Naming of parts.....
 

.....I believe that same problem afflicted the Victor tanker conversions; all those complex blended shaped panels were individually "fettled" to fit "that" aircraft and wouldn't fit any other. Must have been bloody frustrating for the guys doing the job - I have a mental picture of an overall-clad chap rootling about in wire cages of panels effin' and blindin' to himself as looked for a particular bit.

The Ancient Mariner

Reminds one of the (apocryphal?) tale of when the Tincanos first arrived at Linton.

There was to be (allegedly) a publicity photie with them all lined up neatly side-by-side on the pan.

When it was dicovered you could line up the front (prop) ......

..... or line up the back (tail) ........

..... but not both!!

Any truth in that? Good dit anyway. :ok:

No idea about that tale, but whilst I was on Doms at Finningley one of the TinCans took a birdstrike.

When the repair panels arrived from Shorts not one of them fitted!

Do the rules permit adding content on a Phriday?


Re BEgles pic at #23. We had 3 aircraft at the time I was involved. I can't remember which one it was but one had an extra frame in the tail cone area just aft of the back hatch. It was at least 6" longer. and not recorded on the BAe type records or drawings. This came to the fore when we were doing a waveguide installation so ended up with a set of templates for all 3 aircraft. I think the hole had been cut between two frames for the horn to poke out through a little window (too small to see in any pictures) and the wave guide that had all been brazed up and silver plated would not reach. Thank the lord for the short flexible bits!


The TuRD installation was also impacted by this difference and covered by a note on the drawings "fettle to fit". I don't think TuRD was fitted at the time of BEagles picture. It would have been a few weeks later.

I was enroute from Lyneham to Akrotiri in a Britannia when number two engine tried to shed it's cowling near Rome one night. I diverted to Luqa where the engineers decided to replace the whole cowling with one from the spare Proteus stored in the MU at Safi. It took seven hours of filing, sawing and hammering to get the damn thing to fit. Sometimes, they told me, it was quicker to change the complete power plant due to manufacturing variations.

Nice to see the Sunderland picture. A civilised aircraft with a galley.

First aeroplane I flew in. CCF week at Pembroke Dock in 1953. Spent a lot time in the galley cooking eggs, bacon and beans for the crew on a primus stove.

"Galley" ??? Wardroom, shirley.

Thank goodness, everything aforesaid suggests that just like Human beings (who fly them) aircraft are mostly individual. A situation that I'm sure keeps our professional yoke jockeys on their toes, and our media in "tales of how dangerous flying is"! The C130 was to all intents and purposes a mass production jobby, but I bet most Airframe fitters could tell a story or two about replacing a NACA (pronounced Knacker) duct intake on the RAF C130K.


Smudge :ok:

http://www.radfanhunters.co.uk/image...n_03-64_RD.jpg


From

http://www.radfanhunters.co.uk/gallery8-3.htm

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Forgive a quick return to the Nimrod AEW 3, but to answer a question and to correct a couple of things said earlier....


The radar was rubbish and the aircraft was not anywhere near the standard to enter service. I believe that the performance of the mission system remains classified but it may well prove interesting when the 30 years since cancellation arrives in a year or so and the final "trial" results are released to the public. You may well see why it was cancelled.


Contrary to a previous comment - the mission system cooling system was anything but elegant! It was cooled by circulating fuel from the aircraft's fuel tanks - however, to keep it working you needed more than half fuel load! Not very good for time on task or indeed having to take up most of the RAF's refuelling capability to do so.

Newark, 2014 :-

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c2...psqmusyekd.jpg

The jewel in the Preservation Crown!!


Mo

The largest 'Fighter' in the World :ok:

http://i1004.photobucket.com/albums/...psaf157dc7.jpg

Image Credit : Unknown

Any more similar pics out there ?

http://charlesmccain.com/wp-content/...45._CH8570.jpg
Another in a long sequence of pictures of Flight Engineers rushed off their feet :)

good pic - are you sure that is an 'Eng'? Can't see any pies (or ugly women) near by? :p

A Woodbine commercial I think!

Eng will be up and around as soon as he smells 'Grubs Up'
http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/m.../CH_000837.jpg

Now that is a galley!

http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/e...MPERISCOPE.jpg

From here Nimrod thread.

