The last journey of two Airbus A320

What happens to a plane after it has done its years of service? The last journey of two A320 of Swiss.

The HB-IYM and HB-IJF raised at the beginning of 2018 to their last journey from. They flew to Wales and St. Athan to the so-called Part-Out, what you call the evisceration of old planes. The two A320 aircraft were disassembled into its individual parts, the engines and Other components sold and the Rest scrapped or recycled.

The HB-IJF and the HB-IYM had a checkered past. Both aircraft were from 1995, when Swissair in use. After the Grounding, they were sold to a leasing company and flew for more than three years for Turkish Airlines. Starting in the spring of 2007, two machines were back for the Swiss national airline on the way, the wore now, with a new name Swiss.

The engine test will take up to four days

The Numbers of the two aircraft are evidence of an impressive performance: Around 38’000 flights, about 4.5 million of transported passengers and around 100’000 flight hours completed. After the last landing in St Athan has been tested in the case of a Part-out specialist operating first the engines. Not least because they represent an older machine about 80 percent of the total value. Such a detailed Test, including disassembly and preparation for the re-sale takes three to four days.

After that, the actual aircraft is disassembled. Usually are expanded in the five-week-long evisceration of around 1’000 components, tested, recorded and for sale Packed. In General, these components of buying a company, dealing with spare parts. Your interest is mainly in the case of engines, pumps, avionics equipment, chassis and auxiliary units (APUs) engine.

Five Weeks – 1000 Components

The history of all components is fully documented, so, for example, the number of flight hours, number of landings, and the date of manufacture. These data are a prerequisite that the components may be in a plane, and used used. The full documentation of all components of an airplane fills between boxes 50 and 100 Moving.

A Part Out of a need for a long-term and careful planning. This includes rare, intense negotiations with the lessor on the documentation, the condition of the engines, on the General condition of the aircraft and of course various financial aspects. Also if a plane is completely disassembled and partially scrapped, is fixed in the contract exactly what the state of the machine before, must be.

This article comes from our Partner, Jetstream international aviation magazine.

You are now a genuine part of the Swiss A320 HB-IYM or HB-IJF in a limited run in new aeroTELEGRAPH Shop.

Posted by Jack at .