Aircraft scrapping in the UK

[fathomfive]

In the USA they have huge places where old planes go to die / be scrapped and people can go in a buy parts of them to make desks etc.

So what happens in the UK when planes get old?

[steve_amv8]

Commercial aircraft often get broken up on site (as happened with the BA Tridents at Heathrow) or go to one of the quieter outposts such as Hurn/Bournemouth or Kemble

[rhinochopig]

fathomfive said:

So what happens in the UK when planes get old?

Typically they keep them flying, cannibalising the older ones, until they fall out of the sky or fail to get into the sky in the first place.

The other option is to spend billions upgrading them, only to have a cost saving drive at the end of the project, so that the one system that would have made them useful is deleted so they spend all their time sat in a hanger somewhere.

HTH.

[V8mate]

http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/showthread.php...

[Racingdude009]

They is a massive industry in breaking up planes.

Paul Stoddard who one owned Minardi did pretty well out of it.

[Silent1]

rhinochopig said:

fathomfive said:

So what happens in the UK when planes get old?

Typically they keep them flying, cannibalising the older ones, until they fall out of the sky or fail to get into the sky in the first place.

The other option is to spend billions upgrading them, only to have a cost saving drive at the end of the project, so that the one system that would have made them useful is deleted so they spend all their time sat in a hanger somewhere.

HTH.

You mean like the 2 hercules at Marshall Cambridge?...

[Eric Mc]

The US centres are really "world" centres. Aircraft from all the world go to these locations for storage and, sometimes, scrapping. The days of seeing large scale scrapping in the UK are probably over. As suggested above, I would reckon the scrapping of the Trident fleet in 1985/1986 was probably the last of that nature to be seen over here.
Individual airframes will and do continue to be broken up on an ad-hoc basis. There aircraft tend to meet their end at the last airport they operated out of.

The RAF do a lot of their scrapping at St Athan. They used to use Maintenance Units (MUs) for this purpose and Kemble was the last large centre for this. I visited there in 1976 and there were hoardes of Belfasts, Argosies and Andovers lying around in various states of disassemblage.
Last time I passed St Athan I could see some ex-tanker VC-10s being broken up.

[rhinochopig]

Silent1 said:

rhinochopig said:

fathomfive said:

So what happens in the UK when planes get old?

Typically they keep them flying, cannibalising the older ones, until they fall out of the sky or fail to get into the sky in the first place.

The other option is to spend billions upgrading them, only to have a cost saving drive at the end of the project, so that the one system that would have made them useful is deleted so they spend all their time sat in a hanger somewhere.

HTH.

You mean like the 2 hercules at Marshall Cambridge?...

Them, the Seakings, The Flying Death Bananas, etc, eyc.

[Merritt]

fathomfive said:

So what happens in the UK when planes get old?

'First Choice' buy them and use them for a further 10 years.... allegedly

[Eric Mc]

Merritt said:

fathomfive said:

So what happens in the UK when planes get old?

'First Choice' buy them and use them for a further 10 years.... allegedly

Very unfair.

Most of the charter airlines in the UK buy their planes new - although they may hang on to them for up to 20 years. The ThomsonFly 767 I flew to Majorca in last October was ex-Britannia (the service trolleys still had the Britannia logos embossed on them) and was around 20 years old. However, the 767 wasn't bought second hand. Britannia morphed into ThomsonFly when Tui took over the Thomason/Britannia group.

[OJ]

Merritt said:

fathomfive said:

So what happens in the UK when planes get old?

'First Choice' buy them and use them for a further 10 years.... allegedly

Nah, more like dodgy local airlines in third world countries who run them into the ground... sometimes literally

Edited by OJ on Monday 23 February 09:20

[Davi]

Friend of mine owns an air salvage company, they get stripped down and chewed up wherever suits the client most!

[Merritt]

Eric Mc said:

Merritt said:

fathomfive said:

So what happens in the UK when planes get old?

'First Choice' buy them and use them for a further 10 years.... allegedly

Very unfair.

Most of the charter airlines in the UK buy their planes new - although they may hang on to them for up to 20 years. The ThomsonFly 767 I flew to Majorca in last October was ex-Britannia (the service trolleys still had the Britannia logos embossed on them) and was around 20 years old. However, the 767 wasn't bought second hand. Britannia morphed into ThomsonFly when Tui took over the Thomason/Britannia group.

Its ok Eric - it was only a joke

[off_again]

They do this at Kemble! In the last couple of years they have stripped down and broken up an old 747 and I think there is another couple of planes ready to go I think.

[tuffer]

When I joined the RAF they had a load of really old and decrepid VC10's and the Nimrods were on their last legs.........That was 20 years ago and they are still in use

[fathomfive]

So is there an opportunity for people to buy harmless chunks of old plane then?

[VxDuncan]

Have you not seen scrap heap challenge?

[Davi]

fathomfive said:

So is there an opportunity for people to buy harmless chunks of old plane then?

what you after?

[AlfaFoxtrot]

There's almost always a 747 or some other large passenger plane in the corner at Kemble. Bits gradually disappear from it over the weeks, then there's a new one come in. Don't know whether they reuse any of the bits (would assume so).

[bob1179]

Eric Mc said:

The RAF do a lot of their scrapping at St Athan. They used to use Maintenance Units (MUs) for this purpose and Kemble was the last large centre for this. I visited there in 1976 and there were hoardes of Belfasts, Argosies and Andovers lying around in various states of disassemblage.
Last time I passed St Athan I could see some ex-tanker VC-10s being broken up.

I drive past St Athan everyday on my way to and from work, I never knew they did that sort of thing there. I have seen a few VC-10s knocking about but they don't tend to stay long.