Maintenance, Waddington and Australia

[Bruce Tuncks]

Waddington was an amazing story. He was an academic who knew nothing about planes, but he was an expert at reading evidence. He probably doubled the U-boat kills, and was instrumental in turning the tide of the war. 

He had to fight the senior maintenance NCO's and I reckon he only won because Churchill was the big chief.

Of course, here in Australia, we are well against Waddington.

Does anybody know more of the story?

[Old Koreelah]

Bruce you mentioned Waddington and his impact on maintenance in a previous thread. As a result of this, I bought this book, which I presume you’ve read:

 

 

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

Thanks Old K. Yep, I liked the bit about how " the old fashioned" idea that more maintenance was better than less was now confined to the sector of aviation " where we all hang out ".

But going through the maintenance jobs list for the Jabiru, I can honestly say that there are few things I have an issue with. For example, is the leakdown test unreasonable?   I think not and further think that it is not very intrusive. Some items like taking the alternator off to check the flywheel screws are quite intrusive, but these have been forced on us for well-known reasons of field failures. Incidentally, my old engine has the small flywheel screws but there has never been a problem, I think it is because the prop has always been well attached, but this is just a guess.

 

What I really like about Mike Busch is his emphasis on " reliability centered maintenance", which is not no maintenance but it is smart maintenance. The worst thing my engine has ever done was to lose a valve-seat...  Why? Because I was dynamically balancing the prop, and the engine must have got overheated.. The engine was better left alone than what I did, that's an example of dumb maintenance.

 

[Garfly]