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Recently, we had an incident at work whereby a cabin fitter pushed his hand into one of those fabled positions where manual dexterity failed and quite literally, the bloke became trapped in the aiframe.
His hand and arm quickly started to swell and he became distressed. Trying to free him was impossible and he was clearly panicked.
We had to call the airport fire service because there was no way we could free the bloke by ourselves.
Along came the emergency services and the airport doctor who anaesthatised him for starters and gave him a lot of first aid to stabilise him. It became clear that his arm was well and truly stuck so the fire service took control of the situation and cut the airframe to bits with a pneumatic metal saw, whilst pumping coolant to the work surfaces to reduce arcing and sparking as well as reducing the impact from the heat created during the said extrication.
Fortunately, the bloke was okay and spent two days in hospital for his sins.
Cue one serious airframe repair.
Within one week, the damaged structure was de-riveted, cut out and repaired back to confomity. The skills of the guys who did the repair was incredible and I take my hat off to them for the speed and professionalism with which they performed the job.
But it got me thinking. I remember the hacking and bashing phase of my RAF training and realise the value of that training. Before my RAF training, I spent two years at tech college learning about material tech, tech draughting, lathing, milling, grinding, CNC and welding complete with the practice on the machines themselves. We had to produce high quality products to drawing to pass the course. I can honestly say that although I could produce good, high tolerance products, I learned more about manufacturing from the days of hacking and bashing during techy training.
Now, considering the airframe repair, the guys who did it were commanding around 60 quid an hour, all expenses paid as well. Two of the guys from the team of five were ex RAF and in my (biased) viewpoint, got the job done as quick as. Two of the five could only be considered as highly paid assistants, but that's civvy street for ya!
When it comes to the focus on hand skills training in the RAF, is it still as good as it was twenty plus years ago or is it just an education in how to use a screwdriver these days?
Is the training within the Royal Air Force robust enough to give people the skills or have we gone to a system where real hand skills training has disappeared?
His hand and arm quickly started to swell and he became distressed. Trying to free him was impossible and he was clearly panicked.
We had to call the airport fire service because there was no way we could free the bloke by ourselves.
Along came the emergency services and the airport doctor who anaesthatised him for starters and gave him a lot of first aid to stabilise him. It became clear that his arm was well and truly stuck so the fire service took control of the situation and cut the airframe to bits with a pneumatic metal saw, whilst pumping coolant to the work surfaces to reduce arcing and sparking as well as reducing the impact from the heat created during the said extrication.
Fortunately, the bloke was okay and spent two days in hospital for his sins.
Cue one serious airframe repair.
Within one week, the damaged structure was de-riveted, cut out and repaired back to confomity. The skills of the guys who did the repair was incredible and I take my hat off to them for the speed and professionalism with which they performed the job.
But it got me thinking. I remember the hacking and bashing phase of my RAF training and realise the value of that training. Before my RAF training, I spent two years at tech college learning about material tech, tech draughting, lathing, milling, grinding, CNC and welding complete with the practice on the machines themselves. We had to produce high quality products to drawing to pass the course. I can honestly say that although I could produce good, high tolerance products, I learned more about manufacturing from the days of hacking and bashing during techy training.
Now, considering the airframe repair, the guys who did it were commanding around 60 quid an hour, all expenses paid as well. Two of the guys from the team of five were ex RAF and in my (biased) viewpoint, got the job done as quick as. Two of the five could only be considered as highly paid assistants, but that's civvy street for ya!
When it comes to the focus on hand skills training in the RAF, is it still as good as it was twenty plus years ago or is it just an education in how to use a screwdriver these days?
Is the training within the Royal Air Force robust enough to give people the skills or have we gone to a system where real hand skills training has disappeared?
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