Cutting the umbilical cord.
In early 1982, Scanray UK installed the first industrial Microfocus X-Ray system into Motoren-und-Turbinen-Union GmbH (MTU) Munich. The equipment was needed to inspect the Rolls Royce RB199 jet engine for the Tornado jet fighter.
Scanray didn’t want to install an untested prototype into a 24/7 industrial environment that far from home. However, the turbine blades in the combustion chamber of the Tornado’s engine ran hotter than their melting point. The engine’s hi-octane fuel was pumped through tubes in the blades to stop them vapourising before injection into the engine’s combustion chamber. Inspection of these tubes was critical, as defective blades would disintegrate causing catastrophic engine failure and possible loss of the aircraft. Scanray UK offered the only viable solution to the problem.
We agreed to install our prototype. While it was being used, we would build a new system and implement the knowledge gained from operating the prototype in a real industrial environment. The prototype would be on loan to MTU, and when the new system was built, it would be paid for immediately on delivery. This was a symbiotic arrangement with mutual benefits; MTU would achieve their production rates, and Scanray would field-trial the system without incurring legal penalties for downtime. I ended up living in MTU for months on end, flying to Munich Sunday nights and returning Friday evenings.
During this time, I had to meet Mr Harry Richter, head of radiography at the General Electric Company (GEC) in Leicester, to discuss a problem that also required a Microfocus solution. GEC’s problem was not as urgent as MTU’s, so we came to an agreement that Scanray would sell the prototype system to them at a reduced price, once it was back in the UK.
Harry, was a pleasant, easy-going man in his late fifties with a strong Leicester accent. We got on really well, and he kindly offered to buy me lunch before I returned to Bletchley. Over lunch, I felt I had to ask a question.
“Richter is not a common English name, is it Harry?”.
“It’s not, but I’m not English”.
“Come on! Listen to you, your obviously Leicester born and bred”.
“No I’m not. I’m German”.
“How can that be?” I couldn’t believe it.
Harry explained:
“In 1942, I was an eighteen-year-old German paratrooper fighting in the Western Desert. One day a British sergeant crept up and grabbed me from behind and told me my war was over. I ended up in a prison camp here in Leicester”.
“So, why didn’t you go home after the war?”.
“I fell in love with the prison camp’s tea lady, tea girl actually. When peace came, I proposed, she accepted, the rest is history”.
I left Harry with the understanding that once the prototype was back from MTU, it would be installed for him in Leicester.
Eventually, after long hours working with MTU Munich, the new system embodying the knowledge gained from running the prototype in a stress environment was shipped to Scanray GmbH in Wunstorf Germany.
In the early 1980s, Scanray UK was hard hit by a worldwide economic recession. Scanray’s Managing Director (MD) made it clear that if I did not return from Munich with a cheque and the prototype for onward sale to GEC, there would be severe repercussions. With that in mind, I set off for Heathrow.
From Wunstorf near Hanover, I was driven, with the equipment, ten hours in a van to Munich. Scanray Germany’s, young blond-haired blue-eyed, technician Eberhard spent most of the trip telling me that Germany made the best cars in the world, and about everything else for that matter. He seemed oblivious to the fact that the equipment in the back of the van was designed and built in the UK for a project in Germany managed by Rolls Royce Aero-Engines. I didn’t mind, I knew a lot of people who held the same view about England, misinterpreting that the ‘Great’ in Great Britain is a geographical, not a political term. That’s nationalism for you.
At MTU, there was a reception committee waiting, headed by a middle manager who I had never met before. I told him that I was ready to exchange the equipment.
“No,” he said “we have built another radiation room. We run the new equipment for a few weeks, when we are happy with it we will pay you. Until then, we keep the prototype as back-up”.
“No.” I responded, “The agreement was, we exchange the systems, and you give me a cheque for full payment”.
“That will not happen,” he said emphatically.
This argument went back and forth for some minutes. From MTU’s viewpoint, the old equipment was working perfectly, having been modified repeatedly to remove all its shortcomings.
Alone and far from home, they had me at a distinct disadvantage. Eberhard was no help, he just shrugged. In truth, he probably already knew about this in advance.
“OK. Eberhard, give me the keys to the van” I asked despondently.
They knew I was defeated.
Outside I took stock and concluded I was more afraid of facing my boss empty-handed than the gang inside. In a toolkit in the van, I found a large pair of bolt cutters. I reentered the factory with the cutters concealed behind my back. The MTU group, in a huddle discussing increasing production throughput with two systems, ignored me.
I went behind the control console and unplugged the mains power connector. One by one, I cut the four multi-core, umbilical cables that controlled the electron gun, vacuum, high voltage, and image systems. As I stepped out from behind the lifeless console, cutters in hand, I was confronted by the manager.
“What have you done?” he said.
I stepped aside to let him see. He went ballistic.
“FIX THAT NOW” he shouted.
“No, I won’t.” I replied, “You pay me the cheque, and I’ll put in the new machine”.
This debate continued until the Plant Manager, alerted to the situation, arrived on the scene.
“FIX THAT NOW,” he shouted, but I wouldn’t, and gave him the same option as I had given the middle manager.
They turned on Eberhard, who pleaded with me to fix the cables, but my blood was up, and I refused. I couldn’t fix it even if I wanted to. ‘Fight or Flight’ had kicked in, I was trembling so much from an overdose of adrenaline that I couldn’t hold a soldering iron.
The Plant Manager phoned Scanray UK and asked for the MD.
“WHO IS THIS BUTLER COWBOY?” he demanded. There was a pause “YOUR TECHNICAL MANAGER!”
The Plant Manager listened for a while and then handed the phone to me.
“Bernie, what the hell have you done?”
I explained the situation to my MD and ended with:
“You said, don’t come back without the cheque and the prototype, so I’m not.”
I got the impression that even he thought, shutting down the Tornado engine production line was not the most diplomatic debt collecting tactic. The jet fighter was NATO’s primary air defence weapon; possibly I had been a little hasty and not thought this through. There was nothing I could do about it now. I might be spending the rest of my days keeping Rudolf Hess company in Spandau Prison.
In the end, MTU had no choice, and the cheque arrived. I had the old system removed and put safely into the van before installing and testing the new one, which, fortunately for me, ran perfectly.
Scanray UK had offered MTU a 24-hour call-out to support the new system. Early one Monday morning two weeks later, we got a call from MTU, the system had failed. I dropped everything and took the afternoon flight from Heathrow and was in Munich for the evening shift. At MTU, the middle manager was standing in front of the control console, arms folded with a smug smile on his face. A quick inspection revealed a blown input power fuse.
“This fuse is blown,” I said.
“Yes, we know” replied the manager with a look of satisfaction.
I didn’t bother asking why they hadn’t replaced the fuse, I had set myself up for this. After a night in Munich, I returned to the UK the next day.
As Shakespeare says ‘All’s well that ends well’. Scanray got paid, MTU carried on producing Tornado engine blades, Harry, the ex-German paratrooper in Leicester, got his Microfocus, and me! I kept my job.