Maintainers

Martin Munn

I remember back in 2010 when I was working in the Tornado Seat Bay at Marham, we had a phonecall from BAE on station about a dodgy seat pan firing handle pin. The Nav apparently reported that he was finding it difficult to take the main pin out when he was sat in the seat. So myself and Cpl Roger King go over there, take a spare handle and a spare pin. Have a look at it to make sure nothing had worn or that nothing was preventing the pin from coming out. We both sit in the seat and take it in turns taking the pin out and putting it back in again. We couldn’t find anything wrong at all. We replaced the pin to be on the safe side and to show that we had actually been there to have a look at it. Anyway, a few days later after there had been another few test flights, we get another phonecall from BAE again, same problem same Nav. So myself and Rog go over there again, have another look and again can’t see anything wrong with it. I sit in the seat and have a look and a play, I turned to rog and said the only time the pin is stiff is then there is a bit of forward pressure put on the handle and the holes are almost misaligned. So Rog turned round to the BAE chap and said “just curious but how big is the Nav that keeps reporting the problem?” With a confused look on his face the chap says back to Rog “Well, he’s a bit bigger than most, why?” Then out of nowhere Rog says to him “Fat Nav”, again with a very confused look the bloke says “What do you mean?”, ” well, the Nav is too big for the the seat and his belly is pushing the seat pan firing handle forward which is why the pin is always really stiff to get out and put back in again” replies Rog.
The gentleman looked baffled and said “well how do I write that down in an official report”. Rog said, let’s just put it down to “User Error” .

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