The ISS isn't technically an "airframe" but it's a manned craft in our skies and must have surely clocked up the most hours, having initially been launched on Nov 20th 1998 and hasn't landed yet.

Not only out of left field, but out of this world!!

Not quite. As of today 98981:32 FH and 35991 FC.

605 is a youngster! 82,729 FH and 19893 FH. 624 & 631 are the high timers with 100K +. Interestingly 601 is only at 82737.

I flew on DC-3 N136PB between Key West and Marathon Key Florida in the 1980s as a kid. Just me, my brother, the pilot, co-pilot and one air stewardess on board. We sat in the cockpit as they started up and were allowed to sit anywhere we liked for the flight. It's one of my best memories ever. The pilots were aware the it was the highest time airframe and delighted us with the notion that it broke a new record every time it flew (and so we broke a record!).

Magic!

As of 2013 it had 91,320. Pretty impressive for a DC-3.

Upon some research I found out that one of the first A320 to fly (since 1989, still in service with Lufthansa) only has ~71000 h and ~57000 cycles. Amazing that a short haul aircraft doesn't rack up more hours.

Lufti's batch of MSN 006x, 007x and 008x are fleet leaders by flight cycles but they are not even close to AirCanada early MSNs of 1989/90/91 YOM in term of flight hours - AC has a dozen of aircraft which hit or just about to hit 90.000 FH (and 37-38k FC).

What is kind of surprising on Airbus widebody side, the fleet leaders are 4x A340-300 of TAP Portugal with 110k FH each (CS-TOA/B/C/D). And one-off AirTransat A310 which made a bit more that that.

Wideroe's are currently updating their Dash 8-200 fleet to run them out to 120,000 cycles - this in an environment of 20-30 minute legs with frequent moderate to severe turbulence in the lower levels. These a/c fly the public service routes connecting the STOL ports along the rocky Norwegian coast!

https://www.bombardier.com/en/media/newsList/details.20190405Wideroe.bombardiercom.html?filter-bu=commercial-aircraft&f-year=all&f-month=all&f-type=all&show-by-page=50&page=1&f-min-year=2002

Personally I would love to know the best guess of the highest R22 flight hours - real flight hours.

My understanding is that it's not the airframe itself that is the principal reason for retirement (and it not having any operational secondhand value), but all the fittings, the wiring especially, the control runs, the need for cabin refreshes, the IFE becoming outmoded, etc. This becomes cumulative over many of these items as time passes, and progressively impacts on dispatch reliability. It particularly applies where some of the hundreds of initial suppliers of these smaller components have gone out of business over the years, and spares and support for them becomes increasingly expensive or difficult.

I seem to recall from around 30 years ago that a Braniff 747 was reported as clocking up flight hours faster than any other airframe, possibly around 20 hours per day, six days per week. Is my memory correct and does anyone recall what happened to it?

Yes, obviously. :rolleyes:

Think that was l/n 100, N601BN which was last operated by Tower Air and scrapped in '93.

Info about its daily utilisation on this site.

In 2016, KLM's PH-BFD 135,900 hours Taken out of service in 2017 747-400

See post #52.

Thanks.
 

I missed that one. I sit corrected.

have a great weekend.

Like a car in a wreck it loses value. My guess after insurance paid to repair they "ran it till the wheels (wings) fell off" because it lost its value to be resold.