Converting passenger planes to cargo jets costs millions [video]
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One thing I learned through listening to stories about Fedex and UPS is that their fleets are (or maybe were at the time of my learning this) surprisingly old. Or that is to say, sometimes it is surprising to learn that these leading freight companies fly planes that are several generations old, like MD-11s, or old 767s.
The reason for this is that these operations generally fly planes for just a few hours each night, being focused on overnight delivery, and hub-spoke swapping of packages from and to destinations.
And when an asset is in use for only a few hours each day, it is less important how fuel efficient or modern it is. It just has to get the job done in a basic way, and not break that often. A clunker is ok to be relatively inefficient because you only need to use it infrequently (compared to a passenger airplane, which by comparison is in nearly constant use to get as much revenue $ out of it and you want it to be economical in cost for that operation).
So these fleets have planes that are 20+ years old and feel little pressure to modernize from that point of view.
I remember realizing this fact when I heard that Avalon (Catalina Island) freight / mail is (or was) served by an old DC-3 every day. Doesn't matter how old the plane is if it really only has to operate for 30 minutes each day. I think that one retired though.
Fuel consumption, one of the biggest cost disadvantages of older aircraft, is more closely related to hours than cycles
"...
MD-11 had a whole range of issues that added up to a poor design.
McDD did the development of the MD-11 on the cheap, led by their illustrious leader HS who did everything for minimum cost. It really needed a clean sheet design wing rather than just adapting the DC-10 one (which had never been got right in the first place and had excessive drag). But the money was not provided to do this.
Madcap idea was to reduce the size of the horizontal stabiliser (the "tail") compared to the DC-10 (despite the greater size), to reduce its drag. That makes it more difficult to control. To then overcome this a computer called the Longitudinal Stability Augmentation System was devised. We're speaking about 25-30 year old computer technology here. This was meant to enhance the way the tailplane worked. Another was that MD-11 pilots were to receive "additional training", that euphemism for handling something difficult and not intuitive.
Various outcomes ensued, particularly on landing. One is the MD-11 got the universal nickname of "The Scud" in the pilot world because "you never know where it's going to land" (remember the MD-11 came into service at the time of the first Gulf War). Hence the "additional training" which concentrates on landing aspects. The second was its propensity to then drag a wing in landings that became unstable. This revealed a further poor (and cheap) piece of wing design, as the wing will tend to break at the attachment, which then leads to the aircraft cartwheeling on touchdown. For a type where only 200 were built, the number which have been destroyed in these cartwheeling accidents (which have never once happened to their Boeing or Airbus rivals) is just unacceptable.
Now the MD-11 had other poor aspects. It didn't meet its performance guarantees, which allowed a number who ordered it to walk away from it. The Pratt & Whitney engined version in particular were unreliable. But more than anything else Boeing came up with an aircraft of remarkably similar size which used just two engines, not three, and yet delivered not only equal performance but everything the MD-11 had claimed to do but didn't. Boeing spent the R&D money on the 777, and got their return.
The worth of the MD-11 didn't quite fall to scrap value, however, as the three-engined approach made it suitable for those who move high weight a medium distance - the cargo airlines. And so FedEx, UPS, and some others would pay reasonable secondhand prices for them.
The original buyers thus sold them off, and bought 777s instead. Yes, there were a range of reasons. But in the background, quietly, the Chief Pilot is telling the Chairman of the Board "that thing is an accident waiting to happen for us". As, I regret to say, the cargo airlines continue to find out. I suspect the airline's insurers had something to say as well.
McDD just didn't get their Return on Investment, and the same thing happened with the MD90 and MD95, two more adaptations done on the cheap. Out of cash, they had to be absorbed by Boeing, and their vast assembly plant area in Long Beach is now condos and shopping malls. The most extraordinary part about this is that HS got himself accepted and pushed up to the very top of the Boeing hierarchy, where his extreme cost cutting some years ago did the same again - this time going for a real all-whiz new design, new materials, plus all subcontracted out (to the low bidder of course) rather than use the traditional workforce, etc,etc. Everything different, all at once. Roll on several years from his time there, and we all know what's happened to that new Boeing type, don't we ...... ?
As was said 20-30 years ago : "The best aircraft would be - designed by Lockheed, built by Boeing, sales & markeing team from McDonnell Douglas". Notable which of the three skills eventually came out on top."
