View Full Version : Bulldog spar mod.
Anybody out there own a Bulldog and had the spar mod done.
Thinking of buying one and would be interested to know the likely down time and cost of having this done. Thanks.
I believe G-CBBC has been done.
sharpend
6th Nov 2012, 18:47
Only ones done are an RAF one a long time ago and Malaysian one. DH support have 5 kits I'm told. One will be tried on their own Bulldog. Two will be used on Ultimate High aircraft. When the first one is done, they will set a price... could be between £15K and £35K. That may depend on how many Bulldogs are modified. No venue for the work has yet been decided upon. The BAe original estimate was for 500 man hours plus £10K for the bits. It is assumed that the final price will be less. The new mod kits will be slightly different as it is now impossible to get some of the bits. Timing looks like next spring for the first ones.
bingoboy
7th Nov 2012, 16:39
500 man hours plus £10K :ooh:
Am impressed by both figures but then local bmw shop just offered to charge wife's mini battery for 1 man hr and £94.!
Anyway is there a breakdown of what parts one pays £10k for and how LAA effects man hours?
A and C
7th Nov 2012, 17:52
Wonder why the government chopped up those new Nimrod's ? It was to show BAe that they would no longer be suckered into another progect that BAe could massively overcharge for. The first time the government dropped the hint was when the Bulldog life extension program was ditched in favour of the Grob 115 Tutor, Unfortunatly for BAe that not being very bright they failed to get the hint.
It might take 500 man hours to do the first aircraft as you sort the problems and tooling buy by aircraft 5 or 6 I think that you would get the job down to just under half the time it took to do the first aircraft.
sharpend
7th Nov 2012, 20:12
DH support hope to get this time down. I did chat to an independant aero engineer who thought 250 hrs might be possible eventually. At £50/hr that is only £12500 + cost of parts. But don't forget the dreaded VAT!
The official definition of a homebuilt aircraft is that it takes more than 500 hr to build. In that context these sort of estimates look pretty sad. Yes it takes quite a while to strip and sort things out. But at the end of the day A&C hs nailed it - this is a methid of extracting money from HMG - it has very little to do with real engineering.
My aorrame had has a major strength upgrade - it took us about 30 odd hours - including upgrading the centre section and balancing the ailerons.
It simply cannot take this sort of time for straight forward mods!