Finnish F/A-18C turned into F/A-18D

[Stephan Lodewijks]

That must have been the most expensive 3-month usage of an airplane the Finnish AF ever had. In the end, it just might have been cheaper to lease one from the US, Canada or elsewhere

It's worse: less than 2-month usage...according to Air Forces Monthly magazine the first flight after rebuild was on December 3rd last year... I have the article here in front of me: 100,000 man hours were put into this project...
(although thinking of it, 100,000 almost seems like a misprint, doesn't it?)

Credits to AFM.

Regards,

Stephan

(PS As you know Canada doesn't use F-18C/D, but I get the idea about leasing)

[frank kramer]

(...), but I get the idea about leasing)

Well, you get the drift. Probably would have been cheaper (in retrospect) to refit a Canadian CF-188B with a new F-18D cockpit ordered from McBoing...
As for the 100.000 man hours: that was also what was mentioned in the press releases after this bird was rolled out in September of 2009.

Oh well, it's as a certain someone I'm sharing first names with always says:

"Hi, I'm Frank... I'm cheap"

[Canberra TT.18]

Hi

In the Finnish article there is mentioning of 15 million euros. Well my Finnish isn't that good but I think they refer to the cost of the (re)build.

Well, you get the drift. Probably would have been cheaper (in retrospect) to refit a Canadian CF-188B with a new F-18D cockpit ordered from McBoing...

Problem with F-18D cockpits was, they simply were not in production anymore.

We, the Dutch, had also some F-16's with just some 20 flying hours, before new build aircraft crashed (eg. J-710).

There is some statistics saying a Finnish Hornet had to crash. Every 10.000 of 100.000 flying hours 1,3 or 1,7 aircraft crashes, depends on the type. So a F-18 had to crash (Simply statistics) a pity it was the recently rebuild one. And luckilly the pilotes survived.

Pieter

[FISHER01]

I'm curious about the cause of the crash, especially if it had anything to do with the extraordinary rebuild.

The Air Force told reporters in Jyväskylä that the aircraft's crew had been
practicing pulling out of a dive at a height of more than nine kilometres
(29,500 feet) when the aeroplane suffered a tail slide.

The crew ejected at a height of about 4.5 kilometres after failing to
restore manoeuvrability.

[ehusmann]

(although thinking of it, 100,000 almost seems like a misprint, doesn't it?)

Well, no actually, unless you think it should be much higher.
If you do the math you´ll see it is not that much:
- a year has 250 workdays, eachday has 8 workhours, so one man can work 2.000 hours in a year
- I couldn´t find it, but I think the project took about 5 years, so one man can work 10.000 hours in those 5 years
- 100.000 / 10.000 is only 10 men

10 men to rebuild a complete plane in 5 years, that sounds plausible to me.

Erwin

[SquAdmin]

Well, no actually, unless you think it should be much higher.
If you do the math you´ll see it is not that much:
- a year has 250 workdays, eachday has 8 workhours, so one man can work 2.000 hours in a year
- I couldn´t find it, but I think the project took about 5 years, so one man can work 10.000 hours in those 5 years
- 100.000 / 10.000 is only 10 men

10 men to rebuild a complete plane in 5 years, that sounds plausible to me.

And it took two men to destroy it in a split second.

[nilsko]

There's this pilot saying:

"They make 'em, we brake 'em"

But this is an unfortunate accident luckily without casualties.

[frank kramer]

There's this pilot saying:

"They make 'em, we brake 'em"

In which case they would do something right... However, they normally say "They make 'em, we break 'em"

[Stratofreighter]

And it's "official" now...
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/20 ... ornet.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

DATE:22/01/10

SOURCE:Flight International

PICTURES: Second accident spells end for Finland's 'Frankenhornet'

By Craig Hoyle

The crew of a Finnish air force Boeing F-18D escaped without life-threatening injuries when their recently restored aircraft crashed during a training flight on 21 January.

The Finnish air force says the pilots ejected from an altitude of around 14,800ft (4,500m), with the aircraft having then crashed in a field in a sparsely populated area near the town of Juupajoki, around 175km (95nm) north of Helsinki.

Both pilots were recovered by rescue helicopter (Copterline Eurocopter EC135 OH-HCO pictured above) and flown to hospital to receive medical treatment.

Service sources later told local media that the aircraft was believed to have lost control after going into a tail slide following a high-speed dive.

The loss was the second mishap to have involved aircraft HN-468 inside a decade. The two-seat trainer had been badly damaged in a mid-air collision with a Finnish F-18C in November 2001, and had been returned to flight only last month (below) after a major rebuild programme performed by Patria.

Nicknamed the "Frankenhornet", it had returned to flight status on 3 December 2009, following the completion of a roughly 100,000h programme to bring it back to operational use.

Patria repaired the aircraft using structures sourced from a damaged F-18C, with major activities having included fitting a new starboard wing, engine intake and control surfaces, and making repairs to the aircraft's centre fuselage longeron.

© Patria
HN-468's rebuild had taken over 100,000 man hours to complete

[frank kramer]

Unfortunately, respected magazine Flight International got their facts mixed up... As we know, it is not a case of an F-18D that was repaired with parts of an F-18C, but the airframe of an F-18C that was converted into an F-18D. Furthermore, AFAIK it was "officially" nicknamed "Frankenplane" and not "Frankenhornet".

In the end, the song remains the same: yesterday it ended its all-too-short second career in the Finnish AF