I agree with the argument that many reported incidents of smoke, fumes etc may have benign origins; for example from the galley. To simply quote the number of incidents never gives the full picture. When presented with such statistics one of the questions I always ask is; following the instruction placed on engineering authorities many years ago to reduce the number of requests for fault investigations, how many incidents now go unreported to the proper authority responsible for maintaining airworthiness? At a stroke, this instruction saw a large reduction in investigations, but a huge increase in omnibus 760s. I have asked before – does an omnibus count as one incident, hiding a bigger problem?
The other effects of this policy are obvious. The act of delaying reporting and saving up incidents for an omnibus wastes time if there is an underlying or secondary problem to address. (I suspect there is an element of this behind the QQ and BAeS reports mentioned here). The policy of course had the desired effect; it reduced expenditure in the short term. In the long term it stored up problems and made full recovery action almost impossible. Note – What I describe is almost entirely hidden from front line. You know what it’s like, you report the incident and the great machine takes over. I doubt if many at air stations know of this “savings measure”.
At post #1718 an MoD spokesman is reported as saying;
'The number of signals generated is a reflection of the RAF's comprehensive reporting system which covers any indication, however minor, of fire, smoke, burning, fumes or smell-related occurrences. This would include, for example, incidents as minor as an overheated resistor.'
As usual, my response is; yes, the RAF (and the RN and Army) have a comprehensive reporting system. However, the MoD does not adequately fund full implementation of the complementary investigative and corrective action system. It’s precisely the same as their “We have a robust airworthiness framework” argument. They do, but they don’t implement it.
The final sentence is appalling; a typically ignorant dismissal of the potential hazards an overheating resistor may cause. I assume the spokesman is reading from a brief and doesn’t understand. Equally, the intended audience (the press presumably) will swallow this as evidence MoD has everything under control. The simple fact is that overheating resistors (especially wire wound varieties) reach quite high temperatures. 600 degrees F is typical if the heat is not dissipating properly through heatsink design, or perhaps proximity to other resistors. The smell/fumes may “only” be the enamel burning, but common sense tells you to investigate why it overheated and what effect it has had on the associated circuitry, wiring, equipment etc. Different resistor types have different failure modes. Open circuit, short circuit, high/low resistance. If the heat isn’t dissipated properly, the practical rating becomes a fraction of that specified. A beancounter may think such an occurrence is minor and not worth investigating; to an engineer it’s potential ignition source.
It may seem that many here have opposing views, and the debate is good. But the catalyst for bringing the “sides” closer together is understanding this simple fact - serviceability and airworthiness are two different things. I guess there are very few here who have maintained aircraft & equipment, and then had the soul destroying experience of trying to maintain airworthiness in the face of intense opposition. When I was head down in an aircraft it never crossed my mind that people above me were actively trying to prevent me doing my job. Yes, I moaned about no spares, faults, APs that weren’t quite right, and all the rest. I was lucky that in “my day” I simply demanded the spare or filled in a 760 or 765; and more often than not I got what I wanted. The support infrastructure was centralised and highly trained specialists were adequately funded to provide that key component of airworthiness – support. Now it’s fragmented and grossly underfunded. Those who (mis)manage it aren’t specialists, except in the sense they specialise in being obstructive and hostile to what we are trying to achieve.