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Old 1st Feb 2015, 20:35
  #22 (permalink)  
BEagle
 
Join Date: May 1999
Location: Quite near 'An aerodrome somewhere in England'
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I recall a tale from the early days of these Anglo-French clattering things....

It would appear that some part of one of these device's gubbins wasn't working as advertised. So a decision was made to change it. The part in question was prominently labelled 'Gonflée a l'azote', which meant nothing to the oily baldrick who was attempting to remove it....

Finding it difficult, he decided to find a bigger spanner and to disassemble the errant item in situ. This proved more difficult than he'd expected - that is, right up until the last couple of turns. Whereupon there was a load bang, or rather 'boum' and the thing flew apart, releasing all the 'azote' with which it had previously been 'gonflée'.....and nearly taking his head off.

It was then decided that 'Charged with nitrogen' rather than 'Gonflée a l'azote' would perhaps be a more useful label on RAF aircraft.....
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