Eerily similar to the 737 MAX story except the additional training part which mcas was designed to avoid.
I saw in the documentary about it old-time Boeing employees complaining that the new management from MD was playing loose and fast. Looks like this was the culture for a long time indeed..
Edit: Oops I see you referred to that specific issue yourself later on. Sorry I didn't catch it because you didn't mention the MAX in words.
"During his years at GE, Stonecipher learned from the example set by the managerial legend Jack Welch. Stonecipher acknowledged his debt to Welch many times, but perhaps his clearest acknowledgment was his consistent introduction of Welch's patented managerial innovations in every company he managed. "
My guess would be insurance. It costs a lot more to insure passenger flights, which means that the tolerance for failures is that much lower. I.e.: it costs a lot more to insure an old piece of junk than a brand new piece of kit.
The second biggest cost is lease, which is significantly smaller the older the plane is
(also cargo doesn't fly first class)
A lower insurance (which is my guess/ opinion!) and a lower lease cost has a greater explanation value.
Brand new vs paid off makes no difference on fuel efficiency. However, the average car payment for new cars in 2023 is $716 (holy crap!), so that payment for 5 years ($43k) is going to far outweigh the $150/year you'd "save" by driving a more fuel efficient vehicle. Five years of the fuel for this 15mpg truck example is still only $750 more than the cars fuel, a little over 1 monthly payment. An older vehicle is going to have higher maintenance/repair costs but not $40k more.
I assume larger numbers, but similar ratios for planes doing short daily trips.
At that point, if you got the truck dirt cheap, it doesn't matter how fuel inefficient it is.
If you can buy something for very cheap, and only need to use it infrequently, it isn't a huge problem if it's inefficient for that use a few hours per day.
I seem to remember that there was something about the airport that meant that most newer planes couldn't land there.
There, done. 3 sentences. I don't think there was any other interesting content in the video. Somehow the video mentioned removing the seats over and over again.
I still wonder why that costs up to $30M though ...
Aircraft doors are very expensive because they are pressure doors. When you cut a hole for a door, you need to replace the lost strength in the body of the plane with lots of new beams and stuff I'd assume.
A few models that were specifically designed to be cargo aircraft for use cases that don't need it are not and thus e.g. need barriers to the crew compartment that can keep that pressurized, have only limited ability to temperature-control the cargo space or would need extra heaters for this (pressurized aircraft get it almost for free since they use heated compressed air from the engines), are limited in what cargo is suitable, ...
A well-known example is the Airbus Beluga: large chunks of metal don't care about pressurization.
- cutting a large cargo door into the hull
- getting it re-certified
there, saved you a click
I wondered if the script was generated by a bad AI. It was so repetitive and free of useful information.
FAA approval is expensive. For example: many airliners have switched to iPads to be used in the cockpit (saves weight in bulky manuals, folders, rugged laptops, etc.). Reportedly an 'FAA approved' iPad mount and charger costs well north of $3K, excluding the installation and reapproval costs.
"Positioning must not obstruct visual or physical access to aircraft controls and displays, flightcrew ingress or egress, or external vision'
So all the certification requirements mean somebody had to map out where it goes and how. Including CAD drawings, any recurring maintenance tasks, research on sub-supplier quality, troubleshooting procedures, a reliable replacement supply chain, and so on. And have all that reviewed, documented and approved for each type/subtype of aircraft it's certified on. If the process were more lax, it's not hard to imagine a problem with pilot visibility of some control (or whatever) starting a bad chain of events.
Is there like a huge number of FAA government employees that sit around waiting to be called up and then they are all flown out to some location where they frantically flip through binders of rules to validated everything is up to spec?
Then, use it as a freight aircraft, but just load everything into the top deck with trolleys that fit through the normal aircraft doors.
Sure - unloading will take more time, and there are certain types of cargo you cannot take (but you can still put them on the bottom deck!). But you can pay a lot of loading/unloading people for a lot of years with $30M saved in the conversion.
If at any rate possible, it is avoided to open the nose of a 747, tue cabin is pressurized and sealing it again properly is major PITA. That, and most 747 freighters started their lives as Pax planes, and tjose noses cannot be be opened anyway.
Through loading is obly helpful for long cargo, andbyou can even squeeze 10 foot containers through the cargo door of a MD-11. Which leaves the odd specialty cargo job and military applications. And for RoRo loading, the 747 nose is too far above the ground.