Whose stupid idea was this Part 2
 

Whose Stupid Idea Was this??
From May 2006 there was a three page sprited discussion about OX 26 and OM 15 in the same shaped can. The solution of course was red the label but . . .

The Summer 2007 of Aviate, p17 "Subsequently 1/2 litre of OM15 was put into each engine of a Tornado GR4."

A further 2.5 litres was unaccounted for.

Murphy is alive and well and living near you.

Some Genius obviously came up with that bright idea, om-15 used to be in a nice round tin and impossible to mix up. I did read somewhere that the world is expected to run out of om-15 in 3 or 4 years, there's only one refinery in Venezuela that produces the stuff and we're rapidly running out.

I can see a GEMS here, lets put the replacement oil in Pot Noodle tins or something, that way lineys can get it mixed up with their staple diet!

£25 please.....

Venezuela?? Can't see that being a problem, why don't we just ask them to churn out a bit more seeing as we are on such good terms with them.

So why do we bother incurring the cost of training technicians, if that training doesn't stretch to reading labels and verifying contents (the only thing that smells and looks like OM-15 is more OM-15) before replenishment actions? Murphy's all well and good, but basic engineering skills are paramount.

I seem to recall from my younger days there was a lot of fuss about OM15 and OX38 being in the same size, shaped and coloured tins and that the same risbridger(sp?) could be used for both products. The saga caused the chopping down of several pine forests to fuel the amount of paperwork the situation generated when the simplest solution was to have different shaped and coloured containers. It sounds like the trip round the great circle has been completed. Perhaps Chavez knows about OM15 and that's why he's kicking off about the Falklands.... the man has a cunning plan.

Long discussion about this on the Goat.
The baseline reason for the change was that the supplier decided that they would switch the shape of the tin, its as simple as that. This obviously keeps their costs down as producing/purchasing two different shaped tins is more expensive than one.
The technician training comment is valid up to a point. People make mistakes that they didn't intend to commit; you cannot train/order/threaten human nature out of humans, its been tried and it doesn't work. Anything that can make the liklihood of mistakes happening must be for the better; having two regularly used fluids in different shaped tins is one way of so doing.

1.4G, it is called crewroom gossip and learning. Even though it was aired last year the lesson was clearly not learnt.

Now as mere aircrew I have no idea what the two are or do or the consequences but it is clearly something that you can ask the engineers. This is of course if you have any engineers in central London to ask.

Agreed. If this thread prompts one person to make sure that the engineers are well aware of the dangers of pumping, say, a helo reservoir full of OM38, and the consequences of not taking 5 seconds to read that can, then it can only be a good thing. I fancy a few copies of the poster that appeared in Aviate may just find themselves stuck to the trap doors of the hangar dunnies pretty soon.

Wow, Even I can remember the first circle!!!!!
 

Absolutely, amazing the number of intelligent people who read about an incident such as this and say "I'd never do that"

Perhaps more like

"there for the grace........"

So the flyboys amongst us have never made a switch pigs or missed a call ??????????:ooh::ooh::ooh::ooh:

No one is infallible, however a good sized EGO helps you on the way.:E:E



aaaaagh shiplling

Savings were less than 40p a tin but they still changed 'em. So we have the costs of draining, flushing, EGRs, disposal and sampling costs to balance the equation.

Fortunately no short or long terms effects on engines - so far!

Actually current of not I was airframes not engines as the saying goes. As airframes I would certainly read the label and double check if I was doing a sooty job but it is self-evident that someone didn't. (Several times),:eek:

Is it the blind or the stupid engineers/mechanics that should be catered for?

TB,

It's my guess that it's probably the really really over worked, heavily undermanned, constantly deployed, totally disillusioned and bitterly disappointed with no real leadership or light at the end of the tunnel engineers/mechanics that should be catered for :rolleyes:

But they should still be able to read surely?
As should their supervisors. No level of overload/overtasking can be allowed to become a global excuse for incompetence - can it?

Silly question...

If one is _engine oil_ and the other is _hydraulic oil_, couldn't someone have decided that we'll call them... let's say:-

HFX. (X being whatever number you want), for the hydraulic fluid.

EOX, (See above for the value of X), for the engine oil...

Then, with the benefit of experience and the understanding that when a person is under pressure, (intentional pun), he doesn't need to know that OMX is hydraulic and OMY is engine... It'll be self explanatory... Despite the alarming similarity in the shape of the container - because there's a limited number of shapes...

Sorry... my mistake, that would be too easy, wouldn't it????

The designation of OM15/OX26 comes about though what they are ( O for oil) and what its base is (M stands for mineral oil, X meaning synthetic). Its all covered by the relevant Def-Stan regulations.

The strangest part about this whole "oh its was easier when the tins were different" is that lowly stackers manage to read the tins well enough to issue the correct stuff so surely the Cosford master race should be able to manage it.

