A very British repair job

It has emerged that the crew of a Nimrod used a teapot to block a hatch gap in their plane after a mid-air mechanical fault...The spokeswoman said: "There was a minor malfunction with the hatch cover and the teapot would have been used to make it more comfortable for the crew".
source

Jolly good show to those brave chaps who boldly sacrificed their in-flight cuppa to fix the old girl up and get safely back to blighty

Good stuff. Nice to see some improvisation!


Thats right up there with using eggs to "repair" radiators and of course chewing gum for fuel tanks.

[edit on 9/12/06 by kilcoo316]

Kudo's to the Nimrod crew for using their heads to fix an in flight problem.
A little imagination can take you a long way.



Catalina PBY crews carried Gov't issued chewing gum as part of their emergency kit.
The idea being to plug bullet holes in the hull so the plane (flying boat type) wouldn't sink.


Along those same lines was a WW2 B-17 that had a hydraulic leak in the landing gear system.
The leak was fixed in-flight, but there wasn't enough hydrualic fluid to get the landing gear down.
The crew poured coffee, whiskey, water into the filler tube.
When that wasn't enough they emptied their bladders into it.

The gear got down ok and the trouble sheet that was handed to the crew chief mentioned the problems with the landing gear, but never said anymore about it.

The crew chief reported back that the landing gear system had been repaired, but was very strange smelling....

lol...kind of reminds me of a quantas airlines maintenance report:

source


P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit.

P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on back-order.

P: Auto pilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.

P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.

P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That's what they're for.

P: IFF inoperative.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.

P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you're right.

P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

P: Aircraft handles funny. (I love this one!)
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

P: Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.

P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.

And the best one for last...

P. Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding
on something with a hammer.
S: Took hammer away from midget.

That news story didn't surprise me as soon as I read the word 'Nimrod'...although you gotta laugh at the idea that the RAF provides military-issue teapots for flight crew.

Someone I know worked many years on the Nimrod project, and one of their anecdotes was how they fixed a vibration-problem in the forward radome assembly by use of wedges made from 2x4 timber and a large hammer.
50p solution for a £100,000 problem!

Originally posted by snafu7700
lol...kind of reminds me of a quantas airlines maintenance report:

source

Before anyone else shakes their head at the British, I'm wondering if you saw this at the top of the Page:

Quantas Jokes

No Offense, but you were reading the Jokes page! None of this stuff is for real. They were pulling your chain!

Tim

Originally posted by Ghost01

No Offense, but you were reading the Jokes page! None of this stuff is for real. They were pulling your chain!

Tim

actually, it's true. i pulled it off of the jokes page because that's the easiest place to find it.....but i have seen the actual maintenance reports that the jokes were taken from.

Snafu is right, I remember reading that in Flight magazine many years ago, and its still just as funny. Don't think aviation professionals are immune to the odd pisstake

Originally posted by snafu7700
actually, it's true.

I'm sorry to hear that! Iwas expecting more sense from the people who are responsible for the lives of so many others.

Tim

Originally posted by Ghost01

I'm sorry to hear that! Iwas expecting more sense from the people who are responsible for the lives of so many others.

Tim

so maintenance personnel cant have a sense of humor? if you had done a little research, you would have found that quantas has the best safety record of any major airline....and yet their sense of humor is more importantant to you than their safety record?

hell, i bet if i told you about some of the practical jokes that controllers have a tendency to play on each other, you'd never fly again!

[edit on 14-12-2006 by snafu7700]

Originally posted by snafu7700
so maintenance personnel cant have a sense of humor? if you had done a little research, you would have found that quantas has the best safety record of any major airline....and yet their sense of humor is more importantant to you than their safety record?
[edit on 14-12-2006 by snafu7700]

Hang on! I think there is a misunderstanding here.

When I said that this was a joke, I was referring to the items in the log. The items in the log such as:

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.

I was inferring that this was a joke and not a real events! When you said it was real, I mistaking assumed you meant this is how these people do their Jobs. Making joes in your off time is one thing, but waiting to replace a worn tire is unsafe!

I have no problem with making Jokes, but I Do Not wish to fly on a airplane where the mechanic doesn't have the sense to fix a leak before the next flight!

Tim

Originally posted by Ghost01

When I said that this was a joke, I was referring to the items in the log. The items in the log such as:

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.

I was inferring that this was a joke and not a real events! When you said it was real, I mistaking assumed you meant this is how these people do their Jobs. Making joes in your off time is one thing, but waiting to replace a worn tire is unsafe!

I have no problem with making Jokes, but I Do Not wish to fly on a airplane where the mechanic doesn't have the sense to fix a leak before the next flight!

Tim

No, your reading everything literally!


So, for instance, the guys fixed the problem (the leak on the landing gear), and instead of writing: "Replaced No.3 seal on 2nd strut on right main landing gear", they've wrote "evidence removed".

Same repair done - but bit of humour in answering the log.

Yeah, I believe that the maintenence crews actually fixed the problem and just as a little joke wrote down misleading reports just to add a little spice to the job. Doesn't mean they didn't actually fix the issues, just means that they like to fool around. Having been around maintenence crews and pilots; they do like to joke around too.

Of course when things get real serious no one jokes around, but hey, Quantas has the best safety record around. A happy crew is a good one.

Shattered OUT...

Sometimes my sense of humor is a bit off. Hey, misunderstanding happen!

Tim

Originally posted by timski
although you gotta laugh at the idea that the RAF provides military-issue teapots for flight crew.

Not just the raf. All the UK tanks and armours vehicles have once peice of advanced tech that the US and other nations dont. They all have kettles installed for making a cup of tea in the heat of battle!!!

Originally posted by Ghost01
Sometimes my sense of humor is a bit off. Hey, misunderstanding happen!

Tim

no worries, just a misunderstanding.

what you have to understand though, is that all aspects of the aviation community tend to be quite serious and very stressful, so a fair bit of humor is required to keep people sane. if you havent read it, i would recommend the book "yeager" by general chuck yeager and leo janos. it's a very interesting read, and you'll find that yeager, arguably one of the best pilots in history, was also quite the prankster. incidentally, i would not recommend his follow up book "press on" unless you are also into the great outdoors. it's mostly about his many fishing, hiking, and hunting trips around the world, and the general theme can be summed up by the title.....whenever things get rough, just press on.