One for the maintainers, hardest job you have done
 

Changing a Nav computer , in the radio bay of a Buccaneer:*

Detail X on a JP undercarriage was always fun the first time...:ugh:

Phantom
 

Battery change on a UK Phantom?

Finding the bloody nut after I'd dropped it. When you have to put them on blind and always at the end of your reach, you just know that you wouldn't get it threaded. Even when you'd taken precautions and put something to catch it, the nut would always fall through a gap that you couldn't see.

I once spent hours looking for a small nut that I'd dropped on a Sea King engine change, only to find that the Chief had it all along and didn't tell me, to teach me a lesson for dropping it in the first place!

Quite a nightmare on the FG1s ;)

Blade tracking test on a wessey:rolleyes:

fixing a fuel leak in the centre wing dry bay on a Lightning using dental picks through the bolt holes, or replacing pulled rivets in a Gnat nose gear bay without taking the wings off and putting the fuselage in a rotating jig.

Heading Control Unit SEP2 Autopilot, HS748. Only 4 nuts and bolts, the 2 accessible ones had captive nuts, the inaccessible two had loose nuts. Piece of cake I thought. Took 2 days before finding a spanner which would fit in the space. Lots of skin off. Still break out in a sweat thinking about it.

Jack head piston on Tonka......from a plumbers point of view.....but I hear other trades disliked anything to do with Zone 19 as well.

Loads of 'interesting' jobs on Harriers LOL
One that springs to mind is changing the Fuel Flow Proportioner on a GR5/7 with engine still fitted.
Taken out through a belly panel physically smaller than the FFP and once unbolted you could not let it drop down because of many small thin walled metal pipes.
One of our guys likened it to taking your teeth out through your ar5e :)

Civi wise...... changing the wing attachment bolts on a Citation Jet, I got it all stress jacked so the bolts were loose and free to move, pulled the bolt out, pushed the new one in and 3/4's in, a fly must have alighted on the wing as the bolt went stiff, it took me two days of struggling and adjusting the wing and fuselage jacks to get the bolt back out and another new one in.... I just kept saying to myself one day I will laugh at this as people avoided coming near for fear of getting roped in.

RAF wise doing a booster pump housing change on a VC10 out on the line, crawling around in inches of fuel, deep into the wing and plugged into a compressor to breath.


Dropping a socket off the top of a tens engines and shouting down to ask if anyone can see it, to be asked what size is it?..... As if there were various sizes scattered far and wide lol.

Compass swing on a buccaneer at Lossiemouth in winter:bored:

sh*t house cleaning on Queens Flight.

PLB reset in full NBC. Fiddly as Saville in soft play with the buffoon who'd set it off breathing down my neck.


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You want to try taking the bog out of a Nigerian CAA aircraft where the carpet was crustier than a Ginsters Cornish Pasty.

Fitting and wire locking the Spikes in the F1-11 intake, three hands required !

You've had it easy
 

Until you've changed the T/R of an H2S Mk 4 on a Lincoln (in-flight, of course).

Oh, I forgot!
 

A compass swing in a Javelin T3 ( You couldn't open the canopy) at Tengah at 1300 local. We quit when the Nav told me the paperwork had dissolved in his sweat.


Sorry - I wasn't a maintainer then.

Fitting and Wire locking No.1 oil Temp Bulb on a Sea King!

Battery change on a Meteor without spilling electrolyte down your shirt! :8
Or the SNEB mods on a Hunter 6 where the mod kits only gave you the 'correct' number of pins for the 36 way socket, and you can guarantee one would bend going in!