Old aircraft keep going… and going…

[Kickaha]

he whole thing is built entirely around that gun

GAU-8 Fuck yeah

[jonbuoy]

$150 million to keep a B52 flying for another 30 years? Damn!

Probably still cheaper than servicing a Ducati for that long.

Thats probably only a scratch on the real running costs 40,000 gallons of fuel to fill up at 5$ a gallon would soon add up over the years.

[marty]

The Warthog was designed for a purpose and to a spec. It was to operate at low level and low speed to give plenty of time to aquire and stay on target, while being fast enough to get to and from the battle ground quickly. It was to protect the pilot from ground fire, and have the engines positioned to make it difficult for shoulder fired IR SAMs to get a lock. And if a missile should hit an engine it would be far enough away from the fuselage to minimise any collateral damage while still being able to fly and fight on a single engine.

Its a pity modern designers don't follow the same principles.

Word has it they dropped off a gun and ammo weighing 8000 kilos at Lockeed and said 'build a plane that can carry this please'

[pete376403]

Pic of B52s stored in the desert prior to scrapping. They must have built a shitload of these things. Hard to comprehend how much money was spent building, maintaining and finally destroying these.

[pzkpfw]

They destroyed them out in the open as much so that Soviet spy sats could "watch".

(They used huge guillotine (sp?) things to snick the wings off...)

It was part of the verification process both sides used when arms limitation talks resulted in agreements to cut down the numbers of bombers.

[marty]

Thats probably only a scratch on the real running costs 40,000 gallons of fuel to fill up at 5$ a gallon would soon add up over the years.

I've got a 4 year old $40000 vehicle that I've done 200000kms in. It has averaged 10.1 litres of fuel/100km in that time. At a conservative $1.50/l of fuel, that's just over $30k in fuel.

If I continue to do 50k kms/year in it for the next 10 years, at $7500/year in fuel, it will easily cost twice more than the purchase price.

the cheapest part of a plane is buying it.

AirNZ paid about $50mil for its first 747-400 back in 1991. It did 90000hrs before being broken up. Burned about 10 tonnes of Jet-A/hour for its whole life. Carries about 64000 gallons/250000 litres. Jet-A is currently sitting at US$85/barrel (42 gallons/168 litres).

someone do the math please

[pete376403]

90,000 hrs x 10 t/hr = 900,000 t x 2240 = 201600000 lbs / 6.82 (Jet A1 6.82lbs/gall)= 29560117 gall / 42 (gal/bbl) = 703812 bbl x $85 /bbl = $59,824,046 and change.

I think so,anyway

Then there were the maintenance costs.

[far queue]

Word has it they dropped off a gun and ammo weighing 8000 kilos at Lockeed and said 'build a plane that can carry this please'

I guess Lockheed couldn't manage it then since it was build by Fairchild Republic.

[marty]

that would have hurt my brain after today's effort @ work.

[Spazman727]

Pic of B52s stored in the desert prior to scrapping. They must have built a shitload of these things. Hard to comprehend how much money was spent building, maintaining and finally destroying these.

Such a shame to go and destroy all those planes. I would've had one.

[Gremlin]

And the Americans think they are better than the Russians....
Attachment 221189

The russians always build them bigger... like the Ekranoplan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lun-class_ekranoplan

[Swoop]

Beautiful sound!

[MisterD]

Then again some aircraft don't...it was announced overnight that the UK are scrapping HMS Ark Royal and with her the remaining Harrier "Jump Jets".

Sad, sad, day.

[Swoop]

Then again some aircraft don't...it was announced overnight that the UK are scrapping HMS Ark Royal and with her the remaining Harrier "Jump Jets".

Sad, sad, day.

Presumably to "assist" the need for the HMS Queen Elizabeth II carrier class.
The F-35 is supposed to be the aircraft used on the new carriers, but they are growing out of control (financially) and the US is losing orders for them.

NZ should get the Harriers. Much more appropriate for the NZ environment.

[jonbuoy]

Presumably to "assist" the need for the HMS Queen Elizabeth II carrier class.
The F-35 is supposed to be the aircraft used on the new carriers, but they are growing out of control (financially) and the US is losing orders for them.

NZ should get the Harriers. Much more appropriate for the NZ environment.

UK government is skint - NZ should make a good cash offer. Sad days.