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Anyone fancy a hercules or 5?

Posted: 20 Feb 2011, 19:28
by John

Re: Anyone fancy a hercules or 5?

Posted: 20 Feb 2011, 19:37
by Garry Russell
Bit of a tall order.....5 unserviceable aircraft plus spare of a unique version of the type.#

Surely they are only of use to support the other that were sold??

Can't see an individual or eve a museum taking this on given the difficulty and cost of relocation.

Surprised Cosford or Duxford have not take any, unless I've missed something *-)

Re: Anyone fancy a hercules or 5?

Posted: 20 Feb 2011, 20:56
by Paul K
I notice that one of the Hercs at Cambridge has a Marshall Aerospace logo on the fin and its upperworks ( to borrow a nautical term ) are white. Marshalls has just won a renewed NATO C-130 maintenance contract, and I wonder if they have acquired it as an instructional airframe ? They are expanding and are heavily committed to training and apprenticeships, so maybe! :)

Re: Anyone fancy a hercules or 5?

Posted: 20 Feb 2011, 21:30
by Hot_Charlie
Paul K wrote:I notice that one of the Hercs at Cambridge has a Marshall Aerospace logo on the fin and its upperworks ( to borrow a nautical term ) are white. Marshalls has just won a renewed NATO C-130 maintenance contract, and I wonder if they have acquired it as an instructional airframe ?
That'd be the Herc formerly known as "Snoopy" (XV208 IIRC), the ex-Boscombe met Herc, recently used as the test bed for the A400M powerplant. :)

Re: Anyone fancy a hercules or 5?

Posted: 20 Feb 2011, 22:28
by Chris Trott
When they say "unserviceable" they're not kidding. Those aircraft have timed-out wing boxes. If you tried to fly them again, you'd risk having the wings fold up on them at a moment's notice. :(

Re: Anyone fancy a hercules or 5?

Posted: 20 Feb 2011, 22:34
by Garry Russell
They have spare outer wings, so is the problem with the inners and is that what happened to the fire bomber??

Re: Anyone fancy a hercules or 5?

Posted: 20 Feb 2011, 22:37
by John
Chris Trott wrote:When they say "unserviceable" they're not kidding. Those aircraft have timed-out wing boxes. If you tried to fly them again, you'd risk having the wings fold up on them at a moment's notice. :(
oooohhhhh now it becomes clear!

JR

Re: Anyone fancy a hercules or 5?

Posted: 20 Feb 2011, 23:44
by Techy111
Garry Russell wrote:They have spare outer wings, so is the problem with the inners and is that what happened to the fire bomber??
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?id= ... 201&rpt=fi

Full report on the incident Garry .

Tony

Re: Anyone fancy a hercules or 5?

Posted: 21 Feb 2011, 01:25
by Chris Trott
And if you don't want to read the whole report, the inner wing box is (and has always been) the largest point of stress on a conventionally-built aircraft. This structure endures the most stress. On modern jets, the wing is designed to flex and relieve some of that stress by using the wing to absorb shocks of things like turbulence. However, on older aircraft like the Convairliners, DC-3 thru DC-7, HU-16 Albatross, C-130's, C-141's, C-5's, and even the Belfast, the inner wingbox structure doesn't get this "load relief". With the C-130s and C-5's specifically, this stress has caused cracking. On the C-5, this resulted in the redesign and re-winging program that resulted in the C-5B and serious weight restrictions on the remaining C-5A's. On the C-130, this resulted in the C-130H and C-130J, but they still have a life limit on their wing box before they have to be rebuilt. Lockheed has put together a program to install new wing boxes on some aircraft, but it's a very expensive process to do. As a result, with the C-130J's coming online, most operators are simply retiring the older C-130 models as the wing boxes "time out" or develop uneconomical cracks.

Re: Anyone fancy a hercules or 5?

Posted: 21 Feb 2011, 05:01
by Paul K
Hot_Charlie wrote:
Paul K wrote:I notice that one of the Hercs at Cambridge has a Marshall Aerospace logo on the fin and its upperworks ( to borrow a nautical term ) are white. Marshalls has just won a renewed NATO C-130 maintenance contract, and I wonder if they have acquired it as an instructional airframe ?
That'd be the Herc formerly known as "Snoopy" (XV208 IIRC), the ex-Boscombe met Herc, recently used as the test bed for the A400M powerplant. :)
Ah, thanks for that Charlie. I remember Snoopy very well. Do you know whether it now belongs to Marshalls, what with the fin logo and all ?