Yet another aviation thread.

Quote: terapined

I just learned that they have 2 airports
I had no idea. I try to stay abreast of major cities with 2 or more airports
SZB is the alternative to KUL

SZB is 208 miles from SIN (Singapore airport) and if your client doesn't mind a turboprop it puts him much closer to downtown Kuala Lumpar.



Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KUL) was officially inaugurated on 27 June 1998 , a week ahead of Hong Kong International Airport and in time for the 1998 Commonwealth Games. SZB is the old airport dating from 1965. The old and new airport are 29 air miles apart.

Although KUL is featured prominently on the metro map, there are buses from SZB to KL Sentral


SZB is limited to two turboprop airlines and has less than 3 million passengers at present (although it has a 12000' runway as it used to be the primary airport):

Firefly
Alor Setar, Johor Bahru, Kota Bharu, Kuala Terengganu, Langkawi, Penang, Singapore

Malindo Air
Alor Setar, Batam, Hat Yai, Johor Bahru, Kerteh, Kota Bharu, Kuala Terengganu, Langkawi, Penang

I do think.the public has a right to know an airframe history. Especially the age of the aircraft, but more importantly, the number of pressurization-depressurization cycles it's been through, because that's what ages it the most. Metal fatigue is something they are constantly studying and.
improving, but it's not yet completely understood.

I didn't know Southwest buys other airline discards to fly. That's actually kind of disturbing, given how many cycles their planes make per day. If they're starting with half-worn air frames, it's not good.

USAir used to be of concern. They used each airframe 6-8 legs a day because they provided soany short-haul routes in the East. Had a couple jets fall apart in the late 80s early 90s over it, and some lesser incidents, until the methods of determining fatigue improved.

The most notorious was that Hawaiian Air B737 that peeled off the top in about 1988 and sucked the flight attendant out. Their fatigue was exacerbated by all-saltwater environment. But across the industry, they just didn't realize that the metal was changing on a molecular level with the repeated micro-stress of the flight cycle. Now they have special detection equipment that can identify the microcracks and loss of elasticity, so they're getting much better at retiring airframe before they become dangerous.

Quote: beachbumbabs

I didn't know Southwest buys other airline discards to fly. That's actually kind of disturbing, given how many cycles their planes make per day. If they're starting with half-worn air frames, it's not good.

It's a fairly decent percentage of the planes. That is 18 out of 124 in this sample. What is more disturbing is these are the original B737-700s off the line. So Southwest is buying some pretty old planes, from bankrupt airlines around the world.

AFAIK there is no way to look up the total percentage for the fleet. You would have to look through information for each of 700 planes and count them by hand.

