A Little VC10derness

Had a good chorkle yesturday. Took 807 out for runs, called the tower for clearance and they said I could start as long as I kept it quiet

Unfortunately, we had some probs with the accels so EVERYONE got a bit of it. Hee Hee

(Woke a few people up today as well). Happy to say aliceclark, now.

...they said I could start as long as I kept it quiet

Misguided souls!

Oh the joy! Brings back memories of sitting by the tail of 807 on a hot summers day on long lead, when the fleet was painted in its 'proper' blue/wite livery NOT this pathetic 'wheres kitty' colour they are now

Many hours spent on long lead under those beautiful engines on ' MAX CHAT' happily watching the odd bumble bee disappearing into the intake after struggling like mad for a few seconds to get away from the suctions! only to come out the back as a cinder! Made the mistake once of leaning against the nose wheel as they throttled up - wondering WHY the aircraft was starting to get LOWER above my head DOH!

we used to love getting 'route clearance' to run engines early in the morning (preferably BEFORE 4am) needless to say we woke Carterton, Bampton and probably some of Witney a bit early

Did it again today but they had already gone home so we sneaked a couple more in

You are a bad man

Tonks

My bubble has burst I have got to change the lower centre tank refuel valve That's it!! Where did I put that bottle of Becks

Easy life!!

Try crawling up INSIDE one of the WING tanks on XV 106 (cant remember the tank number) lying in a shallow pool of Avtur for 4 hours in breathing apparatus and repairing a fuel leak with Yak Sh*t (cant remember what its correct name was - a sort of 2 part brown epoxy rubber stuff we used to seal the tanks with!)

someone remind me here what this stuff was called please? The good old 10 is basically still in the air BECAUSE of this gook! Its held together with it.

That episode almost made me do something silly and apply to go on ALM training at Catterick! Years later a certain chief QFI was going to recommend me for PILOT training no less! I turned him down as I was about to marry my EX wife (big mistake I regret to this day - getting married AND turning down Cranwell!) Imagine - I could have got the little piece of blue cotton on my epulette when I qualified (pilot officer) I bet Tonks has about 4 inches of blue on his shoulders by now! Air Chief Marshall In hindsite I cannot BELIEVE that if I had passed out from Valley I MIGHT have made it to the mighty left seat in the 10

Murray,

I have just spent the last couple of weeks, along with the rest of the team, crawling around ALL of the tanks in 807. I can quite confidently assure you that there is not a lot of the stuff in there now.

We have a dedicated tank team here to carry out all tank repairs. We Sooties strip them, these guys blast them and then repair and reapply the PRC, (I think that is what your are talking about).

I have to admit, I was very surprised at the excellent condition of the tank structure, yes there are repairs to be done but lets face it, she is over 40 now

On an aside, the centre tank is a great place to have a party, (lots of names on the walls)

(You will be pleased to know that we have 106 here, and we are currently stripping the tanks so I hope you have done your work well, I will take note)!!!!!!!!!!

PRC!!! thats the stuff. A few of the blokes actually resoled their boots with this stuff for 'wing walking' when working on spoilers etc as it doesnt scratch the skin!

Yes 106 right hand number 2 tank I think was one of mine i repaired! The centre tank was good for parties. I also remember (going back now) to the old belfast we used to play 5 a side in those and the argosys!

when I was there the average height of the blokes in the tank team was about 4 feet! They used to pick the small blokes. I'm not very tall so I got picked when I first arrived in base hangar at BZN as I was rather wimpy! After a few months of karate and working out they had to take me off the team yahooo IT WORKED! I was then too braod to go through the access panels between tanks. Oh the smell of Avtur still lingers on me now - I wish they would bring out an Avtur after shave

Ahhhhhh PRC.... spent many an hour in a hotel waiting for that stuff to cure

Don't think I'd be much use in the tanks, at 6'1".... few Anyway, I only break 'em

Tonks

alas methinks a truer word hath not been said

you bend em - we mend em! Poor old girl its amazing with the abuse all the baby pilots give them they lasted more than 10 years Flown quite a few jump seat sorties on circuit bumps.......but thats for another day - time for bed......said zebedee

Laurieg wrote:Had a good chorkle yesturday. Took 807 out for runs, called the tower for clearance and they said I could start as long as I kept it quiet

I had a similar experience running 7Q-YKH on the BCal Maint area at LGW. We were running at high power to troubleshoot a surge problem. In one of out quiet moments we could see the Engineering Manager (one below the Engineering Director) striding across the apron towards us. He came up to the cockpit and asked if we could run it a bit quieter as the people in the offices were complaining!!!!

I was amazed that an ex-engineer (of the old school) would even make such a request

I reached under the FE's table and turned the volume down.