a new badge to wear
 

After 40 plus years as an aircraft maintenance person involved with airports I now have to have a pass, at some expense to my company, to authorize me to carry tools airside.
So what's next then?
Probably I can see it coming where any aircraft with any defect will have to be towed from airside, worked on by us suspicious technical tyopes and then undergo a nose to tail strip search by security types, they get from the street.
And then at great expense no doubt be towed back airside.
I wish I could retire right now.:ugh::mad::confused::8:=:*

Can you get a bottle of water declared a tool? There might be some small benefit in it !

G

Is a bit crazy, at the uk airport i am employed at we all have too carry (T- Cards), tool cards, and the other night i was told off in a firm but friendly manner,because i had a mug of tea in the company vehicle, which was a fluid and not allowed airside, and yet in the back of the van, i had:=

Isopropyl Alcohol/Eng Oil/Skydrol/Acetic Acid, which ok i am not gonna drink, but surely Tea is much an important engineering fluid as mobile jet 2 oil is too a gas turbine.

Eng oil level low, engine makes cranky noises, overheats and ultimatley shuts down,

Engineer Runs out of tea, Engineer makes cranky noises, overheats and ultimatley shut down.

Should have the amm ammended too have tea/coffee listed as a working fluid..

Put the tea in a suitably official-looking container and label it "Dilute 2-phenyl-3,4-dihydro-2H-chromen-3-ol"

Tea! Van! what's the world coming too? ;)

Do you need one to carry a printer cartridge yet?:E

yup, what you need is one of these suits and a set of these gloves, no dayglo tabbard to wear, no passes that have to be on show, probably whisked straight through security without the normal 2 hour delay, allowed to take your tools, your water and anything else you want onto the airport and the vehicle onto the apron, no need for a beacon and I bet the speed limit was waived too.........


Terror Alert: Suspect Packages From Yemen Found On Planes In East Midlands And Dubai | World News | Sky News

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/m...5_1750118c.jpg

http://news.sky.com/sky-news/content...4/15785068.jpg

Nice queue outside the Thomson shed at Luton this morning. Must have been a lot of butty boxes confiscated and a few hundred manhours lost time. :rolleyes:

Me? I can't go airside. Can't prove I'm not a criminal, you see... :ugh:

I wish I could retire right now.

Me too!

Is this a specific airport ruling or will it be rolled out nationwide? I only ask as we have no such problem at ***.


Yet.:suspect:

" 10 year working history, references, Disclosure, Gsat, Company Interview, BAA Interview, endless forms, paperwork sent to scotland, photo id, Toolbox lists etc etc and we still get stripped search and vans searched with no liquids allowed!
OTT i think!:mad:

An airport I regularly work at has a letter code on the ID card that alerts the security that I am maintenance staff so they will expect to find tools on me.

For other workers there are different codes.

So for example; if you are a cleaner and have tools on you, they will be confiscated.

If you are an Engineer with a vacuum cleaner .....:E

and they still search pilots!!!:ugh:
yet coppers walk straight through with all sorts of paraphernalia...next time I go through security with a cup of tea (or Dilute 2-phenyl-3,4-dihydro-2H-chromen-3-ol- is that with milk and two sugars?). I'm going to get a copper to carry it.

Not true, I have personally watched several policemen with weapons be made to put them through the xray machine, along with their shoes.

My beef stew didn't make it, but the 15l of hydraulic fluid in the van was ok...

X-ray ing a gun what the %$£&" do they expect to find inside that? Another gun?
:ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh: :ugh::ugh::ugh:

Marmite doesn't make it either but a spray can of iso propyl alcohol will!

Priceless!

Thank you for that comment pottwiddler, it made my morning.

G

Who knows what they expect? I put my nav bag through the x-ray at a UK airport earlier this year. After a great deal of screen staring, they opened it up, took out my metal teaspoon (beverages, hot, for the use of), placed the teaspoon by itself in a little plastic tray, and x-rayed it again.

I couldn't believe what I was watching. Unless I've been buying spoons from Desmond Llewelyn again, just what sort of lethal weaponry can you conceal inside a solid stainless steel teaspoon? Most of the guys are fine but there are a few who must come to work on the Sunshine bus.

Do the security staff have a letter code on their cards that alerts everyone else that they are tools?

Or is the uniform deemed sufficient.

Looks like working in Third World countries can occasionally be less frustrating than the UK.

Killer spoon
 

Maybe it was a Killer Spoon. Don't tell me you have no batch for this ? :{

http://www.backwoodsmanmag.com/bwm_images/tackle_4.jpg

:E Was this it??

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3463/...dbc33978_z.jpg

or perhaps

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/4...3_spoon_pa.jpg

Now you're just stirring, Nutloose.;)

I'd rather drink Skydrol than some of the tea I've had in line maintenance over the years.

Most of the Line tea probably had Skydrol in it!!
Dirty spoon? clean it on the a**e of your overalls. :8

I'm a shadow of the technician--------
 

Just spent many wonderful hours having to shadow every tool in my roll cab and top box, plus 2 "line" boxes.
Plus make inventory of all.
Takes a lot of time, materials to do this and it takes up a lot more room also.
This is a company requirement for me now.
Wel:rolleyes::ugh::confused::D:ok:l at least I have my pass to say that I can have them after 40 odd years in the trade.

