KC-10 #1 going to it's retirement home.

https://baytobaynews.com/delaware/stori ... seum,76847

Arriving 26 Apr 22.

zanl188 wrote:

Arriving 26 Apr 22.

How much use did she get?

A crime those are going away. Lots of life left in them had any planning been done.

FlapOperator wrote:

A crime those are going away. Lots of life left in them had any planning been done.

Probably those are not even at half of their technical lifespan !
The DC-10 series are known for their over-engineered structure, requiring very few fatigue related AD's, contrary to Boeing and Lockheed built aircraft.

And keeping the truly ancient KC135, it makes no sense

A combined KC10 / KC46 tanker fleet would have been far more effective

Max Q wrote:

And keeping the truly ancient KC135, it makes no sense

A combined KC10 / KC46 tanker fleet would have been far more effective

It's about numbers and sustainment. There is a large fleet of KC-135's in the USAF's inventory, compared to the number of KC-10's.

The basic infrastructure costs to keep a fleet of aircraft running, from depot maintenance and training infrastructure doesn't really matter if you have 60 airplanes, or 400 airplanes; it's just that with a larger fleet, the costs are more spread out across the individual airframes.

If you have a budgetary issue, to achieve the best cost reduction, it is more cost effective to completely eliminate an entire type and fleet altogether, otherwise you have to make a deeper cut elsewhere. Eliminating the entire fleet of about 60 KC-10's ends up saving more money than eliminating the same number of KC-135's.

ThePointblank wrote:

Max Q wrote:

And keeping the truly ancient KC135, it makes no sense

A combined KC10 / KC46 tanker fleet would have been far more effective

It's about numbers and sustainment. There is a large fleet of KC-135's in the USAF's inventory, compared to the number of KC-10's.

The basic infrastructure costs to keep a fleet of aircraft running, from depot maintenance and training infrastructure doesn't really matter if you have 60 airplanes, or 400 airplanes; it's just that with a larger fleet, the costs are more spread out across the individual airframes.

If you have a budgetary issue, to achieve the best cost reduction, it is more cost effective to completely eliminate an entire type and fleet altogether, otherwise you have to make a deeper cut elsewhere. Eliminating the entire fleet of about 60 KC-10's ends up saving more money than eliminating the same number of KC-135's.

You cannot compare a KC-10 and a KC-135 1:1. The KC-10 is a far more capable aircraft and can also be used for other mission profiles.

747classic wrote:

FlapOperator wrote:

A crime those are going away. Lots of life left in them had any planning been done.

Probably those are not even at half of their technical lifespan !
The DC-10 series are known for their over-engineered structure, requiring very few fatigue related AD's, contrary to Boeing and Lockheed built aircraft.

I don’t recall when I was in BA Engineering and we operated L1011’s they were especially in need of structural AD’s compared to other types, if anything they were seen as one of the better types for that.
The RAF operated them extensively in operations until 2014, the ex BA model 500’s being more heavily modified for military work, AAR and transport including freight.

GDB wrote:

747classic wrote:

FlapOperator wrote:

A crime those are going away. Lots of life left in them had any planning been done.

Probably those are not even at half of their technical lifespan !
The DC-10 series are known for their over-engineered structure, requiring very few fatigue related AD's, contrary to Boeing and Lockheed built aircraft.

I don’t recall when I was in BA Engineering and we operated L1011’s they were especially in need of structural AD’s compared to other types, if anything they were seen as one of the better types for that.
The RAF operated them extensively in operations until 2014, the ex BA model 500’s being more heavily modified for military work, AAR and transport including freight.

I meant the Lockheed C-130, C-141 and C-5 structural (fatigue) issues, also most Boeing aircraft have above average structural AD's.
All these issues, especially found by older (civil and military) aircraft led to the introduction in 2011 of new (civil) FAA rules for Widespread Fatigue Damage (WFD) and the introduction of the Limit Of Validity (LOV), effective the end of the road for an aircraft type, specifying the max allowed flight hours and/or cycles. Also the amount of maintenance (incl all AD's) are clearly defined to reach all thresholds, until finally the LOV is reached.
Relative few structural AD's are needed to reach the LOV of the DC10 series, due the very strong (and a little overweight) structure of the DC10.