Line	Southwest B737-700	years in fleet	comment
1	N707SA	19.6
2	N708SW	19.4
3	N709SW	19.6
4	N700GS	20.4
6	N701GS	20.4
12	N703SW	20.4
14	N799SW	18.2
15	N704SW	20.4
20	N705SW	20.2
24	N706SW	20.0
34	N710SW	20.2
38	N711HK	20.1
41	N798SW	18.2
53	N712SW	20.0
54	N713SW	19.9
61	N714CB	19.9
62	N715SW	19.9
64	N716SW	19.9
70	N717SA	19.9
71	N718SW	19.9
82	N719SW	19.8
83	N270WN	11.8	not original buyer
109	N271LV	11.6
121	N720WN	19.7
144	N739GB	19.5
155	N740SW	19.5
157	N741SA	19.5
172	N742SW	19.4
175	N743SW	19.4
199	N723SW	19.3
201	N724SW	19.3	not original buyer
203	N7830A	3.0
208	N725SW	19.3
213	N726SW	19.3
221	N7816B	3.6	not original buyer
232	N744SW	19.2
237	N745SW	19.2
274	N727SW	19.0
276	N728SW	19.0
278	N729SW	19.0
284	N730SW	19.0
299	N746SW	18.9
306	N747SA	18.9
318	N731SA	18.9
319	N732SW	18.9
320	N733SA	18.9
324	N734SA	18.9
331	N748SW	18.8
343	N749SW	18.8
354	N735SA	18.8
357	N736SA	18.8
358	N737JW	18.8
360	N738CB	18.7
366	N750SA	18.7
373	N751SW	18.7
387	N752SW	18.6
396	N7836A	2.5	not original buyer
400	N753SW	18.6	July 2013 written off crash at LGA
416	N754SW	18.5
417	N7818L	3.5	not original buyer
419	N755SA	18.5
422	N756SA	18.5
425	N757LV	18.5
437	N758SW	18.4
448	N759GS	18.4
468	N760SW	18.4
495	N761RR	18.2
512	N762SW	18.1
520	N763SW	18.1
521	N764SW	18.1
525	N765SW	18.1
532	N560WN	3.9	not original buyer
537	N766SW	18.0	27 August 2016, uncontained engine failure (returned to active service)
541	N767SW	18.0
580	N768SW	17.9
592	N769SW	17.9
595	N770SA	17.9
599	N771SA	17.9
601	N772SW	17.9	17 April 2018 uncontained engine failure (in storage during investigation)
603	N773SA	17.9
609	N774SW	17.9
617	N775SW	17.9
620	N776WN	17.9
621	N777QC	17.9
626	N778SW	17.8
628	N779SW	17.8
643	N780SW	17.8
646	N781WN	17.8
670	N782SA	17.7
672	N7838A	2.5	not original buyer
675	N783SW	17.6
677	N784SW	17.6
682	N7817J	3.6	not original buyer
693	N785SW	17.5
698	N786SW	17.6
700	N557WN	4.1	not original buyer
705	N787SA	17.5
707	N788SA	17.5
715	N7840A	2.4
718	N789SW	17.5
721	N790SW	17.4
724	N562WN	4.1	not original buyer
730	N7842A	2.3	not original buyer
736	N791SW	17.4
737	N792SW	17.4
740	N7882B	2.0	not original buyer
744	N793SA	17.4
748	N794SW	17.4
780	N795SW	17.3
784	N796SW	17.2
785	N7841A	2.3	not original buyer
803	N797MX	17.2
806	N400WN	17.2
810	N401WN	17.2
811	N402WN	17.2
812	N7824A	2.4	not original buyer
817	N7850B	2.0	not original buyer
821	N403WN	17.1
832	N7851A	1.9	not original buyer
858	N7864B	0.9	not original buyer
877	N7884G	2.1	not original buyer
880	N404WN	16.9
881	N405WN	16.9
885	N406WN	16.9

Its not the "chronological age" that is so important but the "mechanical age" and quality of the maintenance that has been performed in the interim.

I think the concept that engineers use is "duty cycles" which for an airplane is mainly take offs and landings. Short haul flights might even be safer than long haul since on a short haul flight as soon as the plane gets to a medium altitude it will soon descend whereas a long haul flight goes to a higher altitude and then descends. Salt water exposure obviously affects metal fatigue. The Hawaii flight were all short haul flights, I assume.

Quality of maintenance can be indicated by where the maintenance is performed and how thoroughly its actually performed. I would trust a USA based maintenance center more than a foreign one but I seem to recall a South West plane that lost its horizontal stabilizer control and was put into an unrecoverable stall situation due to a maintenance supervisor who was able to repeat a test that just happened to yield a reading that was within tolerances. I don't know if the test was a "paper test" or whether it was actually performed and happened to give an acceptable result.

Avoidance of counterfeit parts is paramount.

I think the fairly recent loss of an Argentinian submarine is relevant. It appears the submarine was sunk by bribery. Bribery was involved in determining which firm would be utilized, what would be done and what oversight would be involved on acquiring the new battery cells rather than new batteries. It was the German police that was investigating the German contractor that discovered the pervasive Argentinian bribery that was taking place.

