”Yes, I know, but like I said, we only sell it by the metre I’m going to cut you two metre lengths off”.Īt that stage I told him to put the Stanley knife down and to go and fetch his manager…. I then watched as he measured out a one metre length of hose on the counter and was about to cut it off with a Stanley knife. “In that case”, says I, “No problem, I’ll take two metres”. “Oh no, we can only sell this by the metre” he replied.

I actually wanted a length of about five feet, but rather than trouble his metric only mind further, I said I’d like a metre and a half. The counter had a graduated brass ruler fixed along the long edge of the counter, on his side.

He got the box down and warned me that although he would sell me some, they wouldn’t take it back if it didn’t fit…. Rather than point out his poor grasp of arithmetic, I said I’d take that instead. He climbed a step ladder, looked at it and said “No, no this is 12.7mm, not half inch”! I pointed out a box of it sitting very prominently behind him on a shelf. I told the young assistant what I needed. I went to my local Halfords, where I’d bought it from not long before. I was building the cooling system for a car and needed a length of half inch diameter heater hose. I may have recounted this tale before, but here goes: It’s not just military folk who need a well targeted kick. Engineers authorised locally to wear their own sunglasses, which pleasingly wound the army up immensely! Can’t have them, because “it’s not hot enough”. Lithium- and clay-based grease make water when mixed, which is ideal for use at FL nosebleed where the temp is renowned for being a teeny bit below zero.Īnd aircraft deployed at overseas location, based on a blindingly near-white concrete dispersal, eye wateringly bright in the sun, which was every day. Investigation reveals OEM spec is a lithium-based grease, and the IPT procured a clay-based grease, because “it met the spec and was best value for money”. First prop spinner has a grease top up, short time later, engineer walking across hangar notices there is water dripping from the prop spinner. POL IPT procures grease according to spec. They knew best, and were not to be told that they didn’t. Protests of “manufacturer specifications etc” fell on deaf ears. Units must to order a certain specification of grease and the IPT will determine the cheapest most appropriate grease to procure. One day ordering more, someone in the POL (?) IPT informs them that is not permitted. When they needed more, they just ordered more of that particular grease. Aircraft type that used to be based at Northholt, used the OEM-specified grease in the prop spinners. On ordering some oil for the Wing Sweep Actuator Gearboxes for said Tornado I was informed that item was Army controlled and for vehicle use only, on asking who had decided this, no answer forthcoming, and were they aware that a Tornado aircraft was now grounded by this daft notion, silence from other end, it took a while for some clever people to try and get ground use oil back into the RAF supply chain so it could be issued and used for the only ‘vehicle’ it was used in.It was a while ago so specifics might not be 100% but goes like this. Cannot remember which Tornado unit I was on at the time, but some bright spark saw gearbox oil in the RAF supply network and being clever and resourceful decided that gearbox oil must be for vehicles and as the Army had control of vehicle consumables the item was duly transferred to Army control, so one less item to be stored and managed by the RAF supply chain.

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