Am I alone in being constantly baffled by this whole saga? XM558 flew into Bruntingthorpe so it was already in half way reasonable nick, and has been hangared since then. It is not a complicated aircraft. It may have been when it was on QRA - but not now. It’s a four jet with basic hydraulics for gear, brakes, speed brakes, nose wheel steering - and PFCU’s for flight control surfaces. The electrics are 50’s technology but now that the NBS and ECM have gone the aircraft has a huge excess of amps available - generators are not a critical item - lose one and you wouldn’t notice.
And I hear that several zero time inhibited engines are on hand, and on the books. There may have been areas of corrosion that needed attention - but why these vast sums of money to get the wheels off the deck again. Apart from a conventional service of hydraulic components and PFCU’s about the biggest non-routine job I would have expected would be some re-wiring in critical areas. And what’s it cost to re-certify two bang seats?
I’m left with a feeling of the ‘man in the street’, the punter, being taken for a ride here. I’d be pleased to be convinced otherwise, but it’ll be difficult. Anyone got any real numbers on costs. I did see a listing somewhere that mentioned several thousand to service a ‘beam compass’ - which, I suspect, supports my point.
The word ‘restoration’ keeps popping up. It ain’t a ‘restoration’, or at least it shouldn’t be - as I said, it flew in………….