You can contruct a hand held gun using coke cans/OM15 cans firing a bodge tape ball/frozen orange using MEK as a propellant.

OR

for the really brave an "upgraded" version of the MEK cannon capable of firing a football sized object well clear of the hangar and a long way over the pan(somewhere near VASS alledgedly;)), don't forget the oxygen trolley to purge the system with O2 before lighting for extra oommphh

OR

for the criminally insane an improvised explosive device using dry ice a little water and empty coke bottles, ideally you screw the lid on as you drop it into a full rubbish bin in the crew room at 0300, rapidly retreat and watch the mayhem

OR

used in pairs with the aid of a length of drainpipe to make an effective mortar, ideal when the other squadron have their hangar doors open, can't beat an airburst device with the noise of a thunderflash going off at the top of the open doorway, especially if the hangar doors at the other end are closed!

Or you can explain what -8 volts really are!

When Albert jumps the chocks on "brakes off" on bay 43 and rolls towards the bund road and your pension appears to be rolling away in front of your eyes.

Topping up allison engine oils with a sick bag

Topping up hydraulics with a sick bag

Pumping out overfilled hydraulics with a vacuum pump that looks suspiciously like a sick bag

Getting drenched in Avpin and driving the landie across a flight line by memory to find a tap

Actually having a chief at Scampton with an albacore dinghy called sea stores

As an afterthought, in this day and age of expensive fuel and diesel cars, I wonder what the average fuel consumption of the liney landies work out at?

IIRC our lightweights did <1mpg in winter time! cos they were left running virtually 24hrs to get what little heat there was in the heater. Was funny as you didn't even need a key, a GS would do to start them.

You might be an aircraft engineer if.....
 

.....you've ever looked at a bald tyre and said to the Captain, "well you're not going by road are you?"


Great thread by the way. :D

"Requirement for countersignature waived IAW AP101B-0900-1E"

Why does that stick in my head after 26 years ??

Also the phrase

They've found a Tanker

When awaiting the last landing of night flying.

Eating cold braised steak for breakfast as the hotlocks container wasnt that hot.

Still partially deaf after standing under a Victor B1 during ground runs in the days before H&S, no ear defenders 50 years ago, then trying to ring for a fuel bowser.

You might be an aircraft engineer if.....
 

After standing on a freezing Apron for over an hour on a see off whilst watching the Student Puma Pilot doing his walkround , who is by now crouched down and staring up aimlessly into the port main wheel fairing.

walking up to him and uttering the immortal words

" Excuse me Sir, but are you flying it or buying it?"

As one of my old collegues did........ :}:ok:

and on detachment when
 

You can make a cricket set out of bodge tape and kimwipe.

You can only play your joker once

a Tornado shoulder pylon fuel seal costs 200 B&H from the German storeman in Decci

if you tell the J Eng O how you fixed stuff without approved spares that "if you do not ask me a direct question I will not tell you a direct lie"

you tell the aircrew that you fixed a snag by jacking up the nosewheel and changing the aircraft

...you've ever signed off the entire servicing of a multi-engine a/c, including the refuel, all the sups, numerous amounts of paperwork due to everyone else going sick on detachment, and hoped to god that it doesn't crash on the next flight...

You have made up complete breakfasts from half eaten ones out of the poly bags.
Spent all day working with skydrol without any problems then you get an itch in the corner of your eye just as you get to the washroom
NFF a box and get it back 6 months later to fix another snag, still with your 731 on it
Get the meals list from the cabin crew and asked what you want from remaining only to find you've got the chix curry again
Try to figure out how your initials on the nosewheel were always touching the ground when you stopped and never the crews!

As a non-techie but thoroughly enjoying this thread, can someone enlighten me on a "MASB" and its relationship to a sausage????

Thanks.......

cc:confused:

MASB,Master Armament Safety Brake (Weapon system ground safety device).
Handed to the pilot last thing before he closes his canopy.About the same size as half a compo sausage.Pilots would instinctively stow it before realising what it was!

"MASB,Master Armament Safety Brake" - or even "Master Armamaent Safety Break"

When you read in the F700 'nasty smell in cockpit' and you're tempted to write 'nasty smell removed, nice smell fitted!

Never handed a MASB to a driver before he closed the lid , usually shown to him from outside at the end of the runway or on a "last chance" dispersal.

As a liney , the last thing I would want is a MASByless aircraft taxiing around, just want it pointing up the take off runway !!!!

Or you may be an engineer when the driver lands and self diagnoses the snag as " Cold air unit seized", and you dutifully prove that the CAU is spinning freely NFF !!

Then ask the driver if he wants to take the jet up again , and do his job , whilst you get on with yours !!

PS FL , it was the cabin temp actuator .

On the subject of fuel economy, on a Northern outpost many years ago we discovered that the Sherpa in second gear would rive at a respectable walking speed with your feet off the pedals, and the speed could be controlled by using the manual choke. This worked well on guard shifts until the MTO phoned the guard chief to ask why this particular Sherpa needed filled twice a night?

As for non-faults, I remember a trip to Gibralter when we ferried a spare ECM pod on another wing station. On landing there was almost fisticuffs when the Nav insisted he snag it because he "could not get that second ECM pod to time out" but would not accept that it wasn't even connected!

P.S. the sunspot activity charts in the back of the on-route supplement could be used to convince Navs that the poor HF performance was due to cosmic radiation, not the fact that the radios were out of the ark!

You've watched the sooties convince a new navigator that jet engines have pistons, just like his car.

When hearing the words "Emergancy State TWO" over the tannoy means drop what your doing, pile into all the wagons and get to the runway to see what happens!!

You've made score cards to rate the pilots landings.