Aerobatic Aircraft - Airframe Life Expiration
Discussion
Hi All,
you sometimes see airframe life expectancy figures for aerobatic aircraft. There are ADs around airframe inspections upon reaching certain TTAF, but have you ever heard of an aerobatic a/c being scrapped purely due to the TTAF when it was otherwise in serviceable condition. No doubt you Yak drivers have experience of these inspections, airframe life extension mods etc. Is there an airframe life expiry on the Pitts S-1?
you sometimes see airframe life expectancy figures for aerobatic aircraft. There are ADs around airframe inspections upon reaching certain TTAF, but have you ever heard of an aerobatic a/c being scrapped purely due to the TTAF when it was otherwise in serviceable condition. No doubt you Yak drivers have experience of these inspections, airframe life extension mods etc. Is there an airframe life expiry on the Pitts S-1?
No airframe life expiry on the S1 - either the factory built S1T or the
homebuilts - that doesn't preclude that in the course of time the airframe
might reach a point where a complete strip down and rebuild is advisable.
The airframe lifetime issues associated with ex-Eastern block kit are largely
down to the fact that when these aircraft were initially manufactured, either
no civilian maintenance schedule was produced, or in the case of something like
the Yak-55, the factory initially specified a vanishingly small airframe life,
partly because the type was intended purely for the Soviet Unlimited team who
could be expected to be fairly brutal with them, but mostly in the interests of
providing the factory with a steady stream of repeat orders - since no-one
involved in either the production or use of the aircraft was actually
on an Extra 300 - a dodgy bit of fibreglass and wooden laminate - against
the 55's chunk of titanium.
The problem arises when you then want to put one of these things onto the
UK register, because the CAA then go into overdrive on the bureaucracy front,
and you end up with some wildly inconsistent maintenance requirements, which
can vary between individual aircraft, depending on who was working in
a specific bit of the CAA at the time. At the end of the day, what
invariably happens is that the operator faced with one of these situations
will stump up a large quantity of cash, the CAA will 'revise' the
maintenance schedule, and life proceeds once more. Any similarity
of the situation to a classical protection racket is not entirely co-incidental.
The rarer the type, the more ad-hoc and arbitrary the edicts of the CAA
become. The Yak-52 and 50 are fairly common, whilst there are only three
55s in the UK operating at the moment. The airframe life extension for the
52 is fairly straightforward (JW911 is just starting to cry at this point)
from the paperwork point of view, but in our case the actual process
involved the maintenance organisation initially quoting £4K, and then
proceeding to take the aircraft completely to pieces, apparently gold
plating all of the inner surfaces, having the interior leather fittings
replaced with Unicorn hide, and have Vladimir Putin himself make a
new set of gear uplock brackets - at least, when they presented the
£17,500 bill at the end of the process, that was the initial impression.
(A more detailed inspection of the bill revealed we'd been invoiced
twice for the NDT inspection of the wing bolts, which knocked about
a grand off the total). Hence my earlier comments about syndicating -
with 10 of you in a group, bills like that are an unpleasant surprise
rather than an absolute catastrophe - not to mention providing a
ready-made lynch mob to pop round to the maintenance organisation
with if things turn really bad.
However, you asked whether aerobatic airframes end up being scrapped
because of airframe life issues - and the answer is very rarely;
what invariably happens is that the aircraft simply ends up being
exported, and operated in countries (practically *any* other country)
with a more practical approach to things.
homebuilts - that doesn't preclude that in the course of time the airframe
might reach a point where a complete strip down and rebuild is advisable.
The airframe lifetime issues associated with ex-Eastern block kit are largely
down to the fact that when these aircraft were initially manufactured, either
no civilian maintenance schedule was produced, or in the case of something like
the Yak-55, the factory initially specified a vanishingly small airframe life,
partly because the type was intended purely for the Soviet Unlimited team who
could be expected to be fairly brutal with them, but mostly in the interests of
providing the factory with a steady stream of repeat orders - since no-one
involved in either the production or use of the aircraft was actually
- paying* for anything, everyone was happy. The irony is that the 55 is built
on an Extra 300 - a dodgy bit of fibreglass and wooden laminate - against
the 55's chunk of titanium.
The problem arises when you then want to put one of these things onto the
UK register, because the CAA then go into overdrive on the bureaucracy front,
and you end up with some wildly inconsistent maintenance requirements, which
can vary between individual aircraft, depending on who was working in
a specific bit of the CAA at the time. At the end of the day, what
invariably happens is that the operator faced with one of these situations
will stump up a large quantity of cash, the CAA will 'revise' the
maintenance schedule, and life proceeds once more. Any similarity
of the situation to a classical protection racket is not entirely co-incidental.
The rarer the type, the more ad-hoc and arbitrary the edicts of the CAA
become. The Yak-52 and 50 are fairly common, whilst there are only three
55s in the UK operating at the moment. The airframe life extension for the
52 is fairly straightforward (JW911 is just starting to cry at this point)
from the paperwork point of view, but in our case the actual process
involved the maintenance organisation initially quoting £4K, and then
proceeding to take the aircraft completely to pieces, apparently gold
plating all of the inner surfaces, having the interior leather fittings
replaced with Unicorn hide, and have Vladimir Putin himself make a
new set of gear uplock brackets - at least, when they presented the
£17,500 bill at the end of the process, that was the initial impression.
(A more detailed inspection of the bill revealed we'd been invoiced
twice for the NDT inspection of the wing bolts, which knocked about
a grand off the total). Hence my earlier comments about syndicating -
with 10 of you in a group, bills like that are an unpleasant surprise
rather than an absolute catastrophe - not to mention providing a
ready-made lynch mob to pop round to the maintenance organisation
with if things turn really bad.
However, you asked whether aerobatic airframes end up being scrapped
because of airframe life issues - and the answer is very rarely;
what invariably happens is that the aircraft simply ends up being
exported, and operated in countries (practically *any* other country)
with a more practical approach to things.
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