise of blades on and blades off on a gazelle, simple, huh.
Well they went on ok and we had a break then swapped roles for the removal, I got nominated for doing the pins out where the blades join the head, no worries, I hopped up, prepped the pins and stared at them for a moment then had the blindingly obvoius thought of I can pull the lead/lag link pin and the blade will stay where it is won't it.....?
My next thought was NO it'll move, leave well alone and don't rush. Whats the hurry, there's no pressure wait till everyone is ready....
Well we can all guess which thought I listened to can't we........??
Stupid ****** that I am I pulled the pin, Blade dropped like a scythe and almost took out three of my coursemates, one of them caught the blade and recieved a few bruises and scrapes for it......
I reckon I should have been binned/charged/P45 anything but what they did.....
We had a sitdown postmortem as a course, I bought a load of beer and offered to go round the back of the hangar with the guy I'd smacked with the Blade. I told him I wouldn't lift a finger while he beat me down. He refused. Would I have done the same if our situations had been reversed??
From that moment on I knew the RAF and I were parting company. Could I trust myself? No. Time to move on then.......
Do I miss it?? Yeah, If I had a Delorean with the flux Capacitor mod I would only change that moment.
I know you can all sit there and analyse it and take the piss, can I shake the guilt and shame that dogged my concience ever since.........?? NO
The only lesson I can offer you all from this is that when things seem to be at their easiest and you've got one more quick job to do before quitting time. WATCH OUT for the stupid ****** like me who has the mother of all blonde moments and does something daft. Look after each other coz when the **** hits the fan your mates are all you got...
And if you were involved in this one and still want to go round the hangar I still won't lift a finger.
Anyone else have a confession to share??