Scrapping retired jets

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Discussion

si-h

Original Poster:

123 posts

202 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
quotequote all
What happens to the aircraft parts when aircraft are removed from service ?
F3 tornados for example; are all parts scrapped, or are things like cannons, engines, pumps and avionics stored ?

S3_Graham

12,830 posts

198 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
quotequote all
Most of the things on the aircraft have an ultimate life. landing gear, engine turbine disc's or pressure bulkheads etc. These are the things that when a cycle or hourly limit is reached that will 'kill' an aircraft. Then you'd part the aircraft out. You'd either remove them serviceable or send them straight off to overhaul. Its almost never just smashed up. Only the parts with no value are left in.

Theres an entire industry built around in, here in the UK! Kemble is good to go and see the poor old 747's etc in various states. Was at bournemouth airport recently and there are a few old fighter jets laying about!!

IanMorewood

4,309 posts

247 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
quotequote all
Most retired aircraft find themselves being used for instructional purposes for a while before being robbed for spares. Eventually the bare skeleton will end up crushed and recycled.

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
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IanMorewood said:
Most retired aircraft find themselves being used for instructional purposes for a while before being robbed for spares. Eventually the bare skeleton will end up crushed and recycled.
would you take your driving test in car thats failed its MoT?

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
quotequote all
pablo said:
IanMorewood said:
Most retired aircraft find themselves being used for instructional purposes for a while before being robbed for spares. Eventually the bare skeleton will end up crushed and recycled.
would you take your driving test in car thats failed its MoT?
eh? Just because say the rear axle has broken and rendered your car uneconomical to repair, would you not sell the car to a vehicle breaker who will sell the engine, gearbox, interior, suspension and about 1000 other working parts on??


Aircraft are retired when they become "uneconomical to repair" either due to costly systems failure, an airframe at it's life limit, or for military stuff, because the avionic upgrade costs is more than a new one costs!

Ginetta G15 Girl

3,220 posts

183 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
quotequote all
With regards to retired RAF a/c they will often go to either Cosford or Cranwell for use as Ground Instructional Airframes, the former for Airman/Airwomen training the latter for Officer training. Currently both Cosford and Cranwell have a number of Jaguars filling this role.

Sadly the aircraft later generally end up on Station fire dumps or at Manston for Fire Crew training.

BlueMeganeII

338 posts

158 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
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pablo said:
would you take your driving test in car thats failed its MoT?
No not not for flying, our ground crew often get them to practice on and some are still used for taxing around.

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
quotequote all
Ginetta G15 Girl said:
Sadly the aircraft later generally end up on Station fire dumps or at Manston for Fire Crew training.
Not that often any more as it's seen as slightly unenvironmental and too uncontrolled in terms of training. Most airfields now have one of those fancy multi-type fire simulator thingies.....

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
quotequote all
pablo said:
IanMorewood said:
Most retired aircraft find themselves being used for instructional purposes for a while before being robbed for spares. Eventually the bare skeleton will end up crushed and recycled.
would you take your driving test in car thats failed its MoT?
He means ground-based training, stuff like basic engineering, towing and ground-handling, evacuation training and so on.
More to operating an aircraft than just Biggles going up tiddley up up.

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
quotequote all
Sorry I'm in the flight training domain so to me the term instructional defaults up an image of a pilot, an instructor and a two seater used for training, I thought the comment was implying that "retired" jets are somehow no longer used for operations but acceptable for flight training, hence the tetchy comment! of course, knackered old stuff is used for repair practice and ground based training. (some would argue that knackered old stuff is still used for flight training too....) We get more requests for gate guardians and museum pieces than instructional aircraft now though...

Technically there is no such thing as a "retired" aircraft, its a pile of ex life items that may never have even flown in that configuration, mainplanes are swapped between fuselages etc fairly regularly to maximise component life.... but y'all knew that! wink


Edited by anonymous-user on Tuesday 16th September 19:13

Bisonhead

1,567 posts

188 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
quotequote all
Ginetta G15 Girl said:
With regards to retired RAF a/c they will often go to either Cosford or Cranwell for use as Ground Instructional Airframes, the former for Airman/Airwomen training the latter for Officer training. Currently both Cosford and Cranwell have a number of Jaguars filling this role.

