What happens to retired airliners? See a tear-down of a 747-400 | Hacker News Reader

What happens to retired airliners? See a tear-down of a 747-400

aviationweek.com

58 pointszhte41517 comments

Kevin McCloud recently did a TV programme for channel 4 (UK), where they took a retired Airbus A320 and recycled as much of it as possible into non-aircraft related goods. I believe this was with the engines already removed.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/kevins-supersized-salvage

http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/kevins-supersized-salvage...

Even if the engines are too old to re-use, the high temperature nickel alloys they contain are valuable for making new high temperature engine parts. There is a real scarcity of that type of material.

Amazing that those winglets alone are worth GBP 400,000. It's just a few layers of metal, no?

The link below says the fuel cost per hour for a 747-300 is ~$21,000.

http://www.what2fly.com/operating_cost/boeing/747-300.php

The winglets save about 3 - 3.5+% fuel consumption. (from Boeing's website and Wikipedia)

So it only takes roughly 2000 hours of flight time to recover the costs from a used set of winglets ($650k each according to the article).

2000 flight hours is generally less than 2 years worth of flights for a normal 747-300. (Couldn't find a great source, didn't look too hard: http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/re... )

According to this they weight between 375 - 518 pounds and are ~6 feet tall, which is significantly more than they look. http://www.b737.org.uk/winglets.htm

Edit: doubled the hours, thanks bhousel

What I don't understand is, why would you order an aircraft without them in the first place,if the saving is so big?

Generally they would be older airframes where winglets weren't an option at the time of manufacture.

Also, if you are running a lot of short flights, fuel costs may not be your primary concern. For example, the 747-400D is a model meant for short domestic routes like between Japanese islands, and doesn't have winglets.

A guess, there are a lot of older planes out there in the fleets and the winglets were a later improvement.

$650k per winglet, not per set. So actually more like 2000 hours, but that's still significant fuel savings..

I was amazed by that figure as well. They are six-foot extensions that decrease fuel consumption by about 4 to 6 percent [1]. I'd imagine that insurance and warranties mean that operators can only use approved Boeing parts.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingtip_device#Passenger_aircra...

Insurance - will they pay us if it breaks?

Warranties - will they replace it if it breaks?

Regulation - will they sue the pants off us and ban us from flying if we use a non-approved part, regardless of whether it breaks or not?

A few layers of metal and airworthiness approval from every jurisdiction the airplane will fly through.

Classic example of pricing based on value to the end-user (in this case, a pretty nice fuel savings) and not on actual cost of materials. Something to keep in mind as a developer when selling your skills, software, etc...

Not so sure...consider how much is cost to engineer (probably at least a few millions + all the testing/certification costs) spread out over less than 10k units.

So where is the competition?

Where is the regulatory certification so that it can be allowed on an airplane?

I wondered the same and found this thread [1] - they are obviously priced based on the added value, i.e. reduced fuel consumption - and not on material and manufacturing costs.

[1] http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/re...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingtip_device "The winglets increased the 747-400's range by 3.5 percent over the 747-300, which is otherwise aerodynamically identical but has no winglets."

I guess that isn't too surprising but other than the avionics and engines which seem relatively standard, I'm surprised that there is such a market for the other stuff. Presumably its people keeping jets flying that need replacement seats or that video screen from a specific version of in cabin entertainment systems.

People buy high tech stuff and part it out as well, so company A will sell their servers to the scrapman who will then resell hard drives, memory, CPUs, and HBAs and then scrap the chassis. I cobbled together several VAXen that way (buying 'disposed' ones and pulling enough parts to make a whole one).

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