Note : Many L1011's were already withdrawn from use in 2011, only a few late builts were active..

FlapOperator wrote:

A crime those are going away. Lots of life left in them had any planning been done.

Yep. The highest-time jet has ~ 40K hours and many tens of thousands of cycles left.

Pointblank is spot-on (as usual) with the financial reasons justifying scrapping the fleet, but there are other less tangible reasons: the 10 hasn't had a serious tech refresh in its lifetime. The only updates were FMS and later GATM. That's it. So 40+ years without a tech refresh on a jet with kapton wiring and you get a lot of weird things happening and reliability suffers greatly. I can't tell you how many EPs and abnormal procedures crews had to run the last years flying her. They've had a quarter of the fleet parked in the Middle East for the last two decades, which takes a lot out of the jets. Add to that inexperienced maintenance due to the gutting of 5 and 7 levels and you've got a recipe for disaster.

Another part is the KC-46 ameliorates most of the KC-135's weaknesses by incorporating many of the KC-10's strengths. I'd love to see her stay, but the AF never treated her right anyway. Better to go sooner than to see things get really bad.

747classic wrote:

GDB wrote:

747classic wrote:

Probably those are not even at half of their technical lifespan !
The DC-10 series are known for their over-engineered structure, requiring very few fatigue related AD's, contrary to Boeing and Lockheed built aircraft.

I don’t recall when I was in BA Engineering and we operated L1011’s they were especially in need of structural AD’s compared to other types, if anything they were seen as one of the better types for that.
The RAF operated them extensively in operations until 2014, the ex BA model 500’s being more heavily modified for military work, AAR and transport including freight.

I meant the Lockheed C-130, C-141 and C-5 structural (fatigue) issues, also most Boeing aircraft have above average structural AD's.
All these issues, especially found by older (civil and military) aircraft led to the introduction in 2011 of new (civil) FAA rules for Widespread Fatigue Damage (WFD) and the introduction of the Limit Of Validity (LOV), effective the end of the road for an aircraft type, specifying the max allowed flight hours and/or cycles. Also the amount of maintenance (incl all AD's) are clearly defined to reach all thresholds, until finally the LOV is reached.
Relative few structural AD's are needed to reach the LOV of the DC10 series, due the very strong (and a little overweight) structure of the DC10.

Note : Many L1011's were already withdrawn from use in 2011, only a few late builts were active..

Oh god yes, the C-5A's were notorious, whole new wings and all that.
I was a bit surprised when Lockheed were mentioned probably as it was a very well liked type at BA.

LyleLanley wrote:

FlapOperator wrote:

A crime those are going away. Lots of life left in them had any planning been done.

Yep. The highest-time jet has ~ 40K hours and many tens of thousands of cycles left.

Pointblank is spot-on (as usual) with the financial reasons justifying scrapping the fleet, but there are other less tangible reasons: the 10 hasn't had a serious tech refresh in its lifetime. The only updates were FMS and later GATM. That's it. So 40+ years without a tech refresh on a jet with kapton wiring and you get a lot of weird things happening and reliability suffers greatly. I can't tell you how many EPs and abnormal procedures crews had to run the last years flying her. They've had a quarter of the fleet parked in the Middle East for the last two decades, which takes a lot out of the jets. Add to that inexperienced maintenance due to the gutting of 5 and 7 levels and you've got a recipe for disaster.

Another part is the KC-46 ameliorates most of the KC-135's weaknesses by incorporating many of the KC-10's strengths. I'd love to see her stay, but the AF never treated her right anyway. Better to go sooner than to see things get really bad.

Correct, and the lack of major upgrades to the KC-10 fleet one of the major reasons why it is being retired. To perform a major upgrade on the KC-10 will costs millions per aircraft.

Furthermore, the DC-10 is being slowly phased out of service in in civilian life; Fedex only has a handful left flying. While in the short term, they can pick over the parked planes for parts, once that is depleted, the costs for sustainment of the KC-10 fleet will skyrocket. Every part thereafter will be one-off custom fabrication, which will dramatically drive up the costs for said spares. It's not going to be sustainable in the long term to keep the KC-10 in operation for that much longer due to the ever shrinking fleet.