Now... now... NO DROP!

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q...g?t=1274561376

Shackleton Carrier Landing Myth!

Spares
 

Sometimes not available as per illustrated parts catalogue.
https://flic.kr/p/umTz2a

....or apparently not available at all. Is Flickr not supported?

Nice kitchen! I can only remember primus stoves in the Pembroke Dock Sunderlands I flew in.

Ah well, blissful days from Waddington

http://i1215.photobucket.com/albums/...psdin0vsxv.jpg

http://community.fortunecity.ws/silv...ics/shack1.jpg
A delivery picture of the first 2 Shackltons for the South African Air Force in the summer of 1957. Judging by the 3 Vulcan B1s in the background,taken at Woodford.

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The Shackleton carrier myth reminds me of a day in the lateish 60s when flying as a pair in T17s with a Naval pilot, Wedge Thorpe (who had coincidentally attended the same school as me a few years before my time there) in the lead we were exercising with the RN up off the North of Scotland, and Wedge decided it would be fun to refresh his carrier approach technique. He called me into long trail and set up a circuit, but as he started a descent the carrier guys started to get upset and there were several calls from them of "You are not, repeat NOT, to land". Seems light years ago now.

Wander00 wrote: During a KELTEX involving a Canberra and a couple of Gnats, one of the Gnat QFIs ('PV' L****, ex-Sea Vixens ) did the same thing, making all the appropriate calls. I gather that the RN types were most impressed as the diminutive little Gnat went scooting past after a 'low overshoot'...:E

P6 Driver, that isn't quite the worst Nimrod I've ever seen!

This is:


Apologies for the poor photo quality - it was a scan of a print from a slide made a while ago. The NimWACS was making yet another "Due to enter RAF service shortly...." fly through at the Farnborough Air Show and I didn't manage to focus properly.

Next time I saw the hideous looking thing was during my AAR Cat check on the VC10K OCU. It made several climbing lunges at the centreline hose, before managing one successful contact....:\

Thankfully they were withdrawn from service soon after, but were still littering Abingdon several years later.

Who remembers this delightfully painted Nimrod:


XV246 - the 'Flying $hite' - one of those RAF stories which no-one would believe if there weren't any witnesses to it!

"Are you sure that's the colour Sir wants?"
"Yes it is, now get on with painting it!"
"But it doesn't look like the colour we were told about?"
"I'M A SENIOR OFFICER AND I KNOW ABOUT PAINT! DO IT!!"
(Some days later)
"Ah, errm, perhaps it'll change colour when it's dry?"
"It is dry, Sir and it hasn't!"
:\

I gather it languished at the far end of Trebalzue before Someone Very Senior saw it, asked what on earth it was doing in such a vile colour, before ordering that it should be repainted in 'proper' hemp forthwith!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7057/6...9948568a_z.jpg
The infamous Sunderland that sunk in St Peter Port Harbour. Somewhere on the net is a cutting (with pictures) from the Sydney Morning Hereld.

Beags. Wasn't it due to a transmission error in paint spec numbers?

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http://www.ausairpower.net/USN/P-8A-...Drop-USN-1.jpg
(US Navy)

Ivan,

Quite like that jobby, perhaps the tasking could be farmed out to EzyJet, using the principle of "getting more for the taxpayers pound". I'm sure the standing passengers wouldn't worry too much about their brief interlude of operational activity, especially as the Marguritas go down.

Smudge:ok:

Nice pic, can't wait for the Airfix kit (the UK version ;) )

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Steam gets priority!

Liberator FL930 at Ballykelly - the only airfield that I'm aware of where the ATC controllers had to have railway signallers qualifications - and the trains had priority up to the day it closed.

https://c4.staticflickr.com/4/3736/1..." height="510"

Of note, FL930 sank three U-boats during its career

A couple of 205 Sqn pictures:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/377/18..." height="619"

Aircraft 'F' and 'A' on a day out

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/269/19..." height="800"

The end of an era. 205 Disbandment parade 1972 :sad:

Post 61
 

"M"of 204 sqdn ,if it was WL745 then it had my name below the cockpit window as part of the 3 man servicing team!Gave you pride in your aircraft,I guess that picture was c1960/63?
I also heard that story but was told it was a squadron crossing the pond that did it line astern!!!