Lynx II, hull # 4225

[Robin Craig]

In my official role as Sidekick I am underemployed during these outings and spend much of the time looking at details and asking Peter what appear to be inane questions which make him think and then come up with the obvious answer, which defied my pea brain.

Sometimes, and it is rare, I ask a question that has no obvious answer.

In discussion it is obvious how the escape hatch opens on the inside, as there is a lever handle for that. The outside of the hatch has a keyhole into which a boss from the slam latch body inserts and comes almost flush to the outside, so that it could be used.

In discussion with Peter we searched the manual for a key to open the latch, the manual shows the complete equipment schedule and line drawing representations of the items. No key is illustrated.

When reading the same manual and the description of the parts and their operation it clearly states that the escape hatch opens from the inside using the lever and "a key from the outside".

There is no illustration of the key anywhere.

We surmised that the concept of opening the hatch from the outside was a good idea but in reality that notion was dropped and a key was not part of the vehicle kit.

Can anyone comment on this?

Was this slam latch (my name for it) used on any other vehicle and was there a key on those vehicles? Is there a photo of one?

This is the first of two conundrums we have found regarding this Lynx. Picture of the latch for recognition purposes.