National carrier inauguration: Oduah presents 20-yr-old plane to Jonathan



•Inaugural refurbished aircraft is over 20 years old (Boeing 737-400 5N-BLC)
•A combination of Air Nigeria and Aero Contractor
•Airline is named Nigeria Eagle (former name of Air Nigeria)

Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah is set to present the new national carrier to President Goodluck Jonathan today in spite of glaring adequacies in the arrangement.

This is coming on the heels of the scandal which trailed the acquisition of two armoured cars for the minister by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, at hyper-inflated rate of N255m.

Sunday Mirror authoritatively learnt yesterday that preparations are in top gear to present to President Jonathan today a refurbished aircraft of over 20 years old as one of the airplanes for the national carrier.

Investigations by our correspondent revealed that the aircraft, a Boeing 737-400 with the registration number 5N-BLC was parked at the Execu Jet, a private maintenance hangar facility at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, MMIA, Lagos having arrived in the country on Tuesday night. The aircraft, our correspondent gathered, was one of the old aircraft formerly operated by Air Nigeria.

It was also gathered that the Ministry of Aviation had changed the name of the proposed national carrier from ‘Nigeria One’ to ‘Nigeria Eagle’, the name previously used by Air Nigeria before it was changed. In the new national carrier, Air Nigeria’s (Nigeria Eagle) fleet is expected to combine with the fleet of another airline, Aero Contractor.

Aero presently has about 12 aircraft in its fleet while Air Nigeria before it suspended operations equally had about 12 aircraft.

Our correspondent gathered that apart from the combination of the two airlines, about 10 other aircraft have been booked with Bombardier Aircraft Manufacturing Company based in Brazil by the government. The delivery of the 10 aircraft is expected to commence from March 2014.

Oduah had told aviation stakeholders and professionals that the proposed national carrier would be handled by private investors while government would only provide enabling environment for the investors.

With this latest information, the investors behind the new carrier are still shrouded in mystery just as the equity ratio of government and the investors in the national carrier.

Also, the routes allocation to the carrier is still shrouded in secrecy as the government has kept mute on the deal. Attempts to contact the Special Assistant, Media to the minister, Mr. Joe Obi, proved abortive as his mobile lines could not connect.

Also, a text message to his phone was not returned to our correspondent.

gurnam: I hope that top Govt officials will be mandated to fly this airline for all official travels....

eGuerrilla:

Indeed. In fact, we need to go the whole hog and scrap the presidential fleet in favour of these hand-me-down aircrafts.

Tolexander: Well, it depends on the state of the aircraft and the degree of the maintainance.

Age may not really matter if it was properly and well maintained!

Tolexander: Well, it depends on the state of the aircraft and the degree of the maintainance.

Age may not really matter if it was properly and well maintained!

Ngwakwe: 20 years old aircraft can be new aircraft depending on approved standards.

What has been the rate of usage?

Refurbished or/and Upgraded?

Were the Engines changed with new types?

Extended Maintenance should be the keyword.

The problem with some peeps is their literal interpretation of the word Refurbish and Upgrade.

gurnam:

No matter how good you maintain it....a 20 yrs old aircraft can't be the same as a new aircraft...that is common sense.

Are we saying Nigeria cannot afford to buy brand new aircrafts for the new national carrier.

Why must they always set the standard low when it concerns other Nigerians...but will go for the best money can buy from any part of the world when the thieving elites are involved?

Are we not humans like them?

eGuerrilla:

It is one thing to debate the maintenance regime and renewal cycle of an aircraft that has been in the service of the same airline for a contiguous period of 20 years but quite another to pontificate about one that has changed hands multiple times, I think.

Given the turn of events in Nigeria's aviation industry in recent years, do we not owe it to ourselves to be absolutely clear about the standards we expect from our new national carrier?

Tolexander: ya!
You made sense!

I understand you are talking base on the antecedence of the woman!

ndu_chucks:

You wrote that "20 years old aircraft can be new aircraft depending on approved standards", but i submit to you that a brand new aircraft beats a refurbished one, anyday, as long as we are talking about the same model of aircraft. Why refurbish instead of just buying new ones.

This kind of justification of mediocrity was highly unexpected of you. I am disappointed.

theoctopus: Stop these your attacks on Oduah! It will only make you guys look more silly. You are making it too glaring that it is a campaign of hate. The new carrier is taking off with 20 planes, not 1. So this news is crap!

Ngwakwe: 20 years old aircraft can be new aircraft depending on approved standards.

What has been the rate of usage?

Refurbished or/and Upgraded?

Were the Engines changed with new types?

Extended Maintenance should be the keyword.

The problem with some peeps is their literal interpretation of the word Refurbish and Upgrade.

gramci:

** When is an aircraft too old?


July 1, 2000 By Bruce Landsberg

Both aircraft and people require more maintenance as they grow old. As our general aviation fleet ages, pilots often ask when the useful life of an aircraft is over. The easy answer is when the economics of maintenance exceed the value of the airplane. But many of us don't fly based on economics alone and will continue to maintain an airplane well beyond fiscal feasibility. All that matters is that the airworthiness be maintained. Occasionally, however, there are owners who attempt to take more out of a machine than is safe without the requisite maintenance investment, and that can lead to accidents.

Airliners and business jets are built with a certain number of cycles in mind. A cycle is usually defined as a pressurization and depressurization of the cabin. There is no doubt that pumping up the cabin puts more stress on an airframe than does unpressurized flying. It was the catastrophic failure of the cabin roof of an elderly Boeing 737 that alerted the airline maintenance community to this problem. But what about unpressurized aircraft? The DC-3 has flown for more than 60 years, and many light aircraft soldier on after age 40.