"lowly stackers manage to read the tins well enough to issue the correct stuff"

Actually, they didn't.

They entered the stock number into their inventory computer (if it wasn't an electronically-generated request in the first place), went to the location shown, zapped the can with a bar-codereader to verify it (something the line hogs don't have) and sent it out if the light turned green.

That is, if their warehouse wasn't one of the fancy ones like the USAF has where punching the number in results in a robot getting the tin and dropping it into the shipping box without the supply puke even getting out of his chair.

Bar code readers in POL? Oh Sir you jest.

I have recently left her Britannic Majesties Royal Air Force and whilst such modern technology as bar code readers was trialled on a limited basis it has yet to enter wide-scale use.

As for being able to perform an issue without having to leave the office, such a thing is but a mere flight of fancy for an Air Force that strives to be person for person the best in the world.:rolleyes:

Nope, in Liz's Flying Club all POL issues are done the old fashioned way. Stacker with voucher puts down tea, jumps in vehicle and drives to relevant inflam store, drags boxes off the shelf and onto the vehicle, pops back for another cup of tea then delivers the required item some time after lunch.

Suppliers delivering.................any small amount of "Cred" you may have had swirled down the plug hole with that blatant untruth :rolleyes:

Well it all depends on which particular brand of LEANing you've had on your unit SFFP.

At Odious it was the "take everyones vehicles off them and put the onus on supply sections to move everything on unit", which doesn't really work as you end up with suppliers doing more driving then supplying which is odd as we actually have a trade set-up specifically for driving duties and you also have the situation whereby if a section needs something in a hurry they have to use their own private vehicles to go and get it.:ugh:

"if a section needs something in a hurry they have to use their own private vehicles to go and get it."


Been there, done that.

On midshift and needed a new sensor package for a DRS turret (A-6E) to go in a plane that was to fly after dawn... and supply had no truck available. :ugh:

As the shop was nearly a mile from supply, I couldn't very well wheel a maintenance cart down, load a 150lb piece of classified electro-optical avionics in and wheel it back, so... my Jeep Cherokee became a USMC vehicle for a few minutes. :ok:

When the higher-ups got in for day-shift, they said "good job, NEVER do it again!". :=

"Nope, in Liz's Flying Club all POL issues are done the old fashioned way. Stacker with voucher puts down tea, jumps in vehicle and drives to relevant inflam store, drags boxes off the shelf and onto the vehicle, pops back for another cup of tea then delivers the required item some time after lunch."

THS..Only two cups of tea and in your own section????? Geez, things have changed. Didn't you time your deliveries to coincide with other section's tea-breaks?

Just when you think you have heard every fishy supply tale there is, I mean the notion that suppliers delivered was hard enough to swallow but American Forces without enough vehicles............get the !!!! out of here :=

Did a similar thing myself the other week, grabbed a tin of engine oil in a rush and topped up the tank.

Should have been Mobil Jet 2, I used Mobil 254.

Cans are identical in size and colouring.

Main reason for the error was rushing combined with the fact that I didn't know we had 254 on stock and in true human fashion I assumed. I didn't notice until I went to dispose of the the can.

In the civil world lots of fluids are supplied in standard us quart/litre cans.
The idea being they are sealed and can't be contaminated and waste is reduced.

Manufacturers have their own colours so identification is normally easier (normally)!!

However on a dark night with a crappy line van and cans rolling everywhere it has not been unheard of for a can of skydrol to go into an engine oil tank. That can really spoil your day as it attacks seals not designed for it.

I remember about 30 years ago going to top up a Gazelle engine from a correctly labelled can 0X ?? out of the oil store. and noticing that the can was not sealed I tipped a little on my hand to check and lo it was bright red OM15. Obviously someone had used an empty engine oil can to drain a hydraulic system and then had not disposed of it.

No amount of label reading will save you from that.

Golf Bravo Zulu,

I suggest you read the original May 06 thread. It was the Navy that done it. As benfits the senior service the RAF is merely following tradition :}

I believe that the simplest solution to the OM-15 and OX-38 (et al) mix-up is to burn all the bloody OM-15 in the universe.

It's horrible stuff and clucking dangerous.

Bring in some nice self-contained Electro-Actuators instead; we may save a few lives in the process.

The best reason for having two different cans/risbridgers is so that at stupid o' Fuc)(ing clock after not being able to sleep on nightshift you don't fill the steely warbird with the wrong fluid and it tentpegs into a mosque/hospital/school/town centre on the way to target with a major system failure.............

40p a can!!!!! only in this day and age.........

all it will take is for one accident and we can write off all of those 40p savings and much much more.

Will the class one !!!!!! who thought up this brainwave please stand up and be counted. Bet he won't have to put his pension/liberty on the line that no-one ever makes a mistake with the can........

Lets look at it calmly.

