Irish government jet

Growler!!!

smurfjed wrote: »

The ferry costs are easily absorbed by the difference in costs.

It was only a short ferry flight as they went on hols:D

cerastes

Tenger wrote: »

I was trying to look at the wider picture rather than focusing too specifically on the issue at hand. I agree with your point. Buying a replacement jet should be an option if repair/replace is no longer an option.

The idea of buying a new aircraft should be an absolute last option if even, although thats not my point. You dont get rid of a low mileage car because the suspension has taken an unforeseen knock. While that might be a gross over simplification, its more my point.

Also, replacing an otherwise functional aircraft with a new one, what happens if the cause of the unforeseen damage to the GIV isnt determined, just buy a new aircraft and operate that in a way that causes the same thing to occur to a replacement.

Id say, repair or seek alternative options to owning and operating an aircraft, at least initially rather than rush to get anything or anything at all. Determine their cost, effectiveness, availability at short notice and is it better than operating the aircraft yourself.

smurfjed wrote: »

They call the GULFSTREAM FAST TEAM, these guys have trucks and even aircraft equipped to come and fix you.

The ferry costs are easily absorbed by the difference in costs.

Wonder how much that costs, compared to other local certified organisations?

man98

On a side note, is it entirely safe to fly an aircraft with a landing gear problem again? What if it collapsed upon landing?

folbotcar

Cerastes, in aircraft maintenance distance is a non issue. An owner will happily send an aircraft or engine from the far east to Ireland and vice versa if the price and turn around time is right. That makes it difficult for maintenance companies. Your competitors could be anywhere.

Aircraft maintenance is truly global. So the Gulfstream people will offer a very competitive package. The fact that they may be linked to the OEM is neither here nor there. They must stand alone and make money.

cerastes

man98 wrote: »

On a side note, is it entirely safe to fly an aircraft with a landing gear problem again? What if it collapsed upon landing?

Of course, it gets repaired, probably replaced, to appropriate standards

folbotcar wrote: »

Cerastes, in aircraft maintenance distance is a non issue. An owner will happily send an aircraft or engine from the far east to Ireland and vice versa if the price and turn around time is right. That makes it difficult for maintenance companies. Your competitors could be anywhere.

Aircraft maintenance is truly global. So the Gulfstream people will offer a very competitive package. The fact that they may be linked to the OEM is neither here nor there. They must stand alone and make money.

You are misreading my post, not sure which one.

I am asking why are they going OEM because aircraft maintenance is global, also why go to the US manufacturer, again because aircraft maintenance is global, its not like there arent approved maintenance facilities in Europe or wherever they might land, unless its some real hell hole.
If they (the manufacturer) are giving a competitive price, fair enough or is it because the people that decide it are the same people that think because they have a certain brand of car, that it must go to that main dealer?

man98

When repairs run into the millions (speculation, not 100% on prices) you're going to want to save anything possible. So yes, it makes sense to go to the manufacturers who have the best expertise. And I phrased my question badly. If a severe problem is detected with the landing gear, why fly it to America, as I presume landing causes the most stress on a gear. It was grand that time, but just a concern.

cerastes

man98 wrote: »

When repairs run into the millions (speculation, not 100% on prices) you're going to want to save anything possible. So yes, it makes sense to go to the manufacturers who have the best expertise. And I phrased my question badly. If a severe problem is detected with the landing gear, why fly it to America, as I presume landing causes the most stress on a gear. It was grand that time, but just a concern.

Best expertise in what? structural aluminium alloy repairs, standards the world over? where any maintenance base certified to do the work could?
If this has occured on the G4 the manufacturer will probably have to release some directive to check for the same defect on other similarily operated G4 aircraft or maybe all, or maybe above some criteria they determine such as cycles/hours etc, and I think they would have to issue the type of repair which I believe a certified organisation could carry out.

If its just a landing gear, take it off and refit as per the manual and document, it seems its more a repair, so maybe its the former.

Presumably the aircraft was flown there for specific maintenance/some check, and the problem was discovered then after the flight.
Im assuming they got a better deal or more likely have a maintenance contract, despite the flight cost rather than complete the work in Europe somewhere else.

Or maybe someone has made a right bollix of the aircraft in a bad landing and it has or hasnt been documented or its been reported and GD is dealing with it quietly, the manufacturer might be sensitive to upsetting their customer knowing it wont occur on other aircraft, but needless require to be paid to complete the work, however the aircraft isnt going to go unnoticed being missing and all, so they make up some cover story they cant afford the repair to look good for not spending the money but poor Micky H has to thumb a lift around africa, despite all the good we do there, looks bad, so the money becomes available and no one would begrudge getting the little fella back home if only we could,after all the good we did, sure if we gave away 600m, sure cant we spend a few hundred thousand getting the thing fixed, that or someone wants a new toy, Micky H is mad with power and is getting ideas after seeing how they run things over there.

