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karatecatman · Guest

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8542482.stm
How do you recycle a jumbo jet?

Mario Cacciottolo
BBC News

It can take 12 weeks and a lot of elbow grease, but planes are recycled when they are too old or not needed anymore. How is it done?

The silver shell of the 747, balanced on three piles of wooden pallets, shudders and wobbles alarmingly as its left wing slaps the ground like a wounded bird.

All the while an excavator machine, equipped with a giant claw, tears into the tail of the once proud aeroplane, shredding its formerly protective skin into strips of scrap metal.

After decades of safely transporting thousands of people to destinations around the globe, this is the fate that awaits aircraft when they are too old, or their owners can't afford them any more. They come to an airfield in Gloucestershire to be scrapped.

Plane parts are bought for any number of reasons. Anything from flying controls to doors and windows are bought by aviation companies for reuse, snapped up by production companies for film and TV and by the likes of the SAS for training. Seats are even bought by enthusiasts for their homes.

'Power by hour'

Air Salvage International (ASI), based at Cotswold Airport in Kemble, is the largest specialist breaker in Britain and claims to be the busiest. Mark Gregory started ASI 15 years ago, after working as a mechanic for an aviation firm. Since then it has handled 350 aircraft.

The company, which employs 25 staff, has been one of the few beneficiaries of the economic downturn. Last year it handled more planes than ever due to airlines going bankrupt or suffering huge losses. It dismantled 30 planes, usually it's more like 15 to 25. There are currently nine planes at the airfield waiting to be scrapped.

It costs a plane's owner between £60,000 to £120,000 to dismantle a 747, depending on what is required. The entire process can take up to 12 weeks. Up to 50% of an older jumbo jet can be recycled and on average they are taken out of services after 24 years.

The process can be categorised into three areas: engines, component parts and fuselage. This is how it's done.

ENGINES

The core value of a plane is its engine, which can make up 80% of its total value. The rest of the plane can be sold for spares for about £234,000 ($350,000).

The engines are the first thing to come off a plane after it arrives. They are tested and then can be fitted to another plane, stripped down further for parts or returned to the manufacturers to be repaired. You get more money for parts, rather than reselling the engine as whole, says Mr Gregory.

Many planes are stripped of their engines and kept at Kemble until their owners, often leasing companies who loan planes to airlines, decide their fate.

Some companies lease out engines under a scheme known in the industry as "power by the hour", which sees an airline pay for each hour a leased engine is used.

COMPONENT PARTS

The parts of a plane that can be taken off for reuse include items such as flight deck instruments, black box flight recorders, air conditioning, flying controls, landing gears (wheels and hydraulics), flaps and spoilers, fuel system and cabin interiors - like doors and windows.

Parts must undergo stringent checks and be given a Certificate of Airworthiness before they can be reused on working aircraft. This can be done on-site by ASI or parts are returned to the original manufacturer by their owner for a complete overhaul.

Every part, right down to the nuts and bolts, has accompanying paperwork that details everything about its history. These documents are kept for nine years after a plane is destroyed.

Parts can also be leased out for between £3,342 ($5,000) and over £300,000 ($453,000), according to Mr Gregory.

Up to 50% of an older 747 can be recycled, whereas a newer Airbus A320 can have 95% of its parts reused. What can't be recycled is sent to a landfill site.

FUSELAGE

The landing gear is the last thing to be taken off, leaving just the metal fuselage, which is propped up using piles of wide wooden pallets.

It's then crunched up into metal fragments using an industrial wrecking machine, equipped with a giant claw.

A 747 can take two days to be totally crunched. These are then taken off to specialist recyclers, who identify and handle them according to type - aluminium, copper or steel.

A more modern Airbus can be broken up in just six hours, although the entire recycling process takes eight weeks.

USES FOR PARTS
Apart from scrapping the metal, or saving parts for reuse on existing aircraft, what else can you do with an old plane? Plenty, according to Mr Gregory.

A television production company has blown up a plane to film a demonstration of the consequence of foiled terror plots. Sections of aircraft have also been supplied for film sets.

The Dutch Ministry of Defence has used facilities to test exactly how many explosives are needed to blow in the door on a 747, without injuring passengers. The SAS has used parts to work out how to gain access to aircraft by stealth, without blowing any holes but by using the existing structure of the plane. The police and armed forces have also come to shoot at seats to detect the behaviour of bullets in an aircraft environment.

Doors from an Indian Airlines A320 are currently in storage at Kemble and destined for a training company in Spain, to allow stewardesses to practise removing them and throwing them out to allow an emergency escape. The rear section of another Airbus is to be sliced off and sold to British Airways, to allow its baggage handlers to practise loading luggage into the hold. Its top half is being cut away and sent to a training college, possibly for fire drills.

One pilot, according to Mr Gregory, also bought a complete flight deck of a veteran BAC 1-11 to installed in his home as a bar, proving there's plenty of uses for a plane long after it stops taking to the skies.

con spirito · Member Joined: 07 Apr 2007 Posts: 577 Location: Inflight

I'd just love to work over there! Very Happy

As stripping/removing components is fairly easy as compared to putting them back which takes a lot of time.
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HAWK21M · Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 12:46 am Post subject:

Most dangerous part is when the fuselage is divided.

More satisfying is assembly rather than disassembly but whose complaining.
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xterra · Member Joined: 10 Feb 2007 Posts: 595 Location: DONT KNO

There is one parked at BOM, can we get to try this process on that one? before it gets even in worse condition for us to even try it..
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