FIX BAYONETS!

Sometimes, it takes a ridiculously small thing to render a military aircraft non mission capable, i.e, it can’t fly.

Since there are thousands of parts flying in loose formation anytime a helicopter takes off, there is no way a detachment aboard an icebreaker north of Alaska can carry enough spares to cover every contingency. So, those things that never break don’t rate having a spare. Those things that break rarely probably don’t rate a spare. We only had room for those things that were likely to really be needed, which still amounted to hundreds of spare parts. From the really little, like cotter pins, bolts and nuts; to the pretty good sized, like one complete jet engine, a main rotor transmission and a couple of spare rotor blades, we had a good selection.

Of course, being good, law abiding types, we followed Murphy’s law. The springs on the radio rack NEVER broke, so we had no spares. On this trip, though, one of them DID break.

This being in the ‘old’ days, radios still had some vacuum tubes in them even if they were mostly transistorized. The vibration inherent in a helicopter will not treat those tubes kindly, so the entire rack of radios was shock mounted. The rack was about 3 feet tall, 3 feet wide and 1 foot deep. It sat on four heavy duty coil type springs and was secured to the bulkhead with a couple of lighter duty ‘C’ shaped, leaf type springs. It was one of these that broke during one of our flights and I thought the rack was going to dance right out the door. Amazing what losing one point of contact will do.

Even though we were sure we didn’t have a replacement; we spent several hours going through all eighteen boxes of parts just to make sure. Without that spring, we couldn’t fly without shaking all the radios to pieces. Not a good idea.

Taking a break while someone started working on a request to have a replacement shipped to us from the East coast; I was relaxing with a can of Orange ‘Fanta’ soda when a thought popped into my head.

The broken spring was aluminum. (Tempered, of course, and manufactured to exacting specifications, but still…) The soda can was also aluminum. (Not tempered. Specifications? Probably not… But, what Coast Guard maintenance doesn’t know can’t hurt them, right?)

I hied myself up to the hangar and cut off the top and bottom of the soda can, then measured it against the broken spring. Rats! Long enough; wide enough but only half the thickness I needed. There was only one answer. I was going to have to spend another 25 cents for a second can of pop.

I cut two pieces to size, one slightly larger than the other. Smooth the edges to prevent stress fractures, fold the edges of the larger over the smaller to bind them closer together and drill a mounting hole in each end. Oh, and make sure the Fanta label is facing out, even though it’s hidden behind the radio rack for its entire life.

My boss didn’t think it would work. The pilots didn’t think it would work. For that matter, I didn’t really think it would work; I just hoped it worked long enough to keep the bird flying until the real part showed up.

Surprisingly enough, it did work. We got busy with day to day operations again, the real part never did show up and we forgot about the whole incident.

After we returned to Coast Guard Air Station Mobile, Alabama; that particular helicopter came due for a major overhaul. It was flown to Elizabeth City, North Carolina where the Coast Guard does such business and disappeared from our ken. That is, it disappeared from our ken until the day that an official message appeared. The message was enquiring about the appropriate National Stock Number for a part they had found when the aircraft was stripped down for overhaul. Included in the message was a photocopy of a leaf spring carrying the ‘Fanta’ logo……..

Our Hero