4 ms·

When USA and Soviet Union were building more impressive fighters and bombers to threaten each other, Britain and France collaborated on a craft that in some way

When USA and Soviet Union were building more impressive fighters and bombers to threaten each other, Britain and France collaborated on a craft that in some ways was so much better than anything else, and it was for peaceful purposes. I think the most fascinating part was making it really operational and reliable. That's a very hard problem. AFAIK it has more supersonic time collected than all the other aircraft combined. And if you look at military jets, they have a mind boggling amount of maintenance hours for every flight hour.

newjersey 10y ago
I have no idea what ratio is a good ratio and what's a terrible ratio so I googled it and the first link said the Boeing C-17 globe master iii specs say only 20 aircraft maintenance man-hours per flying hour https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/16121/how-should-the-number-of-maintenance-hours-per-flight-hour-for-the-c-17-be-inter https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/16121/how-shoul... I don't know anything about flying but I assume there's a limit to amount of the parallelization you can do? Can twenty technicians finish the maintenance in an hour? More importantly, how long can you put off this maintenance? Do I have to spend this before each flight or can I delay this as a batch process later in the week? Sorry for stupid question
- Gravityloss 10y ago
  I think it's a very good question. For commercial aircraft, this article would suggest massively less wall clock hours in maintenance than in flight, about a ratio of one to ten (assuming 12 flight hours per day and 16 hour days in maintenance). Maintenance man-hours would be about three per flight hour. So comparable to the cockpit crew. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_maintenance_checks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_maintenance_checks A check: 500 hours of flying, 20 hour, 200 man-hour (0.04 h/h, 0.4 mh/h) C check: 2 years of flying: 2 weeks, 6000 man-hours (0.03 h/h, 0.7 mh/h) D check: 6 years of flying: 2 month, 50,000 man hours (0.03 h/h, 1.9 mh/h) EDIT: this doesn't include unscheduled maintenance.
  - Gravityloss 10y ago
    And to compare to military planes, the B-1B: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_B-1_Lancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_B-1_Lancer "With upgrades to keep the B-1 viable, the air force may keep it in service until approximately 2038.[133] Despite upgrades, the B-1 has repair and cost issues; every flight hour needs 48.4 hours of repair. The fuel, repairs and other needs for a 12-hour mission costs $720,000 as of 2010.[134] The $63,000 cost per flight hour is, however, less than the $72,000 for the B-52 and the $135,000 of the B-2.[135] "
usrnm 10y ago
> When USA and Soviet Union were building more impressive fighters and bombers I'll just leave it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-144 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-144

newjersey 10y ago

I have no idea what ratio is a good ratio and what's a terrible ratio so I googled it and the first link said the Boeing C-17 globe master iii specs say only 20 aircraft maintenance man-hours per flying hour https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/16121/how-should-the-number-of-maintenance-hours-per-flight-hour-for-the-c-17-be-inter https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/16121/how-shoul... I don't know anything about flying but I assume there's a limit to amount of the parallelization you can do? Can twenty technicians finish the maintenance in an hour? More importantly, how long can you put off this maintenance? Do I have to spend this before each flight or can I delay this as a batch process later in the week? Sorry for stupid question

Gravityloss 10y ago
I think it's a very good question. For commercial aircraft, this article would suggest massively less wall clock hours in maintenance than in flight, about a ratio of one to ten (assuming 12 flight hours per day and 16 hour days in maintenance). Maintenance man-hours would be about three per flight hour. So comparable to the cockpit crew. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_maintenance_checks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_maintenance_checks A check: 500 hours of flying, 20 hour, 200 man-hour (0.04 h/h, 0.4 mh/h) C check: 2 years of flying: 2 weeks, 6000 man-hours (0.03 h/h, 0.7 mh/h) D check: 6 years of flying: 2 month, 50,000 man hours (0.03 h/h, 1.9 mh/h) EDIT: this doesn't include unscheduled maintenance.
- Gravityloss 10y ago
  And to compare to military planes, the B-1B: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_B-1_Lancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_B-1_Lancer "With upgrades to keep the B-1 viable, the air force may keep it in service until approximately 2038.[133] Despite upgrades, the B-1 has repair and cost issues; every flight hour needs 48.4 hours of repair. The fuel, repairs and other needs for a 12-hour mission costs $720,000 as of 2010.[134] The $63,000 cost per flight hour is, however, less than the $72,000 for the B-52 and the $135,000 of the B-2.[135] "

usrnm 10y ago

> When USA and Soviet Union were building more impressive fighters and bombers I'll just leave it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-144 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-144