VictoryRoll wrote:I’ve heard that when they were delivered they were parked at the far side of the airfield for a few weeks in case something was left ticking inside one
Yes, that was a requirement by a certain cautious officer at HQRAFSC
rogerb wrote:Anything in the rumour that they were disassembled, checked and reassembled upon delivery from Shorts?
No, although that was a statement made by some RAF personnel to a magazine (Flypast, I think). The RAF policy was to do a thorough acceptance check and make adjustments to restore them to the book figures. In one case they changed the minimum fuel flow setting which caused an issue in flight: when they throttled back the airflow then drove the propellor, causing high drag. What the RAF didn't appreciate was that some bright spark was saving money by not publishing submitted amendments to air publications which would then have shown a higher correct figure!
chevvron wrote:Kremen wrote:I understand that each one was almost unique with differing CofGs and limited commonality of parts...
According to Pprune, they were built in batches by Shorts with each batch differing from the previous one (don't forget they originally had a P & W PT6 engine and Embraer had to re-design them to accept the Garrett TPE 331) so a spare part canniblised from a different batch or an Embraer built example wouldn't necessarily be suitable.
They weren't really built in batches although any new modifications were usually incorporated on build at stages like aircraft 41, aircraft 51 etc, which could be seen as the same thing. Modifications whch affected spares had mod kits for retrofit to earlier aircraft, but I bet most of those were never done. Commonality was usually more of a quality problem caused by using freshly trained lads off the Belfast streets.
pprune has someone who said that some mainplanes differed in wingspan. I can't really understand that as I saw the jigs they were built in.
NB BAe also had a commonality problem with the Harrier GR5 - e.g. although mainplanes were interchangeable, the panels around the wing attachments were not and needed fettling, and the tailplane attachments were drilled in situ.