Preset No.3

Cerastes, Are you an aircraft engineer that can give us some insight into what goes into heavy maintenance for a corporate jet? Or do you think its like changing a spare wheel on a car?

Incidentally, wasn't there a time that all the Virgin fleet came to Dublin for maintenance? Doesn't the Aer Lingus LH fleet go to Bordeaux? Going even further afield, isn't the Qatar fleet painted by Eirtech in Dublin?

I think it comes down to one thing, and that who is the cheapest! All things considered it may be cheaper to fly to the US for maintenance at their home facility rather than going to a 3rd party in Europe?

cerastes

Preset No.3 wrote: »

Cerastes, Are you an aircraft engineer that can give us some insight into what goes into heavy maintenance for a corporate jet? Or do you think its like changing a spare wheel on a car?

Incidentally, wasn't there a time that all the Virgin fleet came to Dublin for maintenance? Doesn't the Aer Lingus LH fleet go to Bordeaux? Going even further afield, isn't the Qatar fleet painted by Eirtech in Dublin?

I think it comes down to one thing, and that who is the cheapest! All things considered it may be cheaper to fly to the US for maintenance at their home facility rather than going to a 3rd party in Europe?

I might have acquired some experience of this in the past, what makes you think I suggested its like changing a wheel on a car, Im suggesting very very simply whats done, I had no sheety experience, but Ive seen repairs in undercarriage bays taking place, but from aircraft that had a lot of use. Its been a while.

I dont think the AC might necessarily go for the cheapest, depending on who or how the decision was made, but who knows?
If no maintenance contract exists, it would have even been possible (potentially) to get this work done in Ireland in the past, not sure if there are still places that might? not in dublin I dont think.

smurfjed

The Gulfstream FAST TEAM be they in the USA or Singapore or Europe, are extremely competitive, primarily because the Gulfstream policy is that if someone buys a $60m jet, then they should have that jet available whenever they want it, if it breaks down on a frequent basis and delays the owner, then he won't recommend it to others.

As for the landing gear, its done by number of landings regardless of condition, 5000 if I'm correct. As it has a fixed time, and a relatively fixed cost, it should be calculated into the hourly operating costs and shouldn't present a surprised like this. In fact this applies to all the aircraft.

Newspaper reports state that the costs to fix the aircraft is $2.6, for me, that indicates someone much more than the gear, in fact it might include the new ADS-B CPDLC requirements for Europe as that retrofit runs around $800k - $1.2m. Throw in some corrosion and that bill starts going up.

Its sensible that any accountant looks at a $2.6m bill for a $7.0 million asset and freaks out, but the problem is that the replacement for that asset will cost a substantial larger amount.

Delta Kilo

There is a lot of misinformation being spewed around in this thread. Hopefully I can clear a few things up with regards to aircraft maintenance.

Now I am no expert on corporate jets, but I imagine it is quite similar to any other commercial jet. I may refer to the 738 or A320 to explain some points. I also don't know what the issue is with the air corps GIV but i imagine what is happening is like the below.

Technically, there is probably nothing wrong with the landing gear (ie it was not "damaged" of suffered a hard landing). On all commercial jets, the landing gear, for obvious reasons, is a time controlled component. On a 738/A320 the gear has to be overhauled every 10 years or 20,000 cycles. Most operators hit the 10 year limit before they hit the cyclical limit so this is normally the limit. Overhaul of a gear, depending where you send it, can be around $100,000 - $140,000 a leg, so anything from 300 - 420k for a complete set.

In the grand scheme of things in aircraft maintenance, $400k over ten years is not bad. But what is likely happening with the GIV is the clock is ticking on other heavy maintenance on the airframe and/or engines. So the question is, is it worth investing $400k on a landing gear, if next year I have to spend another $500k on the airframe and then my engines are running out of time.

Engines are by far the most expensive item to overhaul. An engine of the size on a GIV is at least in the region of $2MM for an overhaul, excluding Life Limited Parts (LLPs). If LLPs require replacement then you can probably double the $2MM figure. So that is $8MM for two engines.

The aircraft is just at that age where a decision has to be made, is it worth investing all this money in an older aircraft? What if the public finds out we are spending millions of dollars maintaining an aircraft for Enda Kenny to go to the states on for St Patricks Day... That is the snag facing the government, would be political suicide. Shame really.

