Originally Posted by
Australopithecus
Its a bit disingenuous to compare the longevity of an aircraft with no modern equivalent doing a mission considered to be essential supported by a bottomless well of money. None of those things are true of civilian turboprops.
The basic airframe might still be good, but which new engine is in that thrust class? Who would pay the eye-watering money for a modern avionics integration and certification? A development program like that would simply be unaffordable even if you could get someone to do the engineering.
Not trying to be disingenuous, merely to point out that if properly maintained there are airframes happily plodding along for many decades longer than first imagined.
New engine? New builds of the current CT7, then in time model upgrades to the CT7, or new engines when the numbers make sense - I hadn’t heard of the hybrid electric idea so thanks 43Inches! And the avionics arent necessarily requiring upgrading for now, I’m just thinking that as the regulatory requirements change over the years incremental updates can be made, eg dual FMSs or whatever. And as systems stop being supported either find secondary suppliers or work out the point at which a full upgrade becomes worthwhile. As was done when the CRT avionics displays were no longer produced and the drop-in LCD units were sourced to keep things going.