One for the maintainers, hardest job you have done
Thought police antagonist
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" F4 - The only aircraft to have a sledgehammer as part of the
fly away tool kit"
Alas, not entirely true. The sledgehammer, plus associated piece of wood, was essential for the 707 / JT3 combination and I had the pleasure...more than once...of helping to re-set the T/R's....twice, funnily enough with a very enthusiastic F/E...... and an equally reticent F/O....the F/E "assisting" the F/O out of his seat was a joy to behold....I got on very well with that F/E...
As for this thread, the "monkey puzzle" in the rear cockpit of the Gnat...well anything on a Gnat to be honest, was invariably as difficult and inaccessible as Mr Folland could have made it....bless him.
Jaguar titanium heat shields....no point in making them to fit with the minimum of grinding, drilling and hammering now was there...
And the delightful fuel couplings on the Lightning....along with changing just about every hydraulic coupling seal in the jet pipe bay as part of the mod.programme....
Only made bearable by having to suffer the delights of Gut..
fly away tool kit"
Alas, not entirely true. The sledgehammer, plus associated piece of wood, was essential for the 707 / JT3 combination and I had the pleasure...more than once...of helping to re-set the T/R's....twice, funnily enough with a very enthusiastic F/E...... and an equally reticent F/O....the F/E "assisting" the F/O out of his seat was a joy to behold....I got on very well with that F/E...
As for this thread, the "monkey puzzle" in the rear cockpit of the Gnat...well anything on a Gnat to be honest, was invariably as difficult and inaccessible as Mr Folland could have made it....bless him.
Jaguar titanium heat shields....no point in making them to fit with the minimum of grinding, drilling and hammering now was there...
And the delightful fuel couplings on the Lightning....along with changing just about every hydraulic coupling seal in the jet pipe bay as part of the mod.programme....
Only made bearable by having to suffer the delights of Gut..
Nimrod debriefs were good,full crew in the line office for a proper sit down.
I have seen a few 'poor' 700's entires; "Winder Fvcyed",pretty succinct,but useless - I changed the Monte Carlo,no sense of humour some pilots !
I have seen a few 'poor' 700's entires; "Winder Fvcyed",pretty succinct,but useless - I changed the Monte Carlo,no sense of humour some pilots !
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Departing VC10, Brize with full pax load, no1 won't start, safety raiser positioned under it, cowl dropped open and said safety raiser jacking handle used to beat the holy crap out the air start valve (used to stick because of a slight bit of carbon) satisfying sound as it opens and the engine winds over, close cowl, lower said safety raiser then look up at worried pax faces peering out the windows that had been watching me and hearing me throughout the aircraft beat the bejesus out of the thing to get it running...... 
Not hard for me, but I bet it worried the poo out of some pax
Not hard for me, but I bet it worried the poo out of some pax
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Stuck Air Start valves, see them on a Nimrod as well same remidy using a hide faced hammer.
We were waiting to go home on said aircraft. One engine would not start, sooty jumps out armed with heavy object, hammers packed up (well wiggles out of the hole) of overwing escape hatch walks down wing, drops off end. Drops access door hits ASV engine bursts into life. Access door closed. Sooty climbs back on wing using power set as steps. We all fly home. I have seen it done with an athletic sooty using the escape rope with all 4 running.
Has anybody mentioned the ACPU yet. Good for an extra stay somewhere nice. Not good if it is at Goose Bay in winter and you do not have any winter kit.
We were waiting to go home on said aircraft. One engine would not start, sooty jumps out armed with heavy object, hammers packed up (well wiggles out of the hole) of overwing escape hatch walks down wing, drops off end. Drops access door hits ASV engine bursts into life. Access door closed. Sooty climbs back on wing using power set as steps. We all fly home. I have seen it done with an athletic sooty using the escape rope with all 4 running.
Has anybody mentioned the ACPU yet. Good for an extra stay somewhere nice. Not good if it is at Goose Bay in winter and you do not have any winter kit.
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Good for an extra stay somewhere nice. Not good if it is at Goose Bay in winter and you do not have any winter kit.
