I acquired my first Jaguar in 1968 after leaving the Air Force and going to work for Hughes Aircraft Company. I missed flying fighters and did not think I would be flying again - so the E-type was my substitute. It now has over 250,000 miles and is currently in restoration. I helped run a Jaguar restoration shop for years and accumulated a small collection: a 55 XK-140 OTS MC, 4 Mark V FHCs, A Mark V DHC, '53 Bentley R-type, and rebuild a 420 in England for my use while there. Other than servicing under warranty I have done all the maintenance and restoration on these myself until recently. I had a critical accident while working on the Bentley in 1992 that has slowed me down some and I have needed help. While I was in rehab and in the hospital most of my collection was trashed by vandals and people I trusted to watch my property. So now I am trying to get some of them back in superb condition. I also have a number of more recent Jaguars that are in my daily drivers - XJ8s and an XK8. It is great to talk to everyone here and I appreciate all the help you have been. Take care.

 

Missing items in technical descriptions and manuals

As a person who has spent 52 years working and maintaining/restoring airplanes and automobiles I feel that I am rather qualified to speak about this. It is absolutely appalling the poor manuals and the scripts/technical descriptions that are the rule and not the exception when dealing with sophisticated aircraft and vehicles. I’m a former fighter pilot, flight test engineer/pilot, airline pilot, university aviation professor and owner/restorer of many different aircraft and primarily English automobiles. I have dealt with and have written (F-14, F-15, Advanced LOH, Apache, B-767 Etops, etc.) aircraft operation manuals/scripts and any number of modern and classic automobiles. Too often existing materials are extremely poorly written, especially if you were not intimately familiar with the vehicle. It has always amazed me that some of the prominent Japanese car manufacturers do not seem able to find someone proficient in writing in English to prepare their vehicle manuals.

As one who was in charge of testing/documenting the intricate radar and weapon systems in many modern fighters (F-14, F-15, Viggen, Advance OV-10, A-7, etc) and attached weapons systems (laser designators, AIMs and ARMs, laser guided missiles, etc.) it was extremely important to be able to communicate clearly how to effectively operate the systems. Literally it was a life or death matter – but so are automobiles. Several runs in simulators were done while using various scripts to see which were the clearest and most succinct. Then we would bring in very experienced pilots and have them perform various scenarios. The final test was to bring in less experienced pilots who were not familiar with the aircraft or systems to see if the directions were clear to them and that they could perform the necessary tasks. It was only by looking at someone new to the system that we could see if our writing was clear and effectively transferring the necessary information. It doesn’t seem that anybody even bothers to crosscheck their final writings nowadays, much less see if they clearly explain the situations.

I wish I could say that this was limited to any particular company or vehicle. But it seems that this inability to clearly write technical information is almost universal. When I come across writings in manuals or websites that can be misleading or are missing important information for the newcomer I will try to point that out in the forum. I hope this is not seen as a criticism or being a pain in the backside. I think the contributors to the forum are pretty amazing. Take care.

 

Welcome to Jaguar Forums 49Markvman,

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Welcome

 

welcome to the forum - enjoy!!!

 

Welcome to the forum 49Markvman,

Good to have you with us and thank you for your introduction message. I am pretty sure we all will learn from your experiences.

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Cheers,
Caglar

 

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Thank you all for your Messages and kind words. I thank you in advance for your help. Take care