"his first job was to join a team redesigning the nosewheel assembly on the 80p because they had just discovered that the props needed to absorb the power of the engines were going to hit the ground if they didn't do something.
Ah yes, the wonderful noseleg. I can only hope your nephew can be absolved of blame for locating at least two grease nipples that were inaccessible when the leg was fitted. This minor detail led to a couple of hiccups....so to speak.
As for why the biggest heap of junk was so atrocious....let's have a quick think.
Door shoot bolts that happily froze at about -2C. The door locking mechanism was as complex as you could get and bore a close resemblance to the Isle of Man's flag symbol.
Air stair external operating button conveniently located at the base of the main pax door.
O2 bottle that originally had to be removed for replenishment.
A couple of useful access panels on the left hand side of the nose, that had to be embodied as a mod. rather than at manufacture as they should have been.
Various bits located in the belly panels, non really accessible.
No ovens in the galley.
I/c external jack plug......erm, the outdated British version.
The horizontal stab vibration. if you sat at the rear, you could alternate between watching the stab. vibrate and your meal transit across the tray due to said vibrations.
The engine. About a week to change and inaccessible. The oil cooler was a very special delight you might say. BM engineers dropped a spanner when the heap first arrived...an engine change was required to retrieve said spanner. Loganair hold the record for an IFSD....dep Woodford with both working....arr MAN with one working.
The flaps.....prone to erm, emulating the Grand Canyon in the vicinity of the exhaust and, some thought had clearly gone into this... the flap drive gear box and the replenishment plug.....the item was the same as the Budgie.....alas, the 5/16 Whit plug required a Whit spanner....the rest of the world used A/F or metric.
Product "support". Such was the success of the heap, a "hearts and minds" day out ( free sarnies ) was offered by Woodford to operators various as to how they were "addressing the issues".
A rep arrived one night, said hello, and then legged it to the hotel.
Each heap was lovingly hand crafted at Woodford and Chadderton, thus interchangeability was never actually considered as being useful, for say the big bits like the stab de-icing boots. They all had to be "adjusted" to fit.
Thus, one "happy night", a phone call was made to Chadderton to ask for just such a bit....yes, they had one...hurrah !...however, "Don't come between 01.00 and 02.00 as lads were on brew..ok !" and phone hung up.
We arrived at just before 01.00 and waited....about 20 mins so they would all be ensconced in their tea / reading the Sun etc. There were some very rude words said therefore when we did introduce ourselves.
The MM's gave the impression they had been written as a form of community relations project, by a primary school in Bramhall or Poynton.....as in "How an aircraft works..by Class 1B"
The selling point was it only needed about 23 pax to make a profit, and fuel burn that gave accountants orgasms. The little matter of weight and balance when full was merely an "inconvenience ".
The heap should be mandatory studying for every budding design engineer...."here's how to not to do it "
Last edited by Krystal n chips; 6th Feb 2015 at 06:07.