Health and Safety shoots down entire RAF

Then of course there was that privately owned Spitfire that crashed at an airshow some years back. CAA determined it had been flying on one magneto for six months or so.

H&S? I went to my Dads last weekend to demolish an old shed, so I put on my hardhat - Dad said "there is no H&S nonsense here" so I through it back into the car. Banged my head twice - "That's because you are used to wearing a hard hat instead of looking what you are doing!". Anyway, won a nice little bandsaw out of the escapade

Steve

(But I didn't find anymore SuperAdept's Neil! - but a stash of old gear boxes - if you are a Singer 9/10/Roadster rennovator 30's/40's, drop me a PM)

Seems odd that they have grounded all the Merlin engined aircraft, there will be 4 or 5 different Mks of Merlin among those planes, and they are quite different in power alone, although the basic engine is pretty much the same.

Perhaps they found an oil leak, might have to change them all to Packard Merlins.

Ian S C

Edited By Ian S C on 17/08/2017 13:36:43

If you fancy having a bit of cruel fun at your dad's expense, mock up a letter from a 'Not Your Fault Accident' Claim company and send it to him. Say that you have suffered a whip-lash injury and will be unable to work for at least a year and are claiming £300,000 in consequential damages. Follow this up with a forgery from the Elf and Safety Enforcement Division notifying him that he failed to report the accident, and they are prosecuting in the Crown Court where the penalty is an unlimited fine, or  imprisonment not exceeding 2 years, or both. Please will he supply the name of his solicitor and a copy of the Risk Assessment?

No doubt he can take a joke and won't have a heart attack or soil himself.

Seriously though, I strongly suspect that chaps dismissive of H&S issues have never had to sort out the administrative mess caused by an accident claim or legal action. Or to pay the fines, compensation and increased insurance premiums that result. Every H&S cynic should spend a year in his employers back office doing nothing but post-accident paperwork; that would learn `em!

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 17/08/2017 13:45:34

but the headline "Reasonable decision by engineers prevents accident that may have caused death of crew and spectators" isn't going to sell many papers

+1 for Jon's comment. The action to ground until the fault is known is entirely rational and appropriate.

The journalist seeking a headline is possibly not knowledgeable enough to have any idea of the implications, and clearly knows nothing about H&S legislation. This is not so much a legal requirement as sound engineering practice and conservative decision making on the grounds of public safety.

+1 for Cornish Jack and the Shoreham incident.

Some peoples memories are short and this combined with the fact that very few journalists today will let the truth get in the way of a good story, means we as a respected engineering forum should refrain from ratcheting up such erroneous stories. There may be others looking at our words who believe everything they are spoon fed! we should not add fuel to nonsensical embers.

But get them back in the air soon please as HMS Queen Elizabeth is desperate for some decent aircraft !!

Why don't they just make some updated Harriers. I know they're not supersonic, but is this really needed in a carrier based aircraft? The proposed VTOL is unbelievably expensive, and still not working properly.

The Harrier is a fifty-year-old design. The Spitfire was only a thirty-year-old design when the harrier was introduced.

Whilst we are at it, please can we have TSR2 back too

And Lighnings, the English Electric one...

I did say updated. The US Marine Core are still flying them. As the new carriers don't have catapults there isn't much choice, and as I said the new US plane seems plagued with problems and too expensive

Don't blame the journalist, if you follow the link in the first post you will see it is Ady1's headline.

I thought Shoreham was due to pilot error not mechanical failure.

Come to think of it, lathes and mills are pretty old too! 3D printers are based on 70's technology and that's treated like the new kid on the block.

One of my favourite English planes was the dehavilland vampire. 

Michael W

Edited By Michael-w on 17/08/2017 16:07:15

Neil,

The Harrier is a fifty-year-old design. The Spitfire was only a thirty-year-old design when the harrier was introduced.

Quite correct however it would be better to have Harriers than no aircraft at all on our latest and most ex[pensive carrier which will be a white elephant until the American planes become available. It is a bit like buying a top of the range lathe or mill and not having any tooling for it or material to work on.

The Americans very quickly purchased all our Harriers appreciating their unique abilities that were demonstrated in a spectacular manner in the Falkland's War.

Eric

Brian Ess - That was the AAIB's verdict. There are some interesting variations on possible causes discussed on a couple of threads on the Professional Pilot's Rumour Network - www.pprune.org. That notwithstanding, be it incompetence or technical failure, the results are best avoided

rgds

Bill

When the TSR2 was cancelled, a fair few designers breathed a sigh of relief! TSR2 was not our finest hour.

Steve

The F35 (JSF) stealth capability is  reliant on BAE Systems manufacturing technologies - so they are not wholly American planes. The original consortium was Northrop, MacDac and BAesystems.

Steve

Edited By Steve Withnell on 17/08/2017 22:46:34

Wholeheartedly agree with you.