Apologies for using dollars, but everything in aviation is based on USD.

smurfjed

but I imagine it is quite similar to any other commercial jet

Their checks are based on calendar rather than time, 12 months, 24,36 and 72, the 72 is similar to an airline D check. Engines etc are time limited but are usually covered under a Rolls Royce policy, so again this is a known cost.

If you consider me guilty of spewing misinformation, please let me know

Delta Kilo

smurfjed wrote: »

If you consider me guilty of spewing misinformation, please let me know

Not at all smurfjed! I think we were typing our replies at the same time.

My experience is only with commercial jets, not corporate so I am unfamiliar with the maintenance schedule, but I imagine there are many similarities.

folbotcar

cerastes wrote: »

Wonder how much that costs, compared to other local certified organisations?

I was replying to that comment.

No it's not like going to a main dealer. Invariably they are more expensive where as in aviation even the manufacturer's own service centres must compete with each other and other approved centres globally.

It's a very competitive business.

NewSigGuy

smurfjed wrote: »

Their checks are based on calendar rather than time, 12 months, 24,36 and 72, the 72 is similar to an airline D check. Engines etc are time limited but are usually covered under a Rolls Royce policy, so again this is a known cost.
If you consider me guilty of spewing misinformation, please let me know

Small point the newer Boeing and Airbus don't have "D" Checks anymore they have varying levels of "C" check.

I might be wrong but you could most likely buy two new RR Tay's for less then 8 million.. there is a lot of misinformation out there about this aircraft and its current technical state. I doubt that it is for the scrap heap, I have no doubt that it requires heavy maintenance, it depends what agenda you want to push as to how you assess this maintenance requirement.

Preset No.3

Personally I can't see how they can't push this under the radar. It's 1 very small issue in a minefield of much bigger issues.

smurfjed

I might be wrong but you could most likely buy two new RR Tay's for less then 8 million

Its closer to $2 million per engine as per the Rolls Royce Corporate Care:

What is covered under CorporateCare®?:
• All regular scheduled shop visit costs (labor and materials)
• Unscheduled shop visit costs for non-FOD events
• Loaner engines during scheduled or unscheduled shop visits
• Removal and reinstallation labor for operator and loaner engines
• Transportation to and from overhaul shop for operator and loaner engines
• Inclusion of all Airworthiness Directives
• Inclusion of all recommended Service Bulletins at shop visit
• Annual training course at Rolls-Royce US facility for one individual
• Annual Technical Publications revision service
• Engine trend monitoring service
• Spare Parts
• Worldwide recovery of engine suffering an unscheduled event (excluding FOD)
• Line Replaceable Unit repair/exchange service including R&R labor
• Scheduled borescope inspection labor

This comes at a cost of $242 per engine/per hour, so for most corporate operators, this is a month charge to RR.

So once again, this newspaper reference cost of 2.6 million Euros, isn't a regular cost.

smurfjed

Did anyone mention the possibility of putting the aircraft under Westair's (or other) AOC and let them earn some money from the aircraft in order to recoup some of the capital costs?

I would even offer to fly it for them :)

man98

smurfjed wrote: »

Did anyone mention the possibility of putting the aircraft under Westair's (or other) AOC and let them earn some money from the aircraft in order to recoup some of the capital costs?

I would even offer to fly it for them :)

What if the plane's landing in New York and a liver becomes available in London for a child in Donegal, and the LJ45 is coming with Michael D on a trade tour of Eastern Europe.

de biz

man98 wrote: »

What if the plane's landing in New York and a liver becomes available in London for a child in Donegal, and the LJ45 is coming with Michael D on a trade tour of Eastern Europe.

Then Westair could substitute the 650,CL605 or GLEX from their fleet.

The Agusta 139 can also be potentially called upon......

Kilmallock also won today!

Growler!!!

man98 wrote: »

What if the plane's landing in New York and a liver becomes available in London for a child in Donegal, and the LJ45 is coming with Michael D on a trade tour of Eastern Europe.

It'll be put on a stobart flight like the one transported to dub earlier this year...

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/aer-arann-flies-heart-for-transplant-after-air-corps-plane-grounded-621659.html

Tenger

man98 wrote: »

......If a severe problem is detected with the landing gear, why fly it to America, as I presume landing causes the most stress on a gear. It was grand that time, but just a concern.

The aircraft was fine on the ferry flight for its scheduled maintenance. During this process a problem was detected. Now this doesn't mean that the gear was about to fail, but it does mean that the aircraft requires repair/replacement before it enters service again.

smurfjed

Tenger, what type of issue can affect all 3 gear struts? The only thing that i can think of is corrosion at an attachment point that would require manufacture of replacement parts and fixing the corrosion, but again $2.6m is a lot of money.

Someone really has to speak out about what is required for this aircraft.