Putting Hyd oil in an engine will not cause immediate damage and indeed much will be burnt away and diluted back to original strength on the next oil fill. Should an engine suffer ill effects, it will be due to repeated contamination and only then will bearing wear deteriorate gradually and noticeably. Sudden failure is unlikely. Most engines will operate on minimum oil quantities / qualities for some time.

Overheating a OM15 / OX26 mix may produce cockpit fumes which over a long term may cause health problems, in the short term, the smell would be apparent enough for oxygen to be called for.

The RAF has a "No Blame Culture" and should this be degraded many of the contamination confessions before flight would have been hushed up and no one would ever know.

Its quite easy to misread the can labels in the oil store when you've only got a cigarette lighter.

My expert advisor tells me that Can A is kept in one store at one loaction and Can B in another.

When issued forward to a ready use POL locker the two cans often finish up in the same store. The suppliers therefore are guiltless :)

Actually experience has shown that the introduction of IT stock holding has made it far easier to make errors that have greater consequences down the line than with a manual system. POETS day corner cutting to get work cleared for an easy stack is much easier to on USASII than its was on the old F1640M's as there are far fewer checks in place on the 'improved' system. Of course doing paperwork manually is time consuming which is the flip side to accuracy.

Not necessarily. OM15/OX26 can be stored in the same inflams store as they have the same primary and subsidiary hazards. Indeed at Odious they were stored opposite each other in the same bulk store. Luckily they have large labels on the front that are easy for any fool to read, oh err.....

OX 26, big and square, not red fluid

OM 15 round and smaller, red fluid. Tastes like strawberries :}

But putting OX-26 into a hydraulic system will definitely get you to the scene of the accident first, especially with rotary. Still waiting to see a good alternative to opening your eyes and engaging your highly trained brain...

Its not a question of finding an alternative to proper training and a professional attitude towards ones work, its a question of recognising that there are times when people do things they didn't intend to. Ever been to the supermarket and picked up a bottle of diet cola when you meant to get full fat? Or one brand of beans when you meant to get another? Well, perhaps you haven't, but many will admit that they have done this because the packaging looks similar. And why aren't the flight deck/cockpit switches for the flaps/landing gear and avionics all mixed up with, and the same shape as the weapons switches?
No amount of training or telling people to open their eyes will stop people from making simple, yet potentially catastrophic errors if the component parts of a screw-up are all in place. Similar shaped tins of different oils, and a harrased tradesman are two such component parts, remove one and you stop the screw-up don't you?
Make sure all tradesmen are working under conditions that ensure they always engage their brains in every situation, not least very familiar ones...yeah right, good luck :rolleyes:
Change the shape of the cans of oil so that tradesmen are given a chance to spot the fact that they may be about to put the wrong oil in the wrong system....sounds good to me.

Or, to put it another way..
In an episode of the Simpsons Marge becomes addicted to gambling in the Monty Burns casino. When Homer finally gets her to realise she has a problem she tells him she needs professional help. Homers solution is a lot simpler...
"Oh no thats too expensive, just don't do it again".

Ultimately, when you have a couple of jets 'hangarised' with contaminated systems because of wrong oil poisoning, what the tradesman should have done becomes irrelevant; what they did do was put the wrong oil in.

Do you mean as in chocolate brown paint as opposed to sage green?

A La Nimrod?:}

Im putting my head above the wall now but i can answer the question to why the oil container was changed etc by asking the person that buys it!
Trouble is, and until i get back into work tomorrow ill confirm, its probably a civvy who never has been near an aircraft.

So the wheel has turned full circle! In the late 60s/early 70s we used to get OM15 and OX26 in cans of the same shape and colour (remember the old oblong-style gallon cans?) although if I remember rightly the shade of green might have been slightly different slightly lighter on the OX26 cans. Progress?

Surely this is a problem of training rather than one of different shaped tins? Nearly every POL product that comes in 5 litre quantities comes in the same 5 litre container yet the only regular mix up you hear of is that of OM15/OX26.

When I worked in POL I would never assume that just because a tanker that had arrived to deliver fuel had Avtur markings on it and all the paperwork agreed that the product inside was Avtur that it was. I and my colleagues QA'd every single fuel load that arrived because not only did we have professionalism in the task in hand, no matter how monotonous it may be, but we fully understood the logistical and legal repercussions if we messed up.

BTW, the reason for the change of the containers is cost but the cost cutting is ultimately down to the container manufacturers themselves. The containers are a standard UN approved type and although the old round ones are still acceptable under UN regulations the civil sector won't use them as they take up more room during shipping (and hence cost more to move) than the rectangular ones. As a result of these market forces it would be incredibly cost prohibitive (more than the 40p per can quoted earlier I believe) to produce them just for military usage.

Perhaps a reusable round shaped shroud to fit over in-use cans could be fabricated locally in-lieu of training folk to read the label. You can use that for a GEMS suggestion for free if you like.