I am surprised at some of the stuff the RAF dispose off
 

Such as


Chinook Main Transmission Crane

Hmm, I Agree, seeing as we now have more Chinooks than ever before, you might think we could probably find a use for this item!

Well, if it is serviceable that is! :ugh:

Only the military can pay £150,000 for a engineer-designed, tested and certified, and regulation-approved aviation transmission crane - then use it no more than 12 times in 25 years - and then sell it at auction for £100. :ugh:

Probably a casualty of Resource Accounting and Budgeting; people being criticised for holding stores that seem not to be used. An item going U/S with no immediate replacement is now considered an acceptable risk.

GBZ wrote:

Not the first time RAB has scored an own goal!! My unit had to dispose of a load of Harrier spares because we hadn't had any transactions on them for 6 months. Despite our protestations to the range "managers" at Wyton, we were ordered to send the kit to the disposal site. Within three weeks, some of the spares sent for disposal were required to satisfy 'D' states and I had to drive down to Somerset to recover the self same stock. When I collected the spares, they were still in the boxes they had been packed in when they left the unit together with the documentation I had signed before despatch. The price paid to the disposal company for the recovered spares was far in excess of what the company had paid MOD at the time of disposal. Still, it kept the RAB managers happy. :ugh::ugh::ugh:.

Late one night on guard, we were randomly discussing the traits of the various trades who were present that shift. One of the guys was a storeman, who had spent some time at the big stores depot at RAF Stafford.

We had heard some stories about the wonders that were stored there, such as the story that between Stafford and Donington there was kit going back to the world wars "in case it was needed again" (Green goddeses were one such item) and we asked him to give us some idea of the stuff he'd seen.

His response was a bit of a tale, and started out that reminding us that there were three classes of stores, A,B and C (or as it was in those days). A stores were those items that were one-off issue such as kit bags. C stores were consumable items, and were never intended to be returned or replaced. B stores were lifed or exchangeable items, and you could exchange them either after a period of time, a number of uses, or if the condition meant they were no longer suitable for use. Most uniform is B stores.

In those days the members of the WRAF were still being issued with P.E. Kit, which included a short skirt and uniform issue knickers. As these were B stores they could be exchanged, and once exchanged like all uniform items they were sent to a central depot for disposal.

So there he was at Stafford, surrounded by bales and bales of used WRAF knickers, with the task of arranging disposing of them.......

It might have been a tall tale, but it made the shift go faster.

4mastacker, quite. Needed a paint locker - cost £495 but none in stock so placed on demand.

Went to local disposal sales depot, 6 miles away, raised LPO and bought a paint locker for £100. After commission £80 returned to MOD.

Probably a bargain as the MOD had not had to bear the cost of moving it from one unit to ours :)

then there were all those Harriers to the US...........OK. hat, coat..............

I was involved in setting up the Airframe bays for the Nimrod AEW3 at Waddo, many years ago. One item we received, brand new, was an OF4 based static hydraulic test rig. On opening the adaptor cupboard on the back of the rig, three trays of adapters were found, all in waxed and greased paper labelled Lancaster, Halifax, and Stirling as I recall.

Smudge :ok:

The Comet first flew in the 40s and some of the bombers survived into the 50s, so they were contemporaneous to a degree.

Roadster,

Agreed, and as my father in law was an ex 75 squadron man, he accepted with pride the tray of Stirling adapters, having served on Stirlings at Mepal in WW2. Now, I'm no expert, but were the Lancaster, Halifax and Stirling hydraulic systems OF4 (vegetable based oil) ? As opposed to the modern OM15 etc mineral based hydraulic oil. Anyone know ?

Smudge

Roll on the new generation of civil-based types...A330, P8(maybe!). At least the cost of spares and equipment is directly comparable with market prices which might just keep a lid on "think of a number" price lists. Ah but hang on, there's a sizeable civil Chinook fleet...oh well!

As Laarbruch closed, a wardrobe-sized Steel roll-top cupboard containing approx. £6m of (secret) Harrier Flying Control Actuator test kit was sold by sealed bid to a local farmer for 50DM.
No-one had used the kit since delivered and the farmer needed a store cupboard!

Smudge wrote:

According to this page, Lancaster hydraulic systems used mineral oil.

Lancaster hydraulic system - oil specification


Apparently AeroShell Fluid 4 meets British Spec DTD585

Have a look here.

I was only a stacker so I might well be wrong.

4maststacker,

Thanks for those links. The Aeroshell 4 hydraulic oil is in fact a "mineral" based oil, whereas the Nimrod used a "vegetable" based oilfield OF4 (Oil Fatty). As you link clearly explains that the Lancaster hydraulic system was mineral based, you have answered my query, and the static rig I was talking about had probably been converted to OF4 (Natural rubber seals as opposed to synthetic rubber) at some point, and the old adapters simply left in place. Thanks very much for the help. As for only being a stacker, we all had a job to do, and supply squadron looked after just about every function.

Smudge:ok:

How dare you Sir. Stackering is a noble profession, if it were not for the vigilance of Stackers there would be a single Chief Tech somewhere with a locker filled with every spare in the RAF for his personal use, "just in case".

Stackers, there to protect techies from themselves.;)

Hmm,
Sounds like a good idea to have spares just in case. Isn't that the point!

To have spares ready to replace non-serviceable items immediately seems kind of sensible to me. :ugh:

Smudge wrote:

My bold. Slight thread drift. On one station, we had a tee-shirt produced with a printed logo that OC Supply - clearly thinking about his future career prospects - banned from being worn on camp. The caption was "If flying was difficult, the Suppliers would do it". ;)

What was on the back...... Badly? How did you all resist the urge to fold and stack them. :p


OM 15.....DTD 585....Fluid 4..... Fluid 41.... Riggers blood......all one and the same.

"Best trained workforce in Britain" - oh, no, that was Phase 1 redundancy 22 years ago