Scratch & Sniff [Archive]

CoffmanStarter

22nd Jan 2012, 12:05

Hi all ...

A slight twist on the venerable Caption Competition. Every aircraft type, airframe and cockpit can said to be remembered by a particular olfactory experience (be it pleasant or unpleasant !) … so I thought some PPRuNe’rs might like to join in by offering a few photos and some descriptive prose in the style of a Perfumer or Sommelier in an effort to create a virtual “Scratch & Sniff” thread … all good clean (please !) fun. For those unfortunate enough to undertake cockpit noxious fume drills … this could offer another dimension !

A first offering from me to kick-off …

http://i1004.photobucket.com/albums/af162/CoffmanStarter/Scan101640002.jpg

Eau de DH1

A subtitle fragrance with base notes of avgas and hot leather punctuated by top notes of cordite and a whiff of sweat … and if you were particularly “unfortunate” during the summer … the effluvia from a previous aerobatic session emanating from the “baked deposit” around the rear seat P.11 compass !

Regards …

Coff.

PPRuNeUser0139

22nd Jan 2012, 12:48

I think there can only be one possible winner of this highly coveted Scratch 'n Sniff Award..
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6040/6339586915_77e457a209.jpg
I give you the evergreen Shackwacs..
The shock on entering the finest ergonomic slum known to aviation was topped only by that memorable first inhalation of the Shack's unique sensory cocktail - composed of oil of fluide hydraulique, AVGAS, fragrant leather seating that had absorbed 30 years or more of tobacco smoke, sweat and vomit, with signature keynotes of Elsan fluid, forgotten offerings from the galley and ancient electric wiring.

Rossian

22nd Jan 2012, 14:08

When I took my son and my grandchildren to the Newark Air Museum we were privileged to get into the Varsity that they have there, which was the very first RAF aircraft I flew in (Fam 1 at Topcliffe).

My son's comment on getting in was "Do all RAF aircraft smell the same - this is how I remember the smell of a Nimrod?". (I took him and his sister on one of my trips).

The melange is exactly as described by sidevalve (I spent 7 years on Mk 2 and Mk3 Shacks).

The one element that sidevalve missed is, in training or OCU aircraft, is the smell of fear/stress, the fear of failure. This can be quite marked and once noticed never forgotten. I knew a chap whose wife could tell if there had been an "incident" during a trip, and when quizzed said it was the smell of fear! We've all been there at one time or another, haven't we?

The Ancient Mariner

Pontius Navigator

22nd Jan 2012, 18:01

SV, it took me quite a while to identify that aircraft. Then the penny dropped, no curtains.

ACW599

22nd Jan 2012, 18:20

I had occasion in the 1980s to ride in the cabs of some of the locomotives then in use on British Rail. For some intriguing reason they all smelt a) very similar and b) very like a Chipmunk cockpit, albeit without the top note of cordite!

Three of the classes I rode on were more or less contemporary with the Lightning and built by English Electric, so maybe there was a link there ;)

Green Flash

22nd Jan 2012, 18:32

A variation on Varsity was the odour of recently discharged fire bottles. My one and only trip in the pig was Topcliffe to Wick and back on a night navex. Turning finals No 2 decided it had far too many pistons and chucked half of them over North Yorkshire. An observation was made from the front office, No 1 went through the gate, pull the handles on No 2 and we bounced down the track in a shower of sparks. Once stopped we went smartly down the ladder to be met by the most amazing pong and gallons of foam dripping off the wing.

Ken Scott

22nd Jan 2012, 19:31

Coffmanstarter:

Eau de DH1

At the risk of being a pedant you mean DHC-1. (De Havilland Canada). The DH1 was Geoffery de Havilland's first design for a pusher biplane for AirCo in 1915.

BEagle

22nd Jan 2012, 20:03

The damp, stained seat cushion and obvious smell from the back right corner of the C-130K flight deck are a bit of a giveaway.....:bored:

CoffmanStarter

22nd Jan 2012, 20:08

KS ... my bad ... stood corrected :ok:

Coff.

CoffmanStarter

23rd Jan 2012, 07:29

Good start chaps !

BEagle ...

Fruity ! So is that "Balm de Herc pour homme" or "Truckers splash on" ... splash being the operative word in the latter !

More contributions welcome :rolleyes:

Kind regards ...

Coff.

GANNET FAN

23rd Jan 2012, 08:31

Ken Scott

23rd Jan 2012, 09:25

After several years of flying the C130J, which doesn't really smell of anything, not even the plastic the flightdeck is mostly made of (think Mk 3 Ford Escort), I went back on a C130K & was immediately hit by the aroma that you only seem to get with an old aircraft........or maybe one of the crew's colostomy bags had leaked.....

