Model Airplanes

Quick Facts:

• Retired American Airlines planes are sent to New Mexico to be torn down
• Spare parts are refurbished and sent back to Tulsa
• The MD-80 planes will be phased out by the end of 2017

All this week FOX23 is giving you an exclusive look inside Tulsa’s largest employer: American Airlines.

RELATED: Big changes as American Airlines, US Airways merge

If you’ve flown American in the last 30 years, there’s no doubt you’ve flown on the McDonnel Douglas MD-80. It’s the workhorse of their fleet.

That model plane is being retired by the end of 2017 in favor of modern, more efficient planes.

RELATED: Plane makes final flight to aircraft boneyard

FOX23’s Rick Maranon went to Roswell, New Mexico, where the planes are retired to talk with American Airlines officials about the process.

“Every plane that comes out there, it’s a little dig to the heart that they are going away,” said Matt McDonald. He’s overseeing the operation.

It’s up to him to keep track of every plane brought in and make sure the extra parts make it back to Tulsa.

“We’re the supply line to the shops for parts that cannot be manufactured or bought anymore,” McDonald said.

All the parts taken from the retired planes are refurbished and reinstalled on the rest of the planes still in service.

Article source: http://www.fox23.com/news/news/local/retired-planes-continue-benefit-american-airlines-/nnggP/

LAS VEGAS (AP) Jet engine parts found on the Las Vegas runway where a British Airways flight aborted takeoff as the engine burst into flames indicate a rare catastrophic failure, experts said Thursday as investigators released preliminary findings and began analyzing flight data and cockpit recordings.

Early findings show the failure occurred where the engine was under the highest pressure, though there was no immediate indication of what caused it or the fire that forced 170 people to evacuate Tuesday at McCarran International Airport as smoke poured from the aircraft.

“You really don’t see catastrophic or uncontained engine failure like this very often,” said John Cox, an aviation safety consultant who spent 23 years as a U.S. Airways pilot. He said the failure indicates parts sliced through the engine casing.

The National Transportation Safety Board said there was damage to the armored shell around the left engine’s high-pressure compressor, and several 7- to 8-inch fragments of the compressor were found on the tarmac.

No one was seriously injured when British Airways Flight 2276 screeched to a halt and the 157 passengers and 13

Article source: http://www.timesheraldonline.com/business/20150910/jet-engine-parts-on-las-vegas-runway-indicate-major-failure

In the alphabet soup of airplane names, a BT-67 is not a DC-3.

The plane the “Band of Brothers” jumped out of at D-Day was a C-47. Seventy years and lots of civilian modifications later, James Bond brought a DC-3 to a dogfight in “Quantum of Solace.”

The big twin-engine plane that hauls smokejumpers from the Missoula Aerial Fire Depot is a BT-67, known on U.S. Forest Service radio as Jump 15. Seen from the edge of the runway, it’s all the same plane with different paint jobs.

But not to retired pilots Barry Hicks and Dick Hulla. They were alarmed to learn the U.S. Forest Service plans to retire Jump 15 from smokejumper service at the end of this wildfire season.

“They’re saying it’s an old airplane that’s unsafe and needs to be retired,” Hulla said. “In our opinion, the BT-67 is one of the most economical, safest and capable aircraft in the fleet right now.”

Jump 15 used to be a C-47, and then a DC-3. Now it’s a BT-67, and the difference is more than just a change of letters, numbers and symbols.

The new name translates to Basler-Turbine model 67. It refers to a rebuild the plane underwent in 1991, when its radial engines were replaced with more powerful turbine motors. In the process, Basler Turbo Conversions replaced more than 60 percent of its airframe and other parts.

Hulla and Hicks argue that while Jump 15 was built in 1945 and has been flying for 18,800 hours, its critical parts are

Article source: http://journalstar.com/news/retired-pilots-fight-to-keep-missoula-smokejumper-plane-in-service/article_3dfb0ce7-e927-5b8f-a5c1-5c9b03074b3f.html

Ford Motor Co. reached a new supply deal with Alcoa Inc. that would expand its use of aluminum in the car maker’s F-150 pickup truck and other vehicles, a leg up for the lightweight metal in an industry that has long favored steel.

The agreement will allow Ford to use more sophisticated aluminum alloys that will debut this year on the company’s top-selling truck and eventually find their way to other Ford models over time.

The No. 2 U.S. auto maker already uses aluminum from a number of suppliers for the F-150’s body. Alcoa’s new aluminum-casting technology will allow the Dearborn, Mich., auto maker to make more parts–such as fenders–using the metal, company officials said on Monday. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

For Ford, the deal expands an already more aggressive embrace of aluminum than rivals. The F-150 truck, the company’s best-selling and most profitable model, is the industry’s first mass-market vehicle with an aluminum body. Using the metal, Ford cut the truck’s weight by about 700 pounds compared with a prior model and boosted fuel efficiency by between 5% and 29%.

Raj Nair, Ford’s product chief, said, he sees tremendous potential in using aluminum. “The fact that we’re collaborating on technology at this scale shows a pretty big commitment on both our parts.”

The contract is crucial for Alcoa, the largest U.S. aluminum producer by volume, which aims to grow its automotive-aluminum sheet business to $1.3 billion in 2018, up from $229 million in 2013. Deals like the one struck with Ford would

Article source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ford-alcoa-expand-deal-for-aluminum-supply-2015-09-15

Jet engine parts found on the Las Vegas runway where a British Airways flight aborted takeoff as the engine burst into flames indicate a rare catastrophic failure, experts said Thursday as investigators released preliminary findings and began analyzing flight data and cockpit recordings.

Early findings show the failure occurred where the engine was under the highest pressure, though there was no immediate indication of what caused it or the fire that forced 170 people to evacuate Tuesday at McCarran International Airport as smoke poured from the aircraft.

“You really don’t see catastrophic or uncontained engine failure like this very often,” said John Cox, an aviation safety consultant who spent 23 years as a U.S. Airways pilot. He said the failure indicates parts sliced through the engine casing.

The National Transportation Safety Board said there was damage to the armored shell around the left engine’s high-pressure compressor, and several 7- to 8-inch fragments of the compressor were found on the tarmac.

No one was seriously injured when British Airways Flight 2276 screeched to a halt and the 157 passengers and 13 crew members escaped down evacuation slides as firefighters doused flames spewing from the engine beneath the wing of the Boeing 777.

The pilot who halted the takeoff and calmly called “mayday, mayday” said he will retire one flight shy of the day he had planned to hang up his wings.

Chris Henkey of Padworth, England, told NBC News he’d never had such a close call in a 42-year career, and he’s “finished flying.” He won’t captain

Article source: http://www.wsbtv.com/news/ap/us/investigators-in-las-vegas-seek-cause-of-planes-en/nnbxs/