Engineers' Terms Deciphered

[old man emu]

Since the majority of you aren't LAMEs or L2s, it's up to Old Man Emu to enlighten you on the meaning of a number of terms your might hear if you are in the vicinity of Engineers.

 

1. "A number of different approaches are being explored." (We haven't guessed the right way to do it.)

 

2. "Preliminary operational tests were inconclusive." (The bloody thing broke when we powered it up.)

 

3. "Test results were extremely gratifying." (We couldn't believe that it eventually worked.)

 

4. "It represents a major technological breakthrough." (It's an old design in a flashy new case.)

 

5. "It is all NEW!" (Parts are not interchangeable with previous models.)

 

6. "No maintenance required." (It's impossible to repair it if it fails.)

 

7. "Low maintenance operation." (It's nearly impossible to repair it if it stops working.)

 

8. "Customer satisfaction is assured." (It's taken so long to get it right that the customer will accept anything that works.)

 

9. "Widespread research will indicate a fresh direction for development." (Even the tea lady is googling the Net for an answer.)

 

10. "We are following the standard." (That's the way we have always done it.)

 

11. "Give us the benefit of your thinking." (If we let you have some input, you can't say 'I told you so' when the project goes belly-up.)

 

12. "We will look into it." (We tried that already and it didn't work.)

 

13. "Give us your interpretation." (Can you figure out why it broke?)

 

14. "Please note and initial." (We want written proof that you were involved in this.)

 

15. "The project will have to be put on the back burner." (The only bloke who had any clues at all has gone on Long Service Leave.)

 

Old Man Emu

 

 

[Guest Howard Hughes]

16. "Ground tested, servicable" (We couldn't be arsed finding the problem)

 

 

[M61A1]

16. "Ground tested, servicable" (We couldn't be arsed finding the problem)

"Ground test serv", the polite way of say the pilot has fat fingers (finger trouble).

 

 

[cscotthendry]

My favourite was

 

NRTS: Not repairable this station. I used that one a bit when I HAD to change a black box that some pilot wrote up for BS reasons.

 

 

[damkia]

NFI - "Needs Further Investigation", so I am told..........

 

 

[Wayne T Mathews]

Now fair go... it's not all goble-dee-gook... Some of it's pretty straight forward. EG: "See this piece of sh*t here? Well it's fooked and needs replacing." Surely that's understandable?

 

 

 

[Wayne T Mathews]

And then there's the cranky old master chief's line from the Blacksheep, "They're not your planes, Pappy. They're mine. And I'll lend them to you when I can, dammit."