Hueymeister

23rd Jan 2012, 09:40

I always remember that smell of 'arse' one would get from sitting on the faux sheepskin seat covers in a Wessex/Seaking. Overtones of processed Baked Bean, tobacco and stale fart, scented with notes of sweat..yumm!

green granite

23rd Jan 2012, 10:27

The smell of the Canberra I found very distinctive, sort of warm electronics among others.

HighTow

24th Jan 2012, 10:54

An ex-airlanding chap of 1942 vintage once told me that being live load in a GAL Hotspur glider was somewhat fragrant.

"It smelt like an overwarm rabbit hutch filled with fear, or if we were doing long x-countries, tinged with spilt p*ss from the stupid rubber relief bags."

http://www.haddenhamairfieldhistory.co.uk/~hotspur8.jpg

oldmansquipper

24th Jan 2012, 11:52

T-21 "Barge" Kingsfield Dhekelia 1969 - Cellulose & warm plywood
T-21 "Barge" UK Anytime - Cellulose and damp plywood

:ok:

oldmansquipper

24th Jan 2012, 12:01

Sat in the last starboard side seat in the row, at the back of a Hastings....

Looking uphill towards the cockpit as the aircraft settles onto its tailwheel....and the awful anticipation of smell to come as the rivulettes of vomit, left by departed paras, slides inexorabley downhill towards your feet....:uhoh:

lovely! :ooh:

CoffmanStarter

24th Jan 2012, 13:21

ACW599 ...

I'm no train buff ... but if you refer to the Class 37 Loco (aka EE Type 3), built around the late 50's, as one of those cabs you rode in ... then the similarities with the Chipmunk may have been more than just the "aroma" ?

Found the pic below where there is more than a passing resemblance between the Chipmunk instrument panel and that of the Loco ! Also the Loco VNE of 90 MPH isn't that far off the Chipmunk's VC of 90 KTS.

As to a possible Lightning connection ... if only BR had used a couple of AB Avon's it would have made my experience of "commuting" much more fun :E

http://i1004.photobucket.com/albums/af162/CoffmanStarter/800px-Class_37_cab-1.jpg

Kind regards ...

Coff.

ACW599

24th Jan 2012, 13:58

>I'm no train buff ... but if you refer to the Class 37 Loco (aka EE Type 3), built around the late 50's, as one of those cabs you rode in ... then the similarities with the Chipmunk may have been more than just the "aroma" ?<

Oh dear -- we shall be arrested by the thread police if we persist with this...

I was actually thinking of the Class 55 (Deltic) and Class 40 diesels and the Class 86 electric, on all of which I had trips. I never rode on a Class 37 officially but have had short trips on them. The base notes of all are hot oil, hot coolant and stale railway tea. The heart notes are warm metal, warm black paint and something akin to chip fat, which seems to be a constituent of the fuel. The top notes are leather, stale tobacco and railway coffee! The Class 86 had an additional top note of hot electrics, presumably the transformer and rectifier. In fact I'm reliably informed that the Class 86 cab smells extremely similar to a Vulcan cockpit.

>Found the pic below where there is more than a passing resemblance between the Chipmunk instrument panel and that of the Loco ! Also the Loco VNE of 90 MPH isn't that far off the Chipmunk's VC of 90 KTS.<

I was once overtaken by a Deltic-hauled train whilst on a navex in a Chipmunk and couldn't catch the blighter even at max chat. The Deltic would have been doing 100MPH and the Chippie about 105kts but into a headwind...

Yes, I know it's a military aircraft forum...

NutLoose

24th Jan 2012, 15:21

Nuff said.......

http://i536.photobucket.com/albums/ff321/taylortony/SpitMkX1XCockpitView.jpg

Bit off jiggery pokery on my behalf there with about 15 photos to make that shot up, ohh and that's the Small view !!

Oh and it smells exactly as you imagine it would :)

Courtney Mil

24th Jan 2012, 18:00

Good job, NutLoose.

I recognise the curtains. Doesn't Mrs NutLoose mind you keeping your aircraft in the bedroom? :E

NutLoose

24th Jan 2012, 18:49

Went open plan in the end... :E

http://i536.photobucket.com/albums/ff321/taylortony/Spitfire%20MKx1x/RRhangar.jpg

The hangar has gone to widen a taxyway, indeed the Spit in question is a collection of parts as she is being rebuilt at Duxford.

When it arrives back it will be located in a different hangar with the MK 14 that is in storage at the moment, the one that crashed at Woodford.

http://i536.photobucket.com/albums/ff321/taylortony/Aviation/Spitfire14arrivalsmall.jpg

Sorry for the thread drift.

ACW599

24th Jan 2012, 19:15

>Oh and it smells exactly as you imagine it would<

Phwoooar...:D

CoffmanStarter

24th Jan 2012, 19:20

NutLoose ...

