I'm sure that if a member of a non-technical trade caused damage/unserviceability of an expensive piece of kit through not reading the label of an required for its use the book would well and truly be thrown at them.
One of the many tasks I've had during my service was blending AL48 into F35 to make F34 FSII. Unfortunately the AL48 itself comes in green 205lt drums that look exactly the same as every other green 205lt drum in use, the only thing differentiating them being a small white label with the product details on it. Now considering the majority of blending operations are carried out in operational areas (such as Iraq where all F34 in theatre has been blended to spec by the grubby mitts of a humble stacker) where the workload is high, hours long, temperatures extreme and a whole host of other factors effect human performance it does make you wonder how come they can manage to read the labels correctly whereas it seems quite a task for better paid and apparently more 'skilled' personnel.
I'm sorry, whilst I agree that different shaped/coloured tins could prevent mix up between OX26/OM15 this doesn't account for the fact that other fluids which also come in green rectangular tins aren't also regularly mixed up. Ultimately its a lackadaisical attitude towards working practises and being blasé over the little things that causes these errors, errors who's consequences would have previously been hammered home in personnel when their colleagues who committed them were 'trade charged' for their actions. Unfortunately the no blame culture is a double edged sword. Being nice about errors means that people admit their mistakes but without the threat of serious repercussions some people won't buck up their act.
The other side to this is if mistakes are being made over such a simple issue as using the correct fluids to service an aircraft what other more technical mistakes are lurking within the aircraft of the RAF's fleet?
Yes I have made mistakes before but admittingly there are very few that a stacker can make that directly affect flight safety but this in itself is reflected in our length of trade training and ultimately our level of pay, something that many in the more technical trades crow on about with regularity when the 'threat' of less lofty trades being bumped up to their level of pay is mentioned (see the vitriolic posts on E-Goat with reference to the MT trade pay increase for example). Earn that pay, do the job right and read the label.
Last edited by The Helpful Stacker; 5th Sep 2007 at 08:10.