Ageing aircraft safety- your thoughts to help a student...

[paperwriter]

Hello to all, I am an engineering student writing a research paper for a transportation class and would like to know your opinions on ageing aircraft safety??? Thanks in advance, Justin

[Flight Detent]

Hi 'Paperwriter',
As far as I am concerned, the 'older' big jets are a much better setup than most of the newer ones.
You simply can't beat a full-time three man cockpit, doesn't matter how many supernumary crew or computers you might have aboard!
But I'm an old fart, so I DO know the difference.
There are numerous examples about where, if there had been a professional Flight Engineer aboard, the incident/accident probably would not have happened.(I stress the word professional here, since the FAA system has most of it's FE seats being kept warm with junior pilots, just waiting for a window seat - not a professional at all!)

I still get nervous flying as a pax on these new-type aircraft, 'cause I know what goes on in the cockpit, and there is nobody keeping an eye on business!

I for one will not be darkening the door of this new A380 when/if it ever flies - too many people - not enough human input to the final primary controls decisions!!!

When airlines advertise 'All new fleet' and the like, I keep right away, knowing they will be operating at least some Airbus types.

If it isn't Boeing, I'm not going!!

It's just the way I feel

You have a good one!

[avioniker]

If you're talking about reliability and quality of construction I'd MUCH rather be in an aircraft that's been through at least one "Heavy" check.

I am constantly amazed with the (daily) findings that can be traced directly to manufacturing slip-ups. After a plane has been through its first heavy the vast majority have been found and corrected.

I have spent many a month on a twenty year old 747 (in which I had a role in its last heavy) and felt infinitely more secure than I did on planes under four years old.

(Just the personal opinion of one old pilot/engineer/mechanic)

[UNCTUOUS]

A search for ATSRACS on Google should get you closer to the wiring dimension of the problem (as brought out in the excellent NatGeo funded Cineflix production of "Mayday - Fire on Board". tThat has been showing around the traps recently (the Swissair 111 crash).

As Flight Detent infers, that type crash just never would have happened if there'd been a professional FE aboard. In my experience of inflight smoke and fire, having an FE is as good as ten fire extinguishers. Most of them are hands-on guys from the hangar workshops and they know how to tear the cabin lining down to get to the root of the problem. Then again it's amazing how much damage an FE can do cosmetically in the process (but who cares about that?).

[Genghis the Engineer]

I'm not sure these chaps are likely to help your essay much, nor probably can I. But, do a library search on recent conferences by both the RAeS and the AIAA - it's been a hot topic over the last couple of years and there are a lot of papers that should help you.


However, a few thoughts that I've picked up around the Bazaars...

Big issues are in general...

- Availability of spares
- Integrity of old spares
- Suitability of modern fuels and lubricants
- Lack of sim availability for crew currency and conversion training to modern standards
- Handling qualities not always being to modern standard either
- Manufacturing / maintenance techniques used with which modern crews are often unfamiliar
- Lack of current manufacturer support when you hit a snag.

Overall, if these and a few other problems are solved, and the aircraft are operated within the envelope for which they were designed, safety should be pretty much equivalent to modern types. In general operating costs will be much higher due primarily to fuel consumption and maintenance man-hours, but investment value much lower. So older aircraft, even pre-WW2 on occasion, can be a good commercial investment if an operator needs the asset but is planning to fly very few hours.

One other thing, a lot of the remaining fleets, and thus sources of parts of older types exist on the registers of "less respectable countries". This can cause severe paperwork problems as "first world" aviation authorities such as UK-CAA or FAA are rather disinclined to accept parts-release paperwork from such countries. A classic example of this is UK based Piper Pawnees, for which spares are readily available - from Argentina, not the UK government's favourite country at the best of times. So, you can buy all the spares you want, but UK-CAA won't let you use them.

Hope this helps a bit, but you might find it helps to post Engineering questions in "Engineers and Technicians", rather than here or certainly "Rumours and News". (Hint for new players, post once and in the right forum or you lose friends quite quickly.) These folks are giving "pilot answers" which are probably of limited relevance to an Engineering report.

Best of luck,

G

[DubTrub]

There are several FAA articles on this subject, and by the fact that the thread originator did not specify the type of aircraft he is intersted in, I post links to ageing light aircraft here.

www.faa.gov/certification/aircraft/aceagingbestpractices.pdf

also

www.faa.gov/certification/aircraft/aceagingchecklist.doc

[edit: whoops, "paperwriter" did say transportation class, my aplogies, but I'll leave the links there anyway]