Bang on thread in my book :ok:

Totally agree with CourtneyMil ... outstanding photo composition by you :D

If only one could buy "L'Essence de Spit" in the form of a car air freshener from Halfords ... it would make a fortune ... sod any attempt to refine the Brand name.

Best ...

Coff.

Yeller_Gait

25th Jan 2012, 07:45

Hydraulic fluid, cordite down the back and smoke from the infra-red grill in the galley.

Can you guess what it is?

Y_G

oxenos

25th Jan 2012, 08:16

And a whiff of Elsanol.

PTR 175

25th Jan 2012, 09:42

Hydraulic oil, OF4 not your bog standard OM15, aka H515. Truely an individual smell. Not forgetting the cigarette smoke or Pipe smoke from a certain Flt Eng. On a monday morning they also smelt very damp after a weekend of horizontal rain draining down into the under floor bays, into the HF ATUs and into the AD470 crates and dripping down from the HF antenna interface.

Laker Liker

25th Jan 2012, 12:31

Funny that......when we delivered the 'shiny one' from Marrietta to Cambridge in 1967/68 they smelled brand new!! You youngsters just didn't look after them properly.

oxenos

25th Jan 2012, 15:19

Did Elsanol have a NATO designator?

Jig Peter

25th Jan 2012, 16:16

From ages back I can still remember the smell of the Prentice - mainly what we then didn't call Avgas, probably leaking from the fuel cock below the instrument panel (if that's where it was). That smell was one of the major factors in working to pass BasicTraining and get on to the Harvard, which had that comforting smell of warm oil among other advantages, like being a real aeroplane.
Oddly, I don't remember the smell of various other aircraft Her Maj was pleased to give me to play about with for 16 years. But that petrol smell of the Pregnant Duck lingers on ... Talk about Memory Lane ... :8

PS However, the smell in the greenish smoke cloud after a starter cartridge seal failure on a Venom 1's Ghost was summat else (but that's probably thread drift, as it wasn't the smell of the Venom itself and after a very quick winding forward of the canopy handle, with luck stayed outside - 100% oxygen -selected with the other (right) hand - helped too, IIRC).

CoffmanStarter

26th Jan 2012, 14:22

Hi all ...

Keep the entries coming ... Judging will be 28:01:12 18:00Z ... followed swiftly by a brief virtual award ceremony.

Ideally a pic and olfactory based prose to qualify for entry ... but discretion avialabe to the Judge ... who's word is final ;)

Perhaps a few more Jet based niffs to be aired ?

Best regards ...

Coff.

stevef

26th Jan 2012, 17:26

The cockpit of a Messerschmitt Me163 Komet I once did some restoration work on smelt of something like stale vinegar. That was well over thirty years ago and I can clearly recall the tang (even though I can't remember what I did yesterday).

1771 DELETE

26th Jan 2012, 21:33

I always thought the aroma from the AQA 5 rather pleasant, of strawberries i remember but there again i didnt have to hang over the machine for nine hours looking for lines that did not exist.

ACW599

27th Jan 2012, 06:47

Elderly electronics often have a characteristic aroma of warm varnish, enamel, bakelite and other resinous top notes. Some Racal HF receivers are particularly aromatic, as is the Collins 618T HF transceiver -- in fact the latter was a definite 'top note' in the Wessex cockpit.

Rosevidney1

27th Jan 2012, 18:47

How about the smell of acid drop sweets from the doping shop? That was back in the days of real aeroplanes!;)

The Helpful Stacker

27th Jan 2012, 19:33

I can well remember being shown round and sitting in the cockpit of a Firefly at HMS Gannet at Eglinton and the smell of oil, rubber, sweat, for the life of me I don't know how to describe it but everything about the aircraft, pilots and their life (in the mid 50s) I found fascinating.

Are you sure you were in a Gannet and not the club I found myself in when in Hamburg a few years back?

A run ashore with the Royal Navy's finest, you never know where you will end up.....

CoffmanStarter

28th Jan 2012, 16:28

Hi all ...

Many thanks to those who entered this quickie competition. Judging brought forward given Mrs Coff is just about to administer Family Size G&T's !

1st Place (Gold Medal) ...

NutLoose with "L'Essence de Spit". A picture speaks a thousand words and self excites the olfactory glands with a single glance !

http://i1004.photobucket.com/albums/af162/CoffmanStarter/GoldMedal.jpg

2nd Place (Silver Medal) ...

Sidevalve with "Eau de Shackwacs". Fluide Hydraulique ... classic !

http://i1004.photobucket.com/albums/af162/CoffmanStarter/SilverMedal_2.jpg

3rd Place (Bronze Medal) ...

ACW599 with his BR inspired remembrances. Tail chasing trains in a Chipmunk and being outrun !

http://i1004.photobucket.com/albums/af162/CoffmanStarter/BronzeMedal.jpg

I do apologise for any Latin errors ... just a mere Grammar School oik this end.

Best regards ...

Coff.