Tenger

smurfjed wrote: »

Tenger, what type of issue can affect all 3 gear struts? The only thing that i can think of is corrosion at an attachment point that would require manufacture of replacement parts and fixing the corrosion, but again $2.6m is a lot of money.

Someone really has to speak out about what is required for this aircraft.

Not idea exactly what the actual issue is. Just going on what the media reported, which was along the lines of "landing gear problem discovered during the process"
Like yourself I would assume some sort of corrosion.

I guess the Dept of Defense got wrong footed and perhaps have not got the funds on hand to cover the replacement, so had to go to the Dept of Finance, suddenly the matter is in the public eye. Guesswork on my part btw. Got no sources of info from the Air Corps.

BMJD

My guesswork is that flying from Baldonnel to Dublin Airport so that Bertie got an extra 10 minutes kip before heading on to Cork to open a new Spar or whatever has come back to bite the GIV on the ass.

Preset No.3

We really should have an idiot filter in this forum.

Tenger

BMJD wrote: »

My guesswork is that flying from Baldonnel to Dublin Airport so that Bertie got an extra 10 minutes kip before heading on to Cork to open a new Spar or whatever has come back to bite the GIV on the ass.

Not relevant to discussions over repair costs and has been addressed already.
This happened on 2-3 occasions so statistically irrelevant.

cerastes

Tenger wrote: »

Not relevant to discussions over repair costs and has been addressed already.
This happened on 2-3 occasions so statistically irrelevant.

Im not convinced it only happened the 2 or 3 times, unless you can disprove that?
It is absolutely relevant to repair costs, when an aircraft is operated outside its use expected by the manufacturer, then the cost of repair is going to increase.
High cycle anything beyond what is expected, you are going to potentially shorten its life and increase its maintenance costs.
If what is known happened, then what is unknown may remain undiscovered and have as much consequences to the structural integrity of certain aspects of the aircraft.

All in, repair the thing, whatever of an accountant counting some beans, airlines dont drop aircraft from their fleet at the sign of the first maintenance concern, it might now cost more than the operating cost of something newer to do this, but in the long run that isnt getting value for money, ie replacing everything after limited use. If the root cause of the problem isnt determined, they same thing well end up being done to any replacement.
Selling it on is passing on a valuable asset (ie for its use, not necessarily its financial worth) to someone else, I believe the Chileans are still operating their Dauphins, maybe they are looking for a shiny replacement jet too? I appreciate they had to be overhauled, but they still work and operate today, another poorly chosen and fitted out aircraft, how much was that overhaul compared to replacing those aircraft?

Where does that occur elsewhere with aircraft. Generally, hardly anywhere, everything points to owners/operators of aircraft to keeping them as long as they can to get the maximum use out of them.

We have the G4 now, may as well repair it and keep it running or not bother operating a MATs jet, because any new/replacement aircraft is also going to need maintenance.

Preset No.3

cerastes wrote: »

Im not convinced it only happened the 2 or 3 times, unless you can disprove that?
e.

Can you prove that it did happen a lot or are you just throwing wild accusations about to disprove Tenger?

Innocent until proven guilty is generally how things work.

Incidentally, the dauphins were totally rebuilt by the new owner before being sold to the Chileans. The dauphins have been shown to be totally inadequate aircraft for the purpose that they were needed for. I presumed that anyone with a passing interest in aviation was aware of the issues surrounding these helos.

Tenger

cerastes wrote: »

Im not convinced it only happened the 2 or 3 times, unless you can disprove that?

I think the onus on proving this point lies with you, afterall you made the claim first.

cerastes wrote: »

.....It is absolutely relevant to repair costs, when an aircraft is operated outside its use expected by the manufacturer, then the cost of repair is going to increase.
High cycle anything beyond what is expected, you are going to potentially shorten its life and increase its maintenance costs.
If what is known happened, then what is unknown may remain undiscovered and have as much consequences to the structural integrity of certain aspects of the aircraft..........

Who (apart from you) is claiming that the aircraft has been "operated outside it use expected by the manufacture"?
Cycles on aircraft are monitored. Lets assume that the Baldonnell -> DUB trip to suit Bertie happened 10 times...then those 10 extra take-off/landing cycles will be recorded and included in the maintenance timing. Coming from a commercial point of view every aircraft requires certain types of maintenance after X cycles or Y time. Its not as if the Air Corps were sneaking in extra cycles to suit Bertie and thus there is now a problem.
The worst effect of the Bertie taxi run would be shortened time between scheduled MX sessions, and long term could shorten the lifespan. But the Govt jet is relatively young so thats not a problem just yet.

Like every aircraft, unforeseen problem crop up. The solution is to fund the repair or replace the aircraft, whichever is more cost effective for the customer.