Agree re. Goose Bay but the nosh was good.
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Saint Jack
Secondary servo pack on a Wessex...a rigger job, natch. However, on 240OCU the riggers wouldn't change them until the poor insty had changed the associated servomotor in situ. Swine of a job, you needed six inch long fingers with integral wire locking pliers to get it done.
The yaw servomotor was a much easier proposition, it was on the transmission deck and you had good access all round. I only ever had to change one of those, and wouldn't you know it, the a/c had gone u/s in a field in Norfolk. In January. In the snow.
Central suppression unit on a Tornado. The bit they started with: the rest of the aircraft was built up around it. Gazillions of cables and no access.
Secondary servo pack on a Wessex...a rigger job, natch. However, on 240OCU the riggers wouldn't change them until the poor insty had changed the associated servomotor in situ. Swine of a job, you needed six inch long fingers with integral wire locking pliers to get it done.
The yaw servomotor was a much easier proposition, it was on the transmission deck and you had good access all round. I only ever had to change one of those, and wouldn't you know it, the a/c had gone u/s in a field in Norfolk. In January. In the snow.
Central suppression unit on a Tornado. The bit they started with: the rest of the aircraft was built up around it. Gazillions of cables and no access.
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Well you had to do something on the OCU peregrine
I suspect being part of the team that changed a Herk prop at Gander, in under 12 hours, despite the temperature never rising above -22. One major contributor was the Captain, who taxied the aircraft to the end of the lazy runway so that we could get the ground runs done. Funnily, our prop blew at Gander on the way to do a prop change recovery on Bermuda. The second prop change was much more comfortable.
Smudge
Smudge
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My one and only near tech charge was in Gander, did a VC10 engine change mid winter outside with no special cold weather kit, stores at Brize wouldn't issue it.
The engine having sat outside by the aircraft at night was seriously frozen, trying to open the Engine bag it shattered in my hands, fast forward several weeks and now a nice warm engine is back at Brize and in the engine bay, WO screaming mad at remains of the engine bag and looking for someone to blame.... Needless to say, he got told where to go.
The engine having sat outside by the aircraft at night was seriously frozen, trying to open the Engine bag it shattered in my hands, fast forward several weeks and now a nice warm engine is back at Brize and in the engine bay, WO screaming mad at remains of the engine bag and looking for someone to blame.... Needless to say, he got told where to go.
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I can remember doing a route once on one of Lyneham's mighty K models when we diverted to Shearwater in the middle of winter due to a problem with the cargo bay pressurisation system. The SVC (female Flt Lt) decided that her role was to go down town with the front end to enjoy the hotel. I stayed behind to help the GE. My respect for what the GE's did on route (apart from eating more than me and fighting for hammock space) took a dramatic rise. I thought pushing 2 bits of pipe together and doing up the jubilee clips would be simple - how wrong I could be. We had no external lighting, just a torch and it was a long way below freezing. We arrived back at the hotel having not eaten and looking like an oily sack of **** to be greeted by the front end in the lobby awaiting wheels back to the aircraft thinking that we had gone on the 'lash' in uniform - I wish!
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Was Al Butler there when you were? Ex 240 OCU BTW 
WE992
Half of the problem was you cannot do anything up tight when cold or it can shatter, so when you get it running and warm, then you have to go round tightening everything as it is running.
Plus trying to scrounge tooling steps etc so you can get to them.
I just wished we could have taken the Storeman with us, then make him stand outside for 8-10 hours holding metal tools in standard UK kit, we would soon get the right stuff next time.
WE992
Half of the problem was you cannot do anything up tight when cold or it can shatter, so when you get it running and warm, then you have to go round tightening everything as it is running.
Plus trying to scrounge tooling steps etc so you can get to them.
I just wished we could have taken the Storeman with us, then make him stand outside for 8-10 hours holding metal tools in standard UK kit, we would soon get the right stuff next time.