Sadly the aircraft later generally end up on Station fire dumps or at Manston for Fire Crew training.
I still have nightmares of having my top half stuck in a rear fuel cell in the Jag. Never been so high in my life! smile

Also massively disappointed when our only live ground run was cancelled because the mighty Adour didnt have enough get up and go to actually sustain itself...

IanMorewood

4,309 posts

247 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
quotequote all
pablo said:
IanMorewood said:
Most retired aircraft find themselves being used for instructional purposes for a while before being robbed for spares. Eventually the bare skeleton will end up crushed and recycled.
would you take your driving test in car thats failed its MoT?
Other than the legality of needing a mot for road use I see no reason why not assuming something trivial like failing emissions tests. Obviously failure on something critical like tyres or brakes changes the answer.

Regarding the jets they aren't flown in the training schools although you could see them still taxing, the concept is that the airmen and officers get to practice anything from fault diagnosis (symptoms as described by the instructor) to replacing hot engines or patching holes shot into airframes.

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
quotequote all
I explained my error, I don't need a lecture on how to do my day job thanks all the same, do I come to your work and tell you how to sweep up?

Ug_lee

2,223 posts

210 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
quotequote all
Bisonhead said:
I still have nightmares of having my top half stuck in a rear fuel cell in the Jag. Never been so high in my life! smile

Also massively disappointed when our only live ground run was cancelled because the mighty Adour didnt have enough get up and go to actually sustain itself...
Mine is the attempts at undoing bolts/screws/fasteners that have been undone and tightened up/crossthreaded a 1000 times before I got my grubby mitts on them. It's paid off now I'm rather adept at removing knackered fasterners on stuff offshore.

IforB

9,840 posts

228 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
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Crossflow Kid said:
Ginetta G15 Girl said:
Sadly the aircraft later generally end up on Station fire dumps or at Manston for Fire Crew training.
Not that often any more as it's seen as slightly unenvironmental and too uncontrolled in terms of training. Most airfields now have one of those fancy multi-type fire simulator thingies.....
They don't just set fire to them, but also use them for training on how to chop airframes up.

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
quotequote all
The Tornado F3 fleet went through the "Reduce to Produce" process, where they were stripped for parts to be used on the GR4 force.

I am not sure how successful this was though, there are only a small number of F3s that avoided being scrapped.

Re. aircraft used by fire sections, I think Manston (RAF) and Predannack (RN) are the only bases now with former airframes used for fire training.

Go back about 20 years and pretty much every base used to have a couple of aircraft on their fire section.


Ginetta G15 Girl

3,220 posts

183 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
quotequote all
In the late '90s I was involved in the delivery of 7 airframes to RAF Cosford for use as ground instructional trainers. Of these one ended up on the fire dump at Predannack and one was returned to Cranwell where it now resides on the fire dump to the East of the RW 01 threshold.

Hooli

32,278 posts

199 months

Tuesday 16th September 2014
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anonymous said:
[redacted]
Go back 20 years & each base tended to have more than a couple of aircraft in any state.

Wedg1e

26,760 posts

264 months

Wednesday 17th September 2014
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Max_Torque said:
Aircraft are retired when they become "uneconomical to repair" either due to costly systems failure, an airframe at it's life limit, or for military stuff, because the avionic upgrade costs is more than a new one costs!
...except when the aircraft concerned is a Nimrod, in which case you blow millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on new wings, avionics etc. and then chop them up for scrap before any of them ever flies again rolleyesbanghead

PAUL500

2,627 posts

245 months

Wednesday 17th September 2014
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I used to watch the Victors going up in flames at RAF St Athan, they looked like beached humpback Whales frown