Museum parts used to maintain Herc

[Scoobie Newbie]

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/royal-canadian-air-force-raided-museum-for-search-and-rescue-airplane-parts

The part I don't quite understand is near the end if the article. Don't we have new Herc J's?

 

[McG]

Don't we have new Herc J's?

Not in the SAR role.

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

I appreciate the knowledge.

 

[dimsum]

I would have thought that any avionics, etc. would be taken out of airplanes destined for museums  ???

 

[Colin Parkinson]

They sold the weather ships with all the Met instruments aboard and then had to buy back those instruments at inflated prices.

 

[chrisf]

Come on, let's not act surprised, it's not the first time we've had to raid a museum for parts, it won't be the last.

 

[Loachman]

Or buy some back from the market in a small Afghan village.

 

[Navy_Pete]

We've been doing that for a while for the AORs.  Also ebay.  It's almost a good thing they self divested; we've already turned over all the rocks looking for spares!

 

[Occam]

We've been doing that for a while for the AORs.  Also ebay.  It's almost a good thing they self divested; we've already turned over all the rocks looking for spares!

I have a couple systems on the ships that we've had to source parts for using eBay or used equipment vendors, mostly because the parts are no longer in production and there are no new parts to be had.  I'll likely have to keep doing that right up to the Halifax class end-of-life.

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

Which is when?

 

[Occam]

Which is when?

Likely sometime in the 2030's.

These systems might be replaced in the future, but there's no plan in place at the moment. 

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

Yikes

 

[Rescue Randy]

The parts that they are talking about are a fairly recent upgrade of the E and H model Hercules.  They upgraded the avionics and cockpit of all E and H models just prior to 2000 to give them a nice new glass cockpit.  All aircraft were upgraded, including those that were at the end of their service life because of hours flown.  The Americans are still in the middle of an upgrade for their H models to bring them to the same standard.  Those parts should have been taken out of the aircraft and put back in the supply system prior to the aircraft being disposed of, but someone screwed up.  This is not a story about obsolete parts, it is a story about the RCAF not properly preparing an aircraft prior to disposal.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

and not exactly the first time that has happened

 

[Sparkplugs]

The parts that they are talking about are a fairly recent upgrade of the E and H model Hercules.  They upgraded the avionics and cockpit of all E and H models just prior to 2000 to give them a nice new glass cockpit.  All aircraft were upgraded, including those that were at the end of their service life because of hours flown.  The Americans are still in the middle of an upgrade for their H models to bring them to the same standard.  Those parts should have been taken out of the aircraft and put back in the supply system prior to the aircraft being disposed of, but someone screwed up.  This is not a story about obsolete parts, it is a story about the RCAF not properly preparing an aircraft prior to disposal.

Almost. The glass cockpits started to come in on our Es and Hs in 2010. We still have an E model kicking around with the old analog gauges, and the glass cockpit updates were done on the rest of the fleet from 2010 until just this past summer.

Not even close to all of the aircraft were upgraded to glass. Some were upgraded a bit for some avionics stuff, some got the whole shebang. We just retired three planes in the last year that definitely were not outfitted with the glass. One of them is still in the air.

Why would we buy parts when there are perfectly good ones on airplanes with nothing wrong with them other than the airframe being out of hours?

Not the first time, won't be the last. I'm surprised no one made this a bologna story before now, actually -- I've been over at the museum multiple times for different things.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The Coast Guard sold the weatherships with all the meteorological gear onboard and had to buy it back to keep the other gear running at much inflated prices.

 

[Zoomie]

Almost. The glass cockpits started to come in on our Es and Hs in 2010. We still have an E model kicking around with the old analog gauges, and the glass cockpit updates were done on the rest of the fleet from 2010 until just this past summer.

Rescue Randy was referring to the EFIS/EHSI "glass" - all E/H models had this done by the early 2000's.  Unsure what further mod you are talking about when it comes to the E/H's in 2010?  Steam driven AI's and HSI's (ie analogue) have not been in the Herc system since then (2000-2001).  When I worked at 436 Sqn - we would have to be careful as to which crews were flying which tails - as there were two very distinct flight decks back then.

 

[Sparkplugs]

Rescue Randy was referring to the EFIS/EHSI "glass" - all E/H models had this done by the early 2000's.  Unsure what further mod you are talking about when it comes to the E/H's in 2010?  Steam driven AI's and HSI's (ie analogue) have not been in the Herc system since then (2000-2001).  When I worked at 436 Sqn - we would have to be careful as to which crews were flying which tails - as there were two very distinct flight decks back then.

They got a new set of screens where the TIT/rpm/Fuel Flow/Oil Temp/Pressure guages used to sit. They're all on two big glass screens now, well, on all of them save for the last E-model. They also hard-wired the prop balance systems in and gave us a new system and program with which to do balancing on. Pretty swanky.