Back to the Sharp End [Ohakea]

When I was posted back to Ohakea from Woodbourne I was sent to Power Plant Bay, and the same office I had been in before.

This time the room was gutted, a couple of small high holes knocked through the concrete walls,
and the room had been set up for Non-Destructive Testing [NDT].

This is finding cracks in materials without doing any damage to the material you were testing.

One way of doing this was using an old lathe with the rotating parts replaced with a pad connected to, from memory 12 volts. The tailstock [the other end] of the lathe also had a pad on it and completed the circuit.

The steel part to be tested was placed between the pads, the tension was adjusted and then the power was turned on, while the electricity was on you poured kerosene and steel filings over the item to be checked.

If there was a crack, the iron filings would stand on end, either side of the crack. Very impressive the first few times.

If the item to be checked wasn’t steel there was a dye penetration check, You sprayed a red dye over the item,[similar to fly spray], waited a short while, wiped the item clean, and sprayed an indicator over the area.

This dried white, if there was a crack a thin red line would appear in the middle of the white, again a dead giveaway.

With the lack of ventilation in the room, I had been complaining of getting headaches and not feeling well, to no effect.

Every year the Base doctor does a check on everybody’s health, drumming up business.

It was my turn to go and see the doctor, and I invited him down to see what a crack looked like.

He came down the following week, I did the big demo, he called me for a blood check, then he found the stuff in the spray cans had been attacking my liver, and I had less than a months life left if I stayed there.

The NDT bay was closed until further ventilation was provided.

They then included X-ray examinations of items.This required trips away to the other bases to do any examinations when called for.

Another overnight posting to become the Technical Representative in the Aircraft Maintainence Squadron, [AMS] any technical question the Stores had came my way.

I think it was a made up post as somewhere to put me, it must have been worthwhile as the post was still there when I retired some ten years later.

I became SNCO [Senior Non-Commissioned Officer] I/c [in/charge] of the flight store.
A stock of consumables, [rags, batteries, etc] aircraft parts [O rings, split pins etc] was held for daily consumption.

With co-operation, this became a good posting, once I had learned a little bit they started putting young stores men under my wing, this way I could train them to what the users wanted, not what the stores wanted to give. We were at exact opposites, we wanted stuff and they didn’t want to supply it.

Then one of the stores men in the main store did a check on the quantity of batteries he had in stock in main store, [normal D size, used in torches].

His records said he had over six hundred, when he checked, the box was empty. To bring the books right they had to get someone to draw,[purchase] that many as if they had used them.

We had a lot of torches in AMS, so I helped them out, every body was happy.

A couple of days later I ordered 24 batteries for normal use in the hanger, and a new girl rang me to say that I already had 600, use some of those.

A quick phone call to the Sergeant stores man and she was corrected, and I got the batteries I had requested, no further question were ever asked.

The clothing stores man was always bribeable with these batteries, from time to time he would get a ‘like new’ uniform jersey handed in, he would then haggle how many batteries it was worth.

During this period the first Skyhawk NZ 6207 crash happened. Everything that was remotely likely to be re-usable was removed from the wreck, inspected, and labeled then given to main store to hold.

A large part of my job was writing out the labels for these parts.

Every six months a stock take on each man’s toolbox was supposed to be done. Usually, an experienced officer would be given the task.

He had the option of spending a couple of weeks checking toolbox quantity's, knowing that if somebody was short of something they would borrow it for the check and return it to it’s owner later.

This made it a paperwork exercise so the check was signed off at Main Store.

Occasionally a young officer would insist on doing a physical check. He had to work around the tasks that the hanger was doing, a servicing couldn’t be held up for very long so the Stores Officer could do his checks.

This meant that he was only checking a portion of each trades toolboxes at a time, the borrow and return system meant that all the tool boxes were up to date and perfect.

Because all the tools were owned by the RNZAF and only on loan to the tradesmen there had to be a way to replace a tool that was broken.

They could be returned and a new item ordered, or if necessary, I could use the stores systems against them.

There was a Form 21 Conversion Voucher. As long as the name was similar or the part number was the same anything could be swapped for something else.

‘Hanger’ Coat could become ‘Hanger’ Aircraft and get signed off.

A standard Crescent ‘spanner’ part number 123 could turn into Crescent ‘Spanner’ Sliding Jaw Part No 123, and Crescent ‘Spanner’ Spiral Nut part No 123, as well as Crescent ‘Spanner’ Body Part No 123.

These could then, using a new Form 21 be turned from ‘Spanner’ Crescent Nut into ‘Spanner’ Ring And Open-ended 3/4” that was missing from the toolbox.

It was all in the wording.

When you were put in a position of responsibility usually an Inventory of things went with the job.

This again was supposed to be checked every six months, if you were wise about month five and a half you did your own check and then used the Form 21s to bring the books up to date.

The worst Inventory I saw was when there were three times as many Form 21s than there were pages of inventory items, and he got away with it.

Being on the worker's side in the Flight Store there were a few swindles carried out to save the worker paying for lost items. At SNCO level the Stores men knew what I was up to and they assisted when required.

While I was at Woodbourne one of the Skyhawks re-fueling probe o rings started to leak fuel during refuels.

This was a concern as if it leaked in flight the Avtur [Aviation Kerosene] would be drawn into the engine intake, altering the ideal fuel/air ratio and possibly causing an explosion.

The Skyhawk was a totally new type of identifying a part for the RNZAF. In the British system that we had used up till then, there was a Section and Reference Number. [usually two numbers and a letter, followed by a four to six figure number]

The American system used a parts book to give a part number, this was then converted to a FSIC and FIN number [Federal Stock Identification Code and Federal Identification Number] a five and eight number identification system.

The Engine tradesman looked up the FISC & FIN of the item, asked the attached stores man to order one.

The Stores man thought that the Engine tradesman didn’t know what he wanted so he checked up in the books, yes he had got it right, so he passed the order to Main Store.

The SNCO in the main store thought that the Squadron stores man was only a Leading Aircraft Man[ low ranked] so he checked up in the book, yes he had got it right, so he passed the order to Wellington Head Quarters.

Head Quarters thought that Ohakea Main Store hadn’t ordered one of these before, we had better check, so they did.

Yes, Ohakea had got it right, so they passed the order to the NZ Technical Officer in Mc Donald Douglas Factory.

Six weeks later Wellington Waterfront rang up Head Quarters, “Where would you like your new Greyhound Bus Delivered to?”.

One number had been transposed somewhere and a 50 cent O ring had turned into a Greyhound Bus.

I think it was returned to the USA as we drive on the other side of the road.

After a year, as I was still alive, I must have recovered. So I was sent back to 42 Squadron.