Twisted logic


It still makes no sense to keep smaller, much older and less capable KC135s in service whose almost direct replacement, the KC46 is now entering service in substantial numbers while retiring a very capable much larger tanker that can carry a lot more fuel and cargo or passengers


As stated they have decades of structural life and cycles remaining, if they need a lot of work done so be it, look at the B52 and the enormous financial commitment being made in that re-engine and modernization program



Keep the ancient aircraft going at any cost while scrapping the barely used, far more capable airframe



Completely illogical and a huge waste of money

Max Q wrote:

Twisted logic… Completely illogical and a huge waste of money

Are you speaking of the entire USAF or just this program? Because both feet fit that particular shoe.

Max Q wrote:

Twisted logic


It still makes no sense to keep smaller, much older and less capable KC135s in service whose almost direct replacement, the KC46 is now entering service in substantial numbers while retiring a very capable much larger tanker that can carry a lot more fuel and cargo or passengers


As stated they have decades of structural life and cycles remaining, if they need a lot of work done so be it, look at the B52 and the enormous financial commitment being made in that re-engine and modernization program



Keep the ancient aircraft going at any cost while scrapping the barely used, far more capable airframe



Completely illogical and a huge waste of money

Fully agree

And with some clever spare part planning (sourcing, well maintained, suitable ex FedEx MD-10-30F's, stored in the desert or still active) and a longterm contract for maintaining the GE CF6-50C2 engines, powering the KC-10's (the identical GE-CF6-50E2 engine powers the E-4B's for the next 10 years ?), the KC10's could be operated for at least 10 years more until a successor has been found or all KC-46A's are finally fully operational.

But it seems that thinking ahead and clever planning is not the favoured line of congress and/or the USAF, wasting a lot of taxpayers money.

Just for curiosity, how old is the oldest operational KC-135?

A few days ago I spotted one of them on FR24 circling above Romania which was 62 years old!

747classic wrote:

Max Q wrote:

Twisted logic


It still makes no sense to keep smaller, much older and less capable KC135s in service whose almost direct replacement, the KC46 is now entering service in substantial numbers while retiring a very capable much larger tanker that can carry a lot more fuel and cargo or passengers


As stated they have decades of structural life and cycles remaining, if they need a lot of work done so be it, look at the B52 and the enormous financial commitment being made in that re-engine and modernization program



Keep the ancient aircraft going at any cost while scrapping the barely used, far more capable airframe



Completely illogical and a huge waste of money

Fully agree

And with some clever spare part planning (sourcing, well maintained, suitable ex FedEx MD-10-30F's, stored in the desert or still active) and a longterm contract for maintaining the GE CF6-50C2 engines, powering the KC-10's (the identical GE-CF6-50E2 engine powers the E-4B's for the next 10 years ?), the KC10's could be operated for at least 10 years more until a successor has been found or all KC-46A's are finally fully operational.

But it seems that thinking ahead and clever planning is not the favoured line of congress and/or the USAF, wasting a lot of taxpayers money.

I doubt whatever ex Fedex MD-10's that have been sent to the boneyard are in good shape; they were retired once they came up for heavy maintenance, and a replacement aircraft was available.

And it's likely that whatever aircraft they are sending to the boneyard have had any parts with significant amount of life left swapped out with parts that are coming due so they can use the part on an active aircraft.

Rotable parts have to be serviced when the limits have been reached but after servicing can be installed at another (KC-10) aircraft.
Many structural parts can also be salvaged from a (DC)MD10-30 airframe, but only if the donor aircraft has been properly documented (FedEx has a highly regarded maintenance department !)
With all the documents in place the structural part can than be used at another aircraft, if needed.

]

747classic wrote:

Rotable parts have to be serviced when the limits have been reached but after servicing can be installed at another (KC-10) aircraft.
Many structural parts can also be salvaged from a (DC)MD10-30 airframe, but only if the donor aircraft has been properly documented (FedEx has a highly regarded maintenance department !)
With all the documents in place the structural part can than be used at another aircraft, if needed.

That's assuming that they are intact and that Fedex didn't decide to rob them of parts once parked to keep the current fleet running.

