ac greatest % of life in the air

In article ,
"patrick mitchel" wrote:

What ac has spent the greatest % of it's life in the air- excluding the ac
that crashed on it's first flight. Thanks Pat

Back in the '60s, SAC was very proud of one of the Looking Glass
KC-135's that was the high time aircraft in the USAF at something like
2700 hrs. That was about 75% of the time a 707 would get in one year.

Move forward to the 90's and the AA 767's going from DFW to Europe and
back daily were averaging about 20 hours aloft out of each 24.

On a slightly different tack, I recall a 727 with about 27000 hrs total
and one of the three engines was original and had never been off the
airframe.

--
Ron

Walt wrote:
C124? Old Shaky had to spend a lot of time in the air, it was so slow!

Except when it broke down on Wake or Lajes or Goose Bay. It never broke in
Spain, HI, Japan, Germany or home.

Slow? Slow? Not compared to a C-47.
I once got a groundspeed of 270 knots in Shakey!

Oxmoron1
MFE and deaf as a stone
On second thought Lajes wasn't a bad place to break down.

20 years of data 1970-1990

Generally speaking, military aircraft rust out before they wear out; vice
versa for civil fleet.

Main result of the finding was that R&M models for civil fleet were pretty
much N/A for military.

Basically a similar missioned/similar sized civil aircraft clocks 5-10
flight hours per flight hour for military aircraft over the same period.

This may have changed, now that ANG/AFRES optempo has increased so much.
But I doubt if they are anywhere near equal yet.

Steve

"Regnirps" wrote in message
...
"Leslie Swartz" wrote:

C-141 a/B a total slacker compared to almost *any* commercial aircraft.

In 1993 we did a study using AFMC and NTSB/FAA flying hours/calendar hours
to build reliability and maintainability models . . . the absolute *worst*
commercial liner was at least a full order of magnitude higher utilization
than the absolute *best* utilized military aircraft.

Did this include the 60's and 70's? They went overhead in three's all day
every
day for years. I don't recall if they were coming from McChord or Ft.
Lewis.
Maybe both. I caught a ride on one at McChord in about '70. Great airsick
machines when loaded with guys sideways in the webbing benches and just a
couple of tiny windows and a pilot who likes to lose altitude by slipping.
Everybody was fine till the last couple of minutes :-)

-- Charlie Springer

(OXMORON1) wrote:

Walt wrote:
C124? Old Shaky had to spend a lot of time in the air, it was so slow!

Except when it broke down on Wake or Lajes or Goose Bay. It never broke in
Spain, HI, Japan, Germany or home.

Slow? Slow? Not compared to a C-47.
I once got a groundspeed of 270 knots in Shakey!

Oxmoron1
MFE and deaf as a stone
On second thought Lajes wasn't a bad place to break down.

Yes..always liked Lajes...great NCO's Club...honkin big rare
steak, bottle 'a Mateuse(sp)...then hit the bar...get
stinko...honk up the steak, stagger back to quarters...wake up
with a big head and dread the fast approaching 18 hour low level
patrol on the way home.

Thank *God* I'm retired...



BTW, what's MFE? (and I'm deaf as a post too)
--

-Gord.

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 17:56:26 GMT, Gord wrote:

Yes..always liked Lajes...great NCO's Club...honkin big rare
steak, bottle 'a Mateuse(sp)...then hit the bar...get
stinko...

Stinko - now there's a term I always thought was unique to Japan. Hadn't
thought of it in years.

-Jeff B.
yeff at erols dot com

Gord asked:
BTW, what's MFE?

Middleaged Flatulence Emitter, more pc than Old Phart.

Yes Lajes was nice, 24 hour club, dinner at 0300, breakfast at 1500, then 90
knot crosswinds on in to Rota or back to Norfolk. The cliffs on the islands
made great radar returns even for an APS-42 at 8000ft

Oxmoron1
MFE

Yeff wrote:

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 17:56:26 GMT, Gord wrote:

Yes..always liked Lajes...great NCO's Club...honkin big rare
steak, bottle 'a Mateuse(sp)...then hit the bar...get
stinko...

Stinko - now there's a term I always thought was unique to Japan. Hadn't
thought of it in years.

-Jeff B.
yeff at erols dot com

No, common in Canada, not that I did it often. Matter of fact I
wasted one talent that I have in that regard. I *never* suffer
from hangovers, never. Doesn't matter what I do, I feel fine in
the morning...disgusting isn't it?...

Some friends hate me for it.
--

-Gord.

Ron Parsons wrote:

Back in the '60s, SAC was very proud of one of the Looking Glass
KC-135's that was the high time aircraft in the USAF at something
like
2700 hrs. That was about 75% of the time a 707 would get in one year.

Move forward to the 90's and the AA 767's going from DFW to Europe
and
back daily were averaging about 20 hours aloft out of each 24.

On a slightly different tack, I recall a 727 with about 27000 hrs
total
and one of the three engines was original and had never been off the
airframe.

At least it could still remain aloft on its other two engines if that
one old JT-8D engine happened to quit. Some of the Cessna 210's that
I've hauled bags of checks in had more than 14,000 hrs. logged on the
airframe
and engine failures at the most inopportune time were almost to be
expected.
I seriously considered purchasing NVG's so I could see where I was
going
when the engine quit at night and still have various dirt roads and
cow pastures programmed into my GPS that were to be used in the event
of
an engine failure.

(OXMORON1) wrote:

Gord asked:
BTW, what's MFE?

Middleaged Flatulence Emitter, more pc than Old Phart.

Yes Lajes was nice, 24 hour club, dinner at 0300, breakfast at 1500, then 90
knot crosswinds on in to Rota or back to Norfolk. The cliffs on the islands
made great radar returns even for an APS-42 at 8000ft

Oxmoron1
MFE

Thanks...
--

-Gord.

No, common in Canada, not that I did it often. Matter of fact I
wasted one talent that I have in that regard. I *never* suffer
from hangovers, never. Doesn't matter what I do, I feel fine in
the morning...disgusting isn't it?...

Some friends hate me for it.
--

We will let you know how we feel about it, tomorrow morning


Ron
Pilot/Wildland Firefighter