Nutty,
Sounds about par for the course mate! On leaving the GE job, I ended up as team manager on one of Lynehams second line teams in AES. To keep my ground running chit valid, and because I liked to "keep my hand in", I often put in some long days as we put Albert back together and prepped for Air test. It was around 2200 hrs one evening, as we tried to put Albert back in the hangar, after a 14 hour day I hasten to add, that I missed the fact that while we had been out on Bay 28 beasting the donks, the team had done a Hangar sweep (under the supervision of our Flight Commander) and moved the main jacks, that usually occupied one spot only in the hangar. No excuses, In supervising the move I managed to stoof the RH External in to the repositioned Jack. Nasty hole in external, looks like I'm going to get to meet the Squadron Commander tomorrow. Anyway, we are only half knackered so I ring the duty storeman and ask him to supply us with a replacement external tank, sorry chief he says, we don't keep them here, they are all at RAF Stafford. Having driven in to work that very morning, past the building he was sitting in, I queried the 4 external tanks that had been there as I passed by. No chief, you must be wrong, my computer says we have none of those items on station. OK says I, I will meet you outside your building in 5 minutes, and we can discuss it.
It was a long night, however simple it might look, an external tank replacement is not a 5 minute job. Luckily, my lads had the spirit that used to exude from Lynehams personnel when a job needed doing. The Aircraft flew successfully on air test the next day and was handed back to the line, I had my one way interview with the boss, and stores acquired 3 serviceable, and one unserviceable external tanks. The worst part of it all was informing my Flight Commander that in future, when organising a hangar clean up, to work around the main jacks, and not move them
I'm sure there's many more such stories in the "supply chain".
Smudge
