Operating 40-year-old aircraft can make good commercial sense but requires intensive care
Max Kingsley-Jones/COVENTRY
The approach road to Coventry Airport in the UK's West Midlands runs past the local aviation museum before reaching the headquarters of Air Atlantique group. The difficulty in differentiating the museum's boundary and Air Atlantique's parking area indicates the airline fleet's vintage.
Although well known for its involvement in the operation of historic aircraft for air shows and pleasure flights, Air Atlantique's cargo airline arm - Atlantic Airlines - deploys part of the geriatric fleet to carry freight. Its cargo freighter fleet has an average age of 40 years and the youngest freighter is a 39-year-old Lockheed L-188 Electra, illustrating that youth and high technology are not must-have qualities for success in the modern aviation world.
"We operate old aircraft because they make us money," says Atlantic's managing director Russell Ladkin. "Ad hoc cargo charter is 90% of our business, which means that our aircraft can often spend long periods inactive. So it is vital to keep the fixed cost base as low as possible."
It is Ladkin's simple formula that makes the economics of a 40-year-old Electra turboprop better for Atlantic than a 5-10-year-old Boeing 737-300QC. "We can acquire a good Electra for $2 million, while a 737 would trade for around $20-30 million," says Ladkin. "You need high utilisation to cover those sort of purchase costs, which is not the nature of our business."
Low fixed costs
Group managing director James Foden seconds Ladkin's view, citing the Electra's low fixed costs, good payload and low noise levels. "From our point of view, it is the only show in town," says Foden, pointing out that the Electra will be one of the few old freighters still permitted to fly in Europe in a couple of years when new environmental legislation takes effect.
The group first operated charter flights in 1977, using Douglas DC-3s dating from the Second World War, and 10 years later added two Douglas DC-6s, which, at 13.5t, offered almost four times the payload of the Dakotas. Its ad hoc cargo operations expanded in earnest from 1994 when the first 15t payload Electra arrived.
Seven of the four-engined Lockheed turboprops are operated, with two more recently purchased examples being prepared for service by the end of the year. This fleet represents a quarter of all Electras in operation worldwide.
Two DC-3s and two DC-6s are also retained, for cargo and aerial spray anti-pollution work. A spray kit has been developed for the Electra.
The company has taken a 150-year lease of Coventry Airport (and is working to expand the scope of its business) and has established an extensive operating base and aircraft maintenance arm - Atlantic Aeroengineering - at the site. A local engineering plant, acquired in 1990, is the headquarters of piston engine overhaul division CFS Aero Products. CFS also overhauls the Electra's Allison 501 turbine engines.
The extensive engineering resources ensure that the company can be self-reliant in extending its ageing fleet's life, and prevent it from becoming obsolete.
"We see at least another 10 years' life in our Electras, but we said that about the DC-6s in the late 1980s and we still have no plans to phase them out," says Ladkin.
While Altantic's engineering staff describe the DC-3s as "easy to repair", operating the Electras is not quite as straightforward. Altantic's aircraft are operated throughout Europe and across the Atlantic to North and South America. They need a constant stream of upgrades and modifications to comply with the latest regulatory requirements.
"We are investing a huge amount in our Electra fleet - $500,000 to upgrade each aircraft - and working on the Electra's ageing aircraft programme for the UK CAA [Civil Aviation Authority]," says Fodden.
Ladkin says Atlantic "hasn't just sat still and operated an aircraft designed in the 1950s: we've undertaken a series of upgrades and improvements". He cites last year's approval of its two-crew conversion by the CAA. "We were the first public transport category operator to be cleared for a two-pilot Electra," he says.
Atlantic has commissioned Bentonville, Arkansas-based Ozark Aviation to design a new electrical generator system for the aircraft, which should be ready for installation later this year. Replacing the ageing electrical system is a necessary evil to allow the aircraft to cope with new avionics being installed for the latest regulations and to improve reliability.
Atlantic is installing traffic alert and collision avoidance systems, Mode S transponders and upgrading radios to 8.33kHz. Two Electras operating on transatlantic flights have global positioning systems. To help reduce wear and tear, "we are also 'hard-wiring' one aircraft for propeller balancing diagnostics," says Ladkin.
