Posted on 06/21/2022 6:14:21 PM PDT by texas booster
If I was flying charter and I found out it was an MD80, I would get a refund.
Was a great plane for many years, but Delta and American used up every good part, extending their life on the cheap, so any flying now are held together with bailing wire and chewing gum.
Wouldn’t the airframes be pretty fatigued, by now? Of course, our B-52s are still flying...
They still are popular for smaller, especially foreign/3rd world airlines. Red Air is a Dominican Republic airline.
This particular airline was delivered to American Airlines in 1990. Here’s the operator history:
https://www.planespotters.net/airframe/mcdonnell-douglas-md-82-hi1064-red-air/r1462r
Last was built in 99. Basically a bit over 40 years as a model.
No older than the 737 and younger than the 747.
C-47/DC-3s are still flying. In fact there are now refurbishment programs to give them modern engines, reinforce the frame and off they go for decades more service.
Production continued in modified forms as the Boeing 717 until *2006*. There’s still a ton around, just not in US passenger service - lots of the companies that operate them love them.
Parts are still available for them and even upgrades, actually.
The airframes aren’t that bad because many were built in the 1990’s, but the mechanical bits and the engines were scrounged from parked airframes over a period of 7 years, so the repair/spares supplier base gave up and moved on. AA and Delta were trying to survive and weren’t going to spend money rebuiding engines they were just going to park in 2 years... then didn’t park them for 5 years.
Anything serviceable was used up, anything repairable (but non-serviceable) was junked and nobody bought new parts so who would make new parts?
AA and Delta broke the MD80 supply chains and they are best used for scrap mettal, now.
Actually, the MD80 supply chains cranked back up again in 2011 - new engines were made for military aircraft, and foreign operators got them in large numbers. Delta sold off their MD-88 fleet in 2020 and that got a lot of interest back in the supply chain market, too.
JT8D-219 Engine parts aren’t.
If they are, are they are made in a foreign country by slave labor?
We sent our tooling to Singapore in 2009. Singapore hasn’t used it since 2015.
I know the 3rd party parts were complete crap and almost grounded AA’s fleet around 2008 (Broken 4th LPT blades).
You can fly on one. I won’t.
Volvo actually makes parts in Sweden for them. They made/make the entire engine under license as the Volvo RM8. Pratt and Whitney are making parts for the 219 as it’s part of their stationary powerplant/ship powerplant, the FT8.
Passenger films sliding out of jetliner after it crashed at MIA
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YyvtroN1Wgw
Plane crash at Miami International Airport eyewitness video (59 Seconds of Aviation)
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sDIWAQE86PE
And you think Africans and the DR folk can afford engines “Made in Sweden”? Sure.
FT8’s are “kind of like” a -219 but aren’t and very few parts interchange. FT8’s are made by mitusbishi, anyway, and last time I checked, Mitisubishi was motivated by the profit motive, which doesn’t involve supporting Africans and DR folk with their flying garbage scows.
TF33’s arent’ -219’s either, so I don’t know what “Military” you are talking about.
These all sound like marketing department press releases you are reading. I’m telling you what engineers who have seen how sausage is made, feel. Engineers in Singapore that gave up in 2015. Engineers in Japan that closed their doors in 2016.
Planes fly on money. There hasn’t been any money invested in MD88’s in over 10 years. That is a lifetime of neglect, you can’t get back.
If someone makes new parts for them (using hand-drawn, pre CAD blueprints from the 1980’s. I’m sure), it will be 10 years too late.
I have an idea!!!! We can 3-D print the parts!!!... hard eyeroll.
In their last 3 years at AA, MD80’s were only flown on routes where they could divert to Tulsa or Roswell or some other Hotel California for airplanes. AA knew they were killing them... and when the risks were too much, they sold off their serviceable junk to Delta to completely finish them off.
If you want to fly the closest thing in the US to an Iranian Airline, find a nostalgia nutcase with no money still flying MD80’s and buy a ticket.
Bill Burr hates star wars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEKCaWkwXb4
Thank God nobody was seriously hurt or killed.
That could have ended far worse than it did.
Well that didn’t look good.
Damn, that was one hell of a video.
Kudos to the pilot for getting everyone on the ground safely.
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