Just to finish off about Canberra DV panels – it was of course a simple part of the a/c which gave us little trouble but I remember one little problem we had on the OCU back in the early 70’s
– On one of our a/c the knurled thumb nut which was used to latch the panel closed had fallen off (it was usually ‘retained’ so normally would not fall off).Somebody reported it to our chiefy (I cannot remember if the guilty party was Air or Groundcrew) – probably reported using a variation of ” It came off in me hand Chief ! ”.So we had to do an all trades loose article search after a quick look had failed to find the damn thing.
We spent the best part of 2 weeks delving into all the nooks and crannies of the cockpit,all just torch and mirror of course and perhaps an occasional trawl with a magnet (fibre optic shufti scopes were still a long way off 😀 ) – but no luck,none of us could find it.
So after almost 2 weeks we put the cockpit back together and the Boss (Sqn Ldr) took the a/c up for an inverted flight check,just as soon as he had rolled inverted – the knurled nut fell ‘up’ (down) into the fishbowl canopy and he caught it,relief all round and the job card could be cleared.But where had the nut been hiding ? one of life’s little mysteries !