Dispatch reliability
Last year, Atlantic's Electra fleet recorded a technical dispatch reliability (ie, departures within 15min of schedule) of 99.4% - a return that would not embarrass modern jet operators. The Electras are operated around 1,000h a year on average (80h a month) and under their original maintenance schedule required a hangar visit every 100h. To improve operational flexibility, Atlantic negotiated a modified schedule with the CAA which permits the check interval to be extended to 300h.
Lockheed Martin offers limited technical support for the type through its Marietta plant, but this no longer extends to the supply of spares. Atlantic has set up Coventry Air Parts to procure spares for in-house and third-party Electra operators. An early Electra was broken up for spares after serious corrosion was discovered. Small components, such as stringers, are fabricated in-house, while Atlantic also calls upon California-based Electra specialist, Capco, which has an extensive spares stock.
The Air Atlantique group has a growing expertise base on Electra maintenance and overhaul. Ladkin says it tries to carry out as many repairs as possible in-house, such as undercarriage wheel and brake overhauls. All airframe maintenance is carried out at Coventry, with D-check overhaul broken into four smaller C-checks, which require six weeks downtime for maintenance every 1,800 flight hours.
The Allison 501 turboprops are maintained modularly, with components replaced either on condition or after set intervals. CFS can carry out smaller repairs to engine components in-house, such as turbine changes, but the Allisons are dispatched to US specialist North American Turbines in Miami for major overhauls.
Lockheed did not originally set a design life for the Electra's airframe beyond an arbitrary "20 years of airline operations". This has posed headaches for current operators. "This generates a lot of airworthiness directives," says Philip Law, Atlantic Aeroengineering's technical services director. He adds that as the type has been included in the US Federal Aviation Administration's Ageing Aircraft Programme, the UK CAA will, by default, make this mandatory since the Electra's acceptance is based upon its US certification. "Atlantic had to invent a programme for the aircraft," says Law.
Although the Electra airframe's integrity is not in question - "any defects we have found have been through inspection rather than failure", says Law - the aircraft is coming under regulators' increasing scrutiny because of concerns about geriatric airliners. Law says the programme has six main elements:
· review of structure-related service bulletins to determine which require mandatory terminating action or enforcement of special repetitive inspections;
· review of corrosion prevention programmes and development of a baseline corrosion prevention/control programme;
· review of the supplemental structural inspection programme for effectiveness and compliance with current damage tolerance analysis (DTA) requirements;
· establishing guidelines to assess the damage tolerance of structural repairs, which may not have damage tolerance criteria;
· evaluating the susceptibility to widespread fatigue damage and developing a programme for corrective action;
· developing an integrated structural maintenance programme focused on ageing aircraft issues.
The Electra is the only turboprop currently included in the FAA-led programme, as it exceeds the 40,900kg (90,000lb) weight criteria set by the FAA. The current timetable calls for a programme to be in place by the end of 2002, by which time aircraft listed must comply with requirements or risk being grounded. While it is thought likely that this deadline may be extended, the Joint Aviation Authorities is shadowing the FAA programme with its own working group studying ageing aircraft issues, which extend to other turboprop types.
Team assembled
Atlantic has put together a team to work with the UK CAA on the FAA's Electra programme, which is being undertaken with another UK operator, Channel Express. Included in the team is an experienced ex-Lockheed engineer who has worked on a similar programme for the L-1011 TriStar.
The unpressurised, piston-powered DC-3s and DC-6s escape relatively unaffected by new regulations, and both types fly an average of 500h a year for the airline. With the DC-3 being easy to maintain and spares in plentiful supply, Atlantic's twin-engined war veterans seem to have an infinite lifespan.
The outlook is not as rosy for the noisy DC-6, however, with operations being increasingly affected by environmental regulations. "We are developing a new take-off and landing flight profile which should reduce the noise footprint," says Ladkin.
The four-engined Pratt & Whitney R2800-powered aircraft is also hampered by the restricted supply of Avgas fuel. "With 15t fuel capacity, we can absorb a year's supply of Avgas at some airports in one go," says Ladkin.
Atlantic recently acquired a piston-engined 6.5t payload Convair 440 freighter. More examples (including the turboprop CV580) could follow. The company also aims to add a jet freighter to the fleet within two years. Candidates include the McDonnell Douglas DC-8-70 or re-engined Boeing 727.
Source: Flight International
