MOD's missing equipment rediscovered..
 

Anyone short of a mike?

http://i1162.photobucket.com/albums/...s/IMG_4944.jpg

http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/main...ad.php?t=21595

Inventory management military style.

No wonder the MOD budget has a 'black hole' and folk are short of spares and kit where it's needed.

And the senior folk who preside over this shambles end up on the board of multi-nationals?

This kit is 60 years old...

Almost as old as the VC10.



OK, I know the drill, hat, coat.............................

pr00ne,

Get a grip of yourself, man! You ought to get out more!

Foldie:p

In another 60 years you might see pictures of Blackberrys, iPads and laptops…………and the VC10 might still be flying! (as a historic tribute of course:O)

" It was beginning to dawn on the Lean team that not all units were in favour of their philosophies and practices"

I recognise one or two items from my days in the school's CCF Signals cadre! The microphones and headsets, for example.

Nevertheless, why it wasn't either sold or recycled must be a bit of a mystery.

It reminds me of the time a number of zero-time crated Derwents were found in the depths of some RAF MU - which were gladly snapped up by the Meteor flight at RAF Brawdy, or so the story went at the time.

But the boot was on the other foot if ever you were accused of still having kit which had been returned years earlier, or for which there was no actual need. About 15 years after the last Gnat had left RAF service, I was still being plagued to return a Gnat oxygen mask and Gnat turning trousers, whose return some stores numpty at RAF Valley hadn't recorded.... Fortunately a friendly Flt Sgt solemnly issued me with a couple of 'scrap' labels which satisfied the system...:\

They could at least be sold at airshows as "Nostalgia" items that someone with more money than sense could acquire.....:rolleyes:

I am told you can sell anything on e-bay!!

Like someone selling a choice of four Venoms, complete, at £12,500 each, also selling three ISO containers of serviceable spares, and four serviceable Ghost engines!

There are some vacuum tubes (electronic valves) shown in one of the pictures in the link.

Depending what type they are, the sort of thing Bletchley Park Museum and their technicians who reconstructed "Colossus" would have given their eye teeth for.

This actually has given me a flash back to the Time when I joined Mod(N) at Faslane.
I, Being a Telecoms Engineer - was heavily involved in the replacement of the 1200 line Electromechanical Telephone Exchange to the new - but now defunct - Digital System. As Faslane required more Phone numbers than there were lines, the short term fix was to piggy back small - but very new and expensive - telephone systems onto the main exchange. When the new system came in these small systems were eventually replaced by single lines. What happened next was instrumental in me leaving the MoD.
By my conservative reckoning at least £30,000 of the taxpayers loot was wasted. These Systems - some less than 3 years- old were "D83'd" this was a destruction notice. I pleaded with the boss to let me store them as they could be used elsewhere. NO CHANCE, The systems where destroyed. The next Financial Year I was tasked with buying 3 Bespoke (Expensive) BT systems at a kings ransom. It almost made me cry. :(

Not all the stuff that gets dumped is erm sensible, apparently some one has informed EOD over this


Weedon Royal Ordnance Depot-Northamptonshire 2011

Yup you guessed it..

http://i1234.photobucket.com/albums/...t/PICT0362.gif

The discoveries by Nutloose makes for a 'cracking' stunt at bonfire night...just throw a box or two onto the fire........
no just kidding! - Do not try this at home kids.

I remember some years ago going into a small storage shed at a South Wales MU and finding bags full of horseshoes!!! Also I'm told that in the 1950s a group of National Servicemen at Cardington were told to clear out a building and burn, smash and bury everything within. This included 4 complete crated Sopwith Camels!

Back in the 1960s, it was finally agreed that our CCF's ancient 'Switchboard, Universal Calling, Ten Lines' which dated back to the First World War would be replaced by a more modern 'Switchboard Magneto Ten Lines Mk2' of either Second World War or Korean war vintage. It was much smaller than the old UC10.

At about the same time, the physics syllabus was updated to include the study of radioactivity. This included a number of low grade radioactive sources and a Geiger counter, to demonstrate the effect. The sources came with dire instructions and were always kept locked away.

New toys were often demonstrated on Speech Day, as was CCF equipment. A physics master happened to be passing our 'new' SM 10 Mk2 with the Geiger counter in his hand when it went nuts. The readings were much higher than anything obtained from the official radioactive sources!

It was later discovered that the the SM10 had luminous labels next to the jack sockets, so that it could be used in the dark; these things were highly radioactive and an urgent call went out from Blandford for all such items to be returned asap.

I wonder whether they are quietly irradiating some buried site deep in the rural countryside?

Pedant mode engaged; a Form D83 is not a "destruction notice". It is a Base/Depot Stores Return Voucher; the civilian equivalent to a Navy Form S331. If the stores had been returned as condition A1, Servicable, they may have been repacked and taken on charge as stock. Conditioning used stores is not easy, though and not always safe. If the stores had been returned in condition E0, they might have been held as repairable stock. If the stock would then have significantly exceded the the recurrent Monthly Demand Rate, though, it would probably have then been gashed in a routine Surplus Stock Review. I am, of course, assuming that the kit posessed a valid Pattern/Stock Number. Pedant switches to "off".

It's often held back, come in handy, kit that turns up in the likes of the subject pictures.

My guess is that it was radium, (Alpha radiation), that was used, which used to be used on watches, clocks, aircraft instruments and switches. This used to be painted on by hand by women. They were encouraged to straighten their paintbrushes with their teeth, and even used to paint the stuff on their teeth and face. The inevitable outcome wasn't pretty and resulted in a lawsuit against the company who employed them. All the management and scientists had taken considerable precautions to protect themselves from the effects of radiation, yet took no action to protect their employees.

Radium was replaced by tritium, (Beta radiation), which is still used in some watches, but many companies have replaced it with Superluminova, or Lumibrite for Seiko, Citizen etc.

The advantage of radioactive luminosity is that it does not require an external light source to activate it, it will glow by itself. Other lume requires to be exposed to an external light source to be activated, and depending on what type, and how the lume has been applied, will determine how long it will glow without further exposure to light.

PS. Sorry for the lesson in luminosity, horology is a bit of a hobby of mine.

Dunky, I nominate you for this weeks Sheldon Cooper award for Geek of the Week.

Informative but highly geeky trivia.

BZ:E