And looking at some of the photos in the A.net database, they've already started doing that:

The pictures above are of FedEx DC/MD10 aircraft, that are stored for many years already, these would certainly not be the preferred donor aircraft.

8 MD10-30 aircraft are still operational and would be the first choice.

A clear preference would be the last active and the last stored FedEx MD10-30's and only factory built -30CF and dedicated -30F aircraft would be included, because these aircraft have the same structural lay-out, identical to the KC10 (also a DC10-30CF). Passenger converted aircraft would not be considered.

Active : Ships 304 (-CF), 306 (-F), 307 (-F), 313 (-F), 316 -F), 318 (-CF), 319 (-CF) and 321 (-CF)
Stored : Ships 315 (-F), stored 30 Jan 2022, etc.

An educated selection of the still available -30CF and -30F aircraft could deliver well documented spare parts for years to come, if acting swiftly (but that seems to be impossible )

747classic wrote:

The pictures above are of FedEx DC/MD10 aircraft, that are stored for many years already, these would certainly not be the preferred donor aircraft.

8 MD10-30 aircraft are still operational and would be the first choice.

A clear preference would be the last active and the last stored FedEx MD10-30's and only factory built -30CF and dedicated -30F aircraft would be included, because these aircraft have the same structural lay-out, identical to the KC10 (also a DC10-30CF). Passenger converted aircraft would not be considered.

Active : Ships 304 (-CF), 306 (-F), 307 (-F), 313 (-F), 316 -F), 318 (-CF), 319 (-CF) and 321 (-CF)
Stored : Ships 315 (-F), stored 30 Jan 2022, etc.

An educated selection of the still available -30CF and -30F aircraft could deliver well documented spare parts for years to come, if acting swiftly (but that seems to be impossible )

The KC-10 fleet can be kept going for a long time with the parts on the recently parked ones as well. AFAIK there are many DC-10 parts that are used on the MD-11 as well and FX will have dibs on those already.

There are enough spare aircraft intact to service the fleet. I wonder how easy it would be to take the MD-10 conversion and put it in the KC-10. Fed Ex converted 100 or so jets. some being converted as late as 2009/10. The KC-10 hasn’t even passed it’s midway point of its hours/cycles. The KC-10 airframe is built like a tank they don’t have issues with fatigue. Fed Ex had 40 year old ex United MD-10 flying until last year and could have kept them going.

DL757NYC wrote:

There are enough spare aircraft intact to service the fleet. I wonder how easy it would be to take the MD-10 conversion and put it in the KC-10. Fed Ex converted 100 or so jets. some being converted as late as 2009/10. The KC-10 hasn’t even passed it’s midway point of its hours/cycles. The KC-10 airframe is built like a tank they don’t have issues with fatigue. Fed Ex had 40 year old ex United MD-10 flying until last year and could have kept them going.

MD10 type conversion would be a nogo, requiring intensive re-certification, due (digital) integration of the adapted fuel and air to air refuelling system.
The present upgraded 3 man flight deck, (with some minor tweeks , if needed) would be sufficient for another 10+ years.

ThePointblank wrote:

Max Q wrote:

And keeping the truly ancient KC135, it makes no sense

A combined KC10 / KC46 tanker fleet would have been far more effective

It's about numbers and sustainment. There is a large fleet of KC-135's in the USAF's inventory, compared to the number of KC-10's.

The basic infrastructure costs to keep a fleet of aircraft running, from depot maintenance and training infrastructure doesn't really matter if you have 60 airplanes, or 400 airplanes; it's just that with a larger fleet, the costs are more spread out across the individual airframes.

If you have a budgetary issue, to achieve the best cost reduction, it is more cost effective to completely eliminate an entire type and fleet altogether, otherwise you have to make a deeper cut elsewhere. Eliminating the entire fleet of about 60 KC-10's ends up saving more money than eliminating the same number of KC-135's.

Had the USAF bought twice as many or more KC-10's, they would have probably been worth keeping. Now it's just a fleet of 59 rather obsolescent tri-motor planes in a twin engined world. It's not worth putting money into them to upgrade the cockpits to two pilot glass cockpits for such a small fleet. It's also really hard to re-engine due to the tail mounted engine. The MD