Of course passengers will never be given extensive records but mere "age of the aircraft" might be misleading without some sort of summary of the service profile.
.

Quote: Fleastiff

Of course passengers will never be given extensive records but mere "age of the aircraft" might be misleading without some sort of summary of the service profile..

Raw data is always potentially misleading. So if I say all of Southwest's planes are 20 years or younger, and Delta's plane are an average of 17 years old; or if I say 15% of Southwest's planes were bought second hand at an average age of well over ten years old, the public is not trained enough to know if the plane was properly maintained.

But the question is does the public have the right to know data, even if they might draw some incorrect conclusions. Are you entitled to know the plane has been through 60,000 cycles or 10,000 cycles.

Quote: Pacomartin

But the question is does the public have the right to know data, even if they might draw some incorrect conclusions. Are you entitled to know the plane has been through 60,000 cycles or 10,000 cycles.

Its an interesting question. Most travelers are dealing with luggage, kids, finding the right airplane gate and don't have any way of dealing with age of the airplane or age of the pilot. If you said 'your pilot does not have a pilot's license they might panic but the FAA issues Airman's Certificates so technically the raw data would be quite correct.

A few passengers might be sufficient interested and able to make a sensible decision but how many per flight?

Most airplanes reach their destination without incident even most of those Aloha flights were just peachy.

Quote: Nareed

The unfortunately named Boom aviation company unveiled, I'm not sure, either a test aircraft or a test aircraft model (reports are sketchy). Either way, it's something tangible to show beyond mysterious order options and promises based on computer simulations.
The stated goal is that a Mach 2.2 ticket from NY to London or Paris should cost about as much as a current business class ticket.

Boom has taken $10 million from Japan airlines and seems to be promising a SFO-Tokyo flight now. Previously they were saying TransPacific ranges would not be possible.



With a 5.5 hour transit time and such a small plane, it might be possible to do two crossings a day . But it seems unlikely that a plane could survive that kind of duty cycle for very long.

Could we end up with supersonic transits from California to Honolulu? Usually Hawaii flights are more of the budget variety.

Quote: Pacomartin

Could we end up with supersonic transits from California to Honolulu? Usually Hawaii flights are more of the budget variety.

I always think of Hawaii residents as being rich and tourists being too well off to worry about budget flights. More misperceptions on my part, probably.

But supersonic to Hawaii? By the time you climb to altitude, its time to descend. Get up to supersonic speeds, aim that sonic boom somewhere and then slow down to land?

Quote: Fleastiff

But supersonic to Hawaii? By the time you climb to altitude, its time to descend. Get up to supersonic speeds, aim that sonic boom somewhere and then slow down to land?

I think you are exaggerating a little bit. British Airways used to fly the concorde from London to Tenerife which was even shorter
The map below shows great circle routes, the actual path had to stay over water as much as possible.



Under ideal circumstances the Concorde could fly 4500 miles without refueling. To the best of my knowledge it was never flown over about 3,900 miles from Paris to Washington DC

LHR TFS 1,821 mi British Airways popular charter Concorde flight (TFS is Tenerife islands)
LAX HNL 2,556 mi Concorde charter flight only

CDG SID 2,646 mi Paris to Cape Verde
SID GIG 3,046 mi Cape Verde to Rio de Janeiro

JFK LHR 3,451 mi primary route of British Airways
LHR BAH 3,169 mi Concorde's initial route to Middle East. Planned to continue to Singapore
CDG IAD 3,861 mi Concorde alternate route Paris to Washington DC

Highly desirable route for supersonic, but planned for Concorde-B
SEA NRT 4,769 mi Seattle to Tokyo
SFO NRT 5,124 mi San Francisco to Tokyo
LAX NRT 5,451 mi Los Angeles to Tokyo

Dream routes for supersonic
LAX HKG 7,260 mi
LAX SYD 7,488 mi

Initially Boom was advertising a similar range as Concorde (4,600 miles under ideal circumstances)