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

I'm told it's excellent for removing the stones from horses' hooves. Next time you get one down the back you'll be sorted!

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.

You Know When You've Been Tango-ed!! :D

It's amazing how we can go from what was obviously a good knife (many functions, most of which have been listed) to utter s*#t!!

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

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. :rolleyes:

As well as the new knife, has there been a proper chinagraph replacement organised yet? I heard tell of a semi-perm-pen-type-with-elastic arrangement in the works.

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 ]

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!

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?

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.

B£oody 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!

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?

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.

I cant believe that you havent twigged that the new aircrew knife was actually designed for movers for the purpose of cut lashing tape!

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.

A knife? So that's what it is.

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). :eek:

Never reverse on a Friday-even if it loses you the fight.........

If this knife is so GREAT give some of them to the bureacrats to cut the red tape. Would 10,000 be enough I wonder?

[ 16 July 2001: Message edited by: Perky Penguin ]

What is the point of having a piece of kit that is single use? I liked the pointy knife thingy that Beagle is on about, I think it was withdrawn for being useful.