Highest time airframe ever
 

Anyone know which aircraft has the world record total time on its airframe ?

What this question has to do with "Flight Deck Rumors and News" ?

Some KLM 747-400 (PH-BFB) reached 134.000 hours and 36.000 cycles. Pretty impressive. LH had some very high time 747s as well. They fly way more than B-52s.

Probably some converted freighter like B727, 737-200/Classic and 767-200. Many are enjoying a second life as a freighter and they fly lots of cycles, with an average of 4 sectors per day for the 737.

I seem to recall it's a Boeing 707,origially built for civilian market, then taken back and converted to a EC-135/KC-135, then taken back a second time for engines to be swapped out for latest fan versions.

Ttfn

tracer would probably know
 

At least on the Boeing side I'll bet tdracer has the answer. I seem to remember he posted once about some converted 747 with a lot of hours.
Plenty of DC-3's still flogging in up north and in the islands butI'm guessing their hours are lower.

20driver

In the 1980s, Provincetown Boston Airlines' N136PB was the highest time airliner flying with around 85000 hours. It's still airworthy in the US but accruing hours rather more slowly as befits an octogenarian; currently around 91500...

Unfortunately I'm out of the loop now days (retired). I know there are a bunch of 747s out there that are well north of 100,000 hours, as well as a number of 767s. But I have no information on what the current high number is. I'd put serious money on it being a 747 though - 747s are mainly used for long haul flights, meaning relatively low cycles but high hours. Cycles are the real killer - they wear out the airframe much faster than hours at cruise, so the high timer would almost certainly be a long-haul aircraft. Before I retired (about 30 months ago now) I heard that some freight operators were buying old 747-400s with over 100,000 hours and converting them to freighters - given the cost of conversion they would have to be planning to fly them for several more years (at 3000-4000 hours/year).

I would be very, very surprised if it's DC-3 (or any other piston engined aircraft) because they require so much maintenance per flight hour - and even turbine conversions get shaken badly by prop vibrations - plus it's a low altitude aircraft which means it gets beat up by turbulence much more than jets.
I'd also be very surprised by a military aircraft - they simply don't get the usage that commercial aircraft do. 1,000 hours/year is a lot for a military aircraft (even the tankers), where 3,000-4,000 hours/year is not only common but typical for commercial aircraft.

Lufthansa's A320 delivered in 1989 are still in service. LH Technik has an ESG package that allows ops until 120 000 hours.

Bearing in mind some of the publicly info available for maintenance per hr of flight for Military aircraft (assumming there has been some disclosure hold back) then would agree it is likely to be a Civilian one.

Wondered whether Air NZ or Qantas would be one as Qantas has a 26 yr old 747-400 ......................

100 000 hours is around what 5 pilots can expect to log in their entire careers and is quite an achievement for a piece of machinery. I look at an old airframe and think what it must have gone through in it's life, how many Captains got their first command on it, how many F/Os did their first line flight on it. The places it's been, the passengers it's carried, the emergencies it's survived.

If only they could talk.

Or for something like a 747 with 100,000 hours.

1,500,000,000 litres of fuel used

Thanks but only from the calculator to the post - will correct.

The oldest airframes involved in accidents, based on the aviation-safety.net database are:
Boeing 767-375ER C-GHOZ of Air Canada: on 12 Sep 2017 it had 120692 hours and was subsequently repaired
Boeing 747-436 G-BNLL (BA) had 110578 hours on 22 Dec 2013 when it ran into a building at FAOR; broken up after that
Boeing 747-209F N704CK of Kalitta overran runway at Brussels on 25 May 2008 at 108560 hours

Two airframes in the ASN database had over 100.000 cycles:
DHC-6 9M-MDM of MASwings: 108882 cycles in 30 years in service
DC-9-14 XA-BCS of Aero California: 102000 cycles in 37 years in service

To give som perspective, the Coastal Express MV Lofoten, trading with pax and goods up and down the coast of Norway, had 300.000 hours logged in 2015, on the original main engine. She's still running strong.
Per

Perhaps noteworthy that of the three accidents cited by Safe-T, none were due to failure of the airframe.

Per, arrived back from Norway yesterday, having passed a recently refurbished 1956 Hurtigruten ship just before we docked at Bergen.
Didn't catch her name though, but don't think it was the Lofoten.
Edit: it was the MS NORDSTJERNEN, but no info on hours!

Per,

We had an excellent voyage on MV Lofoten in March 2014 from Bergen to Kirkenes. A beautiful little shipshaped ship.

What about Aer Lingus? When I was there we used to have to fly Dub - Snn - USA -Snn - Dub every time. So probably very high cycles on the B707s and B747s. Not sure about hours, though. We also had a A330 (EI - SHN) that, apparently, had the highest cycles (or hours) I can't remember, in the world. I think it ended up in Portugal. Now scrapped.

I think Brussels Airlines had the highest hour & cycle A330, OO-SFM, MSN 30.
Like EIN their A330 fleet would average 3-4 cycles per day.

Something related.....
 

The highest time pilot was Ed Long, who flew over 65,000 hours on powerline patrol...most of it under 200'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Long_(aviator)

Well, the MD-11 that bought my on line car parts to Auckland yesterday must have had some hours on her. 26 years old according to Flightradar and she didn't get a lot of ground time as FDX 75.

I know the record is presumed to be a B747 (long sectors,lower cycles etc) but could a UPS or Fedex DC-10/MD-11 be up for the challenge?

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....12867e7eef.jpg

This ex Ansett A320 is still going strong.

https://www.airfleets.net/ficheapp/plane-a320-29.htm

B777
 

Even if we said that's about 3500 hours per annum when maintenance and other down time is taken into account (including major checks, modifications etc) then this Fedex DC 10-10 has possibly done about 166,000 hours in her nearly almost 48 years of service...and still going!

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....1c7439353f.jpg
N368FE Active as at 19 April 2019. Source Flightradar24


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....e78ebc4b6d.jpg
N368FE is 47.7 years old. Source Planespotters.net


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....aff8d7aa6f.jpg
N368FE served in UA before being delivered to Fedex. Source Planespotters.net

How about one of those EC-135 built for operation Looking Glass? 17 were built. One or more was constantly in the air 24 hours a day from 1961 to 1990. And in the air or on ground running till 1998.

The two highest contenders with access to some check able data put the flight time to on ground time just in the flight time favour over around 29 years - it is just over 12 hours flying on average in 24 hours for the full 29 years.

But clearly it is possible a aircraft has done more than that, but not many.

I'm with you on that as would mean zero down time and new equipment updates etc

Would be suprised if any of them has more than 40-50,000 hrs

It is true only for the feeder aircraft like 737/757 and large part of 767/A300 fleet which are mostly oriented for overnight feeding in and out of hub. Longhaul freighters are typically flying round the clock, I believe CargoLux had one of the highest average utilisations in the industry ca 17 hours per day.

DC/MD10-10 is not a long haul aircraft, it is doing between 1 and 4 sectors a day, 1 to 2 hours each and weekend stop. Back in 2006 this airframe was reported at 73k FH and 30k FC. I would be surprised if she is doing more than 1500 FH per annum these days.

Per the same source G-BNLP was at 120,443 on 5/9/18. It was parked up in December, presumably retired. NLN still pounding around 15hrs/day when not on maintenance so has probably caught up and overtaken NLP by now. NLK was over 120k this time last year and only retired in January so that could also be a contender.

Some of the MK Airlines 747's were pretty leggy too but not quite as high as the BA ones.