NEW AIRCREW KNIFE
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Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: UK
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NEW AIRCREW KNIFE
Has anybody found a use for the new miniture J Knife. I have still to work out how to open a beer bottle with it, open the load pole hatch, peel an apple,stab the co-pilot,etc etc,etc. THOUGHTS CHAPS
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: England
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I have never like the Aircrew Knifes. I would always be afraid of breaking the thing. What is really needed is a good quality hunting/survival knife. Something with a bit of meat to it. A truely multiporpose blade.
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Join Date: Feb 2000
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Flown with both, new one is lighter, smaller and less likely to get attention from the local plod when refuelling your car on the way home (yes really). Alledgedly it's also really good at cutting straps and parachute lines (which the old one wasn't). Now have to carry a pocket knife to open beers/wine bottles and rely on the turnround kit to open up the panels
Join Date: Jul 2000
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I have found the new knife a real pain. It hasn't been able to cut through lashing tape or P strops so I now carry a leather-man in the pouch attached to the ring with a lanyard, highly illegal I know but I personally feel the leather-man will do a better job .I must add that i do wear one on my Immersion coverall. 
Since I joined HM'sFC in 1968, there has never been:
1. A decent chinagraph.
2. A decent aircrew knife.
3. A decent aircrew torch
So perhaps I'll retire and start up 'Aircrew-things-wot-work plc'. Until then it's:
1. Lumocolour chinagraph from Transair.
2. Leatherman from the BX.
3. Mini maglite also from the BX.
..and I don't give a stuff whether QwintyQ haven't tested them at 10g, 50 fathoms or in outer space, whether they cause nuclear weapons to sulk or whatever. Because they're good enough to be used in civilian GA aircraft which smell of petrol without going bang - so they sure as $hit can be used in HM's without difficulty!
[ 11 July 2001: Message edited by: BEagle ]
1. A decent chinagraph.
2. A decent aircrew knife.
3. A decent aircrew torch
So perhaps I'll retire and start up 'Aircrew-things-wot-work plc'. Until then it's:
1. Lumocolour chinagraph from Transair.
2. Leatherman from the BX.
3. Mini maglite also from the BX.
..and I don't give a stuff whether QwintyQ haven't tested them at 10g, 50 fathoms or in outer space, whether they cause nuclear weapons to sulk or whatever. Because they're good enough to be used in civilian GA aircraft which smell of petrol without going bang - so they sure as $hit can be used in HM's without difficulty!
[ 11 July 2001: Message edited by: BEagle ]
Join Date: Jul 2001
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Somebody ought to tell Special Branch that aircrew knifes are useless (as knives).
Last time I was at Farnborough (long-time ago), I got jumped by a couple of plain clothed-types who were foxed by the fact that I didn't have any stripes on the epaulets of my flying suit. Thought I was v. likely to attack Mrs. Thatcher with my crew knife (I said it was a long time ago). Whatever were they thinking of - the string is only six inches long - you couldn't reach your own throat to cut it, let alone someone elses!
Last time I was at Farnborough (long-time ago), I got jumped by a couple of plain clothed-types who were foxed by the fact that I didn't have any stripes on the epaulets of my flying suit. Thought I was v. likely to attack Mrs. Thatcher with my crew knife (I said it was a long time ago). Whatever were they thinking of - the string is only six inches long - you couldn't reach your own throat to cut it, let alone someone elses!
Join Date: Nov 2000
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Was not the original Air Staff Requirement for the Knife, Aircrew aimed at an implement that would enable aircrew, experiencing an uncommanded inflation of the dinghy in their seat-pan, to stab the bloody thing without
knackering themselves in the process?
knackering themselves in the process?
Join Date: Jul 2001
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In response to BEagle.
The new (to my outfit, anyway) Aircrew Finger Torch is pretty useful. It doesn't get in the way, is instinctive to use and enables one to read all of those dials and gauges that British Aerospace didn't bother to illuminate.
The new (to my outfit, anyway) Aircrew Finger Torch is pretty useful. It doesn't get in the way, is instinctive to use and enables one to read all of those dials and gauges that British Aerospace didn't bother to illuminate.
BŁoody embarassing if you want to scratch your nuts in a multi-seat aircraft though!
FV - back in the days of yore (1956-ish), a friend of my late father gave me some copies of 'Air Clues'. I well remember that in one of them the problem of aircraft, like the Meteor 7 which had a dinghy pack as part of the aircrew equipment assembly, suffering uncommanded dinghy inflation was discussed as that could be irrecoverable without a deflation knife. Hence the sharp pointy dinghy knife which lasted until the early 70s before being replaced by the pre J-type 'hooked' knife!
FV - back in the days of yore (1956-ish), a friend of my late father gave me some copies of 'Air Clues'. I well remember that in one of them the problem of aircraft, like the Meteor 7 which had a dinghy pack as part of the aircrew equipment assembly, suffering uncommanded dinghy inflation was discussed as that could be irrecoverable without a deflation knife. Hence the sharp pointy dinghy knife which lasted until the early 70s before being replaced by the pre J-type 'hooked' knife!
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Now now chaps - let us at least pay lip service to flight safety. If you're going to give the flight crew a sharp knife they are only going to play with it and cut themselves. We don't want that do we?
Join Date: Feb 2000
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Following a certain incident concerning a Teuton today it is in my humble opinion that, within the UK, a NOKIA beats the **** out of any SARBE when it comes to telling Ops that you are down and safe! I carry a swiss army knife to open the wine/beer/champers bottles by the way.
Join Date: May 2001
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As a rotareeee chap, I think the new knife is the dog's whatsits. A colleague of ours might escaped from a ditched helo and be alive today if it was not for the heap of **** that we had until recently.
Do agree with the comments about lighting - luckily we can get finger torches through stores, although maglites still prove illusive!
TT for now.
Do agree with the comments about lighting - luckily we can get finger torches through stores, although maglites still prove illusive!
TT for now.
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Got a chance to try the new knife not so long ago. Told the squipper I couldn't imagine how it would cut through a seat strap. So he let me strap into a drill seat. I put the blade up against the overlapped portion of the strap (i.e. double thickness)and pulled. Like a sharp thing through butter-most impressed (and bewildered). 
Never reverse on a Friday-even if it loses you the fight.........
Never reverse on a Friday-even if it loses you the fight.........