Corrosion is a constant problem for aluminum aircraft. If they have not been internally corrosion-proofed and are operated in a wet or salty environment, they will rot much faster than in a dry climate. A business colleague flew a high-time (more than 10,000 hours) Piper Arrow for nearly a decade after it had been a trainer on the Florida coast for a number of years. My friend's steady diet of liver and onions also may have contributed to a corrosive atmosphere inside the cabin that led to an earlier demise of the aircraft. At the last annual inspection the maintenance technician could no longer sign off the old bird without extensive and expensive repairs, so the Arrow became an organ donor with her serviceable parts going to more viable machines. She was deemed unairworthy before becoming unsafe.

I've spent much of my flight time in mature aircraft and they can be perfectly serviceable, but only when the owner is willing to invest substantial sums. The best philosophy is to replace certain items on a regular basis whether they need it or not. Batteries, for example, are good for about three years. Vacuum pumps will generally last for about 500 hours, and fuel tank bladders or cells will generally last 10 to 15 years, provided they are maintained properly. There are always exceptions to average life spans — shorter and longer. Beech, in the pilot's operating handbook for the newest Baron model, listed the life span of the vacuum pumps at 600 hours. All time-limited components ought to be listed where the pilot can easily find the information.

Engines have a defined life, and there are several variables that can affect their longevity. Frequent use is beneficial, since there can be a tendency for the cylinders to rust. Moisture in the air corrodes the interior cylinder wall, which then abrades the piston rings, resulting in high oil consumption. This by itself will not lead to engine failure, but eventually the engine will lose power. There are special cylinder treatments to reduce this, but aircraft are built to fly — so why not enjoy it and help your engine out at the same time? Time between overhauls, or TBO, is recommended by the manufacturer but is not considered mandatory for Part 91 operations. The engine is the part of an aircraft most prone to failure because it is the most complex and under the most stress. In every safety review that ASF has done on a specific model of light aircraft, the engine is at least twice as likely to be the cause of or a factor in an accident than other aircraft-related causes.

An old aircraft can be partially rejuvenated by simply dropping in a replacement engine. It gets challenging when parts are no longer obtainable to overhaul the engine. A good machine shop and mechanic are invaluable then, and the cost will assuredly increase. The engine, of course, is not the only item that wears out.

Do accidents increase as the fleet ages? As a general rule, no. If we look at accidents that were caused by real mechanical failure and not where the pilot mismanaged the fuel or forgot to add oil, the trend appears to be slightly downward. According to the AOPA Air Safety Foundation's database, there were 366 maintenance-related accidents in 1983 and 235 in 1998. Recognizing that the estimate of hours flown is just an estimate, the rate through the years hovers around 1.07 accidents per 100,000 hours flown. This works out to about 14 percent of the annual accident total, with just the slightest downward trend. Fatal accidents due to mechanical engine failure have averaged about 2.5 per month in the past 16 years.


Read more:
http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-News/2000/July/1/When-is-an-aircraft-too-old

Sincere 9gerian: ^^ That is the position of EXPERTS in the field. Oya, all other ignoramuses should shut up already. The propagandists, speculators and mischief makers should take their NONSENSE elsewhere. Case closed!

Sincere 9gerian: ^^ That is the position of EXPERTS in the field. Oya, all other ignoramuses should shut up already. The propagandists, speculators and mischief makers should take their NONSENSE elsewhere. Case closed!

But another expert opinion from the United States of America reported by Reuters stated that the Aviation authority in the United States are also concerned about the age of aircrafts and have commenced knowledgeable moves to introduce legislation which may propose age limits for commercial airplanes.

In the report published on Tuesday April 18th, 2006, we were informed basically that the United States' aviation regulators, Federal Aviation Authority [FAA] proposed for the first time operating limits for commercial aircraft to help avoid the most serious age-related metal fatigue cracks and other damage.

The change would exceed long-standing regulations on aging aircraft, mainly concerning maintenance, and apply to thousands of airliners already in service and those on the drawing board, a draft Federal Aviation Administration rule showed.

The FAA estimates the cost to industry at $360 million over 20 years. Plane makers like Boeing Company and Europe's Airbus would incur about 10 percent of this, while airlines and other operators would pay the rest.

Russia could ban planes older than 20 years after crash

MOSCOW: Russian lawmakers on Wednesday called for a ban on planes built more than 20 years ago after a 23-year-old Boeing 737 operated by a regional airline crashed, killing all 50 passengers and crew.
Five lawmakers from the ruling party United Russia submitted amendments that would introduce a ban on “using civilian aircraft that were produced more than 20 years ago to carry out commercial flights.”

Our correspondent gathered that apart from the
combination of the two airlines, about 10 other aircraft
have been booked with Bombardier Aircraft
Manufacturing Company based in Brazil by the
government. The delivery of the 10 aircraft is expected
to commence from March 2014.

eGuerrilla:

What more could one expect from a dyed-in-the-wool sycophant for who no bridge is considered too far, in the race to the bottom?



Source



Source: http://www.nst.com.my/latest/russia-could-ban-planes-older-than-20-years-after-crash-1.407321

Why isn't the President flying in 20 year old aircrafts, huh?

Sincere 9gerian:
why are you focused on a single aircraft out of about 24 aircrafts which the proposed national carrier would take off with?