Where a lot of this security all falls down is at the gates Airside, one Airport I know has cut the times the access gate is manned and also the time it takes to get a simple vehicle delivering etc through to the maintainance area, so now it can take a hour plus, even if escorted on off and at all times,
The net result of all this enhanced security has had the opposite effect as more and more companies simply add a freight door to the rear of their buildings to allow vehicles to enter....... Ok in theory, but there is nothing then to stop them possibly getting to the airside part of the maintainance area and no checks at all bar those of the companies, so from one secure entrance that didn't require the wife of the second cousin of the drivers name and her great great grandmothers 1st cousins date of birth, to one that became so restrictive requiring the above, that the single secure access point was / has been circumvented, destroying the reasoning behind it in the first place.

And they just don't see it, which makes it even worse

Probably looking for the dreaded cerrobend teaspoon. Do apprentices still get caught by them?

perrin
 

When I started reading this stuff I thought it was a joke. If half of this is going on in the UK I am so so glad I'm retired and just worry about three putting. It must really wind you all up sometimes even before you have to start work!!!

Keep them up boys
Peter

kevlar teaspoon?
 

Maybe the answer? I already do not wear a belt and have kevlar safety shoes. But they still want to put their hands down me troosers!:rolleyes::=:mad:

BAA Airside Security at STN are becoming so stupid now it is becoming a Human Factors issue.:mad::ugh::ugh:

How times change, a number of years ago, when a certain American Airline company (insert Greek letter) maitainance staff had withdrawn their labour, a number of brit contractors arrived in Florida, all carrying tool boxes, when asked why they were their, the answers Holiday, everybody went through.

re
 

This is all just to remind you that you are lower than whale pooh and should be treated as such ,nobody cares for engineers and never have done ,ive been in avaition for about 35 years now and the last ten years have shown that .and at LHR the security things are told that they are more important than anyone so whats the point in us having all these cards and checks ,we will allways be looked on with suspicion and treated with conpempt ,you only have to walk around heathrow T5 and see how its engineers are looked after .

brothelised!!!
 

Got random breathalyser on Thursday. Lucky for me reading was zero. More joys of airside eh?:rolleyes::=

Happy days
 

I use to park my 2cy outside the ramp office on the south finger at MHX airport back in the early 70's ...for the 1-11 t/rounds, the happy days of Dan's, Courtline, Channel Airways...etc..the breathalyzer was yet to be introduced.. t/round drinks tied in with the landing drink leftovers...priorities in life ..is to enjoy striving to get the hole in one...I would not enjoy life on the ramp today I think...only like to pass over it to get onboard my holiday flight..which is after running the gauntlet of over the top security zealots..so my sympathies and thoughts go with the LAE's of today or B1/2's whatever it is now...

;)

No joke; we just had to do same; present security with complete list of all tooling that might go airside; didn't think it funny when we turned up with Snap-on and Cromwell catalogue; plus the ITEM manuals for all five different types we look after... stupid jobsworths

ttfn

not suprised LOL

With respect to the tooling cataloguing that was mentioned earlier, how is that done ??

OK i get 1 set of snap-on 12 pt sockets p/n a thru z... easy...noted

MY question is w/ respect to all the bastardized secret tricks we all keep in our toolboxes. Those bent wrenches (might be spanners on another continent) , or perhaps those precious AN-MS-pipe adaptor setups you have for various servicing/ts purposes or even that goose neck that’s bent just right to get at schaedder valve XYZ.

1No P/n's
2Obviously modified.
3Look like SH!T (IE welded covered in greys tape etc)

How would one define it in order to allow it to pass.

As it is now(where I'm @) security over here almost wants a DNA sample daily. Despite the fact they have my finger prints and retina on file (not to mention the fact I see them daily and am on a first name basis many)


It`s rare but if I need to go to the right side of the Atlantic WTF do I plan for


just curious

G:ugh:

So running this one on a bit it... You get past the imbeciles at the gate with tools, no tea (but a sneaky Dilute 2-phenyl-3,4-dihydro-2H-chromen-3-ol + milk and two sugars) and a van full of other highly corrosive, poisonous and flammable liquids and can now work on virtually any aircraft without direct supervision and do whatever you want. Like you have always done and like you will do in the future. So, what exactly has been achieved, apart from pissing engineers off and making life difficult?

Additional security should result in a more secure and safer operation but as usual, more means less. I can now foresee the chief imbecile, the @rse responsible for making this sh1te up, now stipulating that engineers will have to be supervised when working on aircraft. I hope nobody tells him that you'll have to train the security guards as engineers so they'll know what to look for when they are supervising work on aircraft. If they have to be trained it will be interesting when they do their hangar training... And I won't let them be around my plane, for security reasons.

PM

Careful what you wish for.....

Remember 'The Hitcher' on this thread...Valve Cap Missing :E

IMO all this security nonsense makes it less likely that aircraft are properly maintained in service. Why won't anybody in authority stand up to these knee jerks in the dft, or wherever all this originates.:mad:

When deciding what tools are reasonably required to be allowed airside i normally question the engineer as to what he is actually doing on the aircraft, in most cases engineers have far more tools than they really need, these tools are not only a security risk there a FOD risk also only recently when carrying out a walk round check i found a large monkey wrench left under a aircraft by a careless engineer, imagine the consequences of something like that flying into a engine or being found by a terrorist.

In most cases a torch screwdriver, adjustable spanner and a pair of pliers are more then enough if the engineer needs more than that he should have a written memo from his supervisor explaining to the security officer involved the reasons why.