Seven tons of Avtur in a bomb bay?
I have refrained from joining in this thread despite some rather suspect facts being banded about.
However the following by nigeglib:
“One of the Nimrods recently landed with 7 tons of fuel sloshing around in the bomb bay, another fuel migration and one which could have seen a repeat of Afghanistan.
I will dig out the Parliamentary answer and compare.”
I could not ignore. (That’s not a personal dig at you nigeglib, many facts quoted by various people have been wrong).
7 Pints perhaps, 7 gallons at a stretch but 7 tons? That’s nearly 16,000lbs, that’s a lot of petrol. The bomb doors would not take it (that’s a guess), however, the fuel would leak out before that amount could collect.
And that’s the problem with repeating stories without understanding their context. Especially incident signals; unless you are the recipient and understand the engineering aspects, all they do is create uncertainty and alarm.
We all care about the problem because we are or were involved in military flying and to us it is a big issue, but we must let the wheels of investigation turn, we will not find the answers otherwise. If they fail to produce a plausible answer and take action to reduce the risk, then is the time to take up the pen.
From my handle those that know the Nimrod will realise I have flown on them from the early days, have many tanking sorties in my log book and knew some of the guys on 230. I too want to know the answers as much as the next man (oh yes, and woman), but feel too much speculation is pointless at this stage.
Time for my cocoa.
Last edited by AQAfive; 18th June 2007 at 09:46.
Reason: Over cocoa I realised my maths was wrong