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To: Touch Not the Cat
Why not sell them?

Nobody would want them. Metal fatigue and lack of spare parts unique to the plane make them close to being flying coffins. That's why so many of our own planes are sitting in the boneyard waiting to be scrapped.

I read an article somewhere about what it took to maintain one of those things. The swing wings are attached to a massive aluminum casting that provides pivot points for the wings. After so many flight hours the planes have to be torn apart to get that casting out and onto a work bench. Then they spend days hand sanding off all the paint and primer to get it down to bare metal, and then hand sand it for days more to make the surface smooth as glass. This is the only way to retard the growth of surface fatigue cracks, and there are no more of those casting in existence except in those airplanes.

This would be like once a year tearing your car apart to separate everything from the frame. Then, hand sand the whole frame until it's smooth as glass, reprime and repaint it, reinstall everything you took off, and you're good for another year or so.

17 posted on 03/03/2010 9:07:02 PM PST by Dumpster Baby (Truth is called hate by those who hate the truth.)
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To: Dumpster Baby

Yes an eventually that metal fatigue reaches deep inside those castings/forgings whether aluminum/steel/titanium and the entire thing becomes work hardened to the point where one day it just snaps under load (without the surface cracks).

I suspect that accelerating fatigue hardening of the center wing box casting was one thing that hastened the retirement of the F-14 also.


20 posted on 03/03/2010 10:15:56 PM PST by valkyry1
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