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NutLoose
1977-78 was my short span on the mighty 240. The name's familiar...the WO was a Mr. Vickers, but that was 3/4 of a lifetime ago, nearly...I can remember some people with absolute clarity (the good guys and the tossers, mainly!) but as for those in the middle...
1977-78 was my short span on the mighty 240. The name's familiar...the WO was a Mr. Vickers, but that was 3/4 of a lifetime ago, nearly...I can remember some people with absolute clarity (the good guys and the tossers, mainly!) but as for those in the middle...
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I was there then, yep WO Vickers too, I was a Sootie SAC then... Hope I'm not in your Tosser list you didn't by any chance support Southampton.
you didn't by any chance support Southampton.
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Nope, I'd have remembered you! To be honest, of the Cpls and below, there was only one name on the tossers list. I'll never forget him, but neither would I post his name up here!
Good guys - you and everyone else will remember Taff Walker, the last Master Pilot in the RAF on active flying duties, no doubt?
Good guys - you and everyone else will remember Taff Walker, the last Master Pilot in the RAF on active flying duties, no doubt?
WE992,
That sounds like an Engineering Route Report I once wrote. As the other guys attest, cold is a bloody difficult place to do engineering, particularly with procedures meant for more moderate climes. In six years of Ground Engineering on Albert I got one trip to Los Angeles. The route gave us 24 hours on the ground due to crew duty hours. On landing, the snags on the frame meant that I was ready to start testing just as the Flt Engineer turned up from his day off. I was wearing the same clothes I landed in and had salvaged some left over food from the galley, before cleaning it up. We departed "on time" and that's where we all get our job satisfaction from, or we did then. It sounds like shooting a line, but it really was the way GEs worked often well away from mainstream support and having to improvise. It's a good thread this, it shows that across the RAF, aircraft tradesmen have always had "trying" situations, or badly thought out maintenance requirements. My own personal worst job was the detail X on the JP5 undercarriage. I had the record at 48 minutes in SSF at Cranwell in 1976, but only a one off. How many did we do where the locking wire "age hardened" as you did the last few twists ?
Smudge
That sounds like an Engineering Route Report I once wrote. As the other guys attest, cold is a bloody difficult place to do engineering, particularly with procedures meant for more moderate climes. In six years of Ground Engineering on Albert I got one trip to Los Angeles. The route gave us 24 hours on the ground due to crew duty hours. On landing, the snags on the frame meant that I was ready to start testing just as the Flt Engineer turned up from his day off. I was wearing the same clothes I landed in and had salvaged some left over food from the galley, before cleaning it up. We departed "on time" and that's where we all get our job satisfaction from, or we did then. It sounds like shooting a line, but it really was the way GEs worked often well away from mainstream support and having to improvise. It's a good thread this, it shows that across the RAF, aircraft tradesmen have always had "trying" situations, or badly thought out maintenance requirements. My own personal worst job was the detail X on the JP5 undercarriage. I had the record at 48 minutes in SSF at Cranwell in 1976, but only a one off. How many did we do where the locking wire "age hardened" as you did the last few twists ?
Smudge
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Peregrine check pm's
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We had to do an engine change on our Brit at a Naval Reserve Air Base just outside New Orleans. The only crane available was an old WW11 truck with a crane on the back. It's primary use was to pick up a/c that had crash landed! It had two cabs. One on the back to operate the crane and one to drive the truck.
Having got the engine suspended on the crane the driver had to get in the front cab and gently reverse towards the wing. He then had to get in the rear cab to raise or lower the engine as we required and so on.
This took quite a few frustrating attempts before we managed to hook up the engine. All this was done, at night, under arc lamps, which attracted every mosquito in the vicinity! Before we left we ensured the driver's boss knew of his splendid effort. He'd never done anything like it before!
Having got the engine suspended on the crane the driver had to get in the front cab and gently reverse towards the wing. He then had to get in the rear cab to raise or lower the engine as we required and so on.
This took quite a few frustrating attempts before we managed to hook up the engine. All this was done, at night, under arc lamps, which attracted every mosquito in the vicinity! Before we left we ensured the driver's boss knew of his splendid effort. He'd never done anything like it before!