Some great stories from that part of the world…
One old boy was telling us how it used to be possible to buy time expired radial engines at auction from the airforce, and how the engines were really only ever about half life. By all accounts two things would happen.
1. It was standard practice for the airforce bods to sell fuel to the locals for their cars. In order to account for the lost fuel they used to falsify entries into the logs of the aircraft to account for the missing gas.
2. Pilots on the long cross country part of their training would instead fly to a local airfield where they were able to pick up chits from the two distant civil airfields they were meant to travel to. These chits were not only the proof that they had completed the cross country but it also served as an invoice for the fuel which was of course never purchased. The airfield operator would get paid by the airforce and split the money with the poor underpaid pilot who could sleep under a tree all day making sure he woke up in time to make his arrival back at base.
3. I won’t mention the ex airforce engineer who offered me some “bits” for sale. I was knocked for six when he showed me whole engines but really couldn’t believe my eyes when he swung open the barn doors to show a complete aircraft! Now, hands up, I’ve stolen the odd pen and post-it from work but this guy was in a different league!!!
🙂
Now those are great stories, Taifun !!!!
Cheers for that,
TNZ
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