The old days
My Grandfather was a flying ace in WWII. He flew Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain and also in the South Pacific, nearly being caught by the Japanese in Singapore. Although he made ace and was Squadron Leader of 3 different sqns, at the end of the war he was "promoted" to a desk job being OIC Flying Training at RAFC Cranwell.

At the end of 1948, Grandad was approached by Hawker, the company who made Hurricanes. At this stage they had outsourced a lot of operations to Canada, as the RCAF (Canadian Airforce, buddy) had bought around 650 of them, and they wanted him to go over, on a much increased salary, to train the trainers. So off he, his wife, and his 6 year old daughter (or Mum, as I now call her) toddled.

On arrival in Toronto, Grandad was quickly introduced to his new role. Unfornately, Uncle Sam's big blue flying machine had seen the shiny new, manouverable, quick beasties that Hawker were producing and wanted a piece of the action. So Hawker, as any orgainsation would do, put their best man on the job. Grandad.

Grandad, due to the rules of how pilot training was conducted, now held the ceremonial rank of Wing Commander in the RCAF. USAF, however, sent over a Major to oversee test flights. Part of this deal was that the Major had a personal aircraft for his own private test flights.

Unfortunately, this Major was a complete and utter bellend. He took every opportunity to criticise the Hurricane's performance, saying how the Mustang was "a far superior airframe in every respect." He treated my Grandad with not one modicum of respect, disregarding his combat service (the Major had none) and of course his superior rank. He also went on at various times about "how Uncle Sam saved you limey bastards" and so on. At length. Turns out he was the son of some congressman, so he got the job on the never-never.

One of his particular irritating behaviour traits was insisting that his aircraft was faulty (rather thann him being a shite pilot). This regularly resulted in my Grandad and his team of excellent Canadian mechanics taking the aircraft out of service and giving it a full overhaul about once every week, when it should have happened once every quarter. This meant that they were falling behind with the other USAF aircraft, as well as some of the RCAF ones.

One day, the Major came over to my Grandad after a flight.
"Did everything go OK?" Grandad asked
"Did it hell!" the Major replied. "Your aircraft is a piece of shit."
"What seems to be the problem today?"
"It's just not flying right. The P57, you take to the sky, you feel like you are flying the airplane. This one feels like you're gonna crash. Sort it out by tomorrow morning"
And off he strolled to the RCAF Officers' Mess, where he was also about as welcome as a case of the clap.

Grandad hatched a little plan. That night he called all his mechanics out to the hangar to (and I quote) "teach that Septic bastard a lesson in manners."

The next morning, Grandad was in his best flying suit next to his mechanics standing on the apron as the Major strolled outside. As the increasing look of bewilderment, shock and anger passed his face, Grandad smiled a shit-eating grin, snapped off a salute and said:

"As you can see, Major, we have completely taken your aircraft apart and not found any fault with it at all. Now, would you like my mechanics to put it back together again?"

Yes, indeed, lying on the apron (on a tarpaulin, of course) was a Hawker Hurricane IX reduced down to its constituent components. Including 5 jerry cans of engine oil, coolant etc that had been siphoned off. The Major just stood there in open-mouthed shock before nodding his head once.

My Grandad led him to one side "Now Major, one other matter, you may want to ensure for smooth running of the aircraft, that you don't spray any of the controls with bodily fluids again. That isn't how you make new Hurricanes, I'm afraid. Oh, and I think you can call me Sir now."

/length
( Undercovercarrot got done for gross misconduct on..., Mon 21 Jun 2010, 10:09, 2 replies)

good story but but...
didn't quite understand the end bit? Had the major pissed 5 jerry cans worth of wee all over the cockpit?
(MonkeySpunkMoped, Mon 21 Jun 2010, 17:03, closed)

Nope
Will edit for clarity, but take it as read, same hole, different residue.
( Undercovercarrot got done for gross misconduct on..., Mon 21 Jun 2010, 17:48, closed)

I liked this story so much...
I clicked it!
(sarcastic fringehead feet of clay, buns of steel, head of lettuce, Tue 22 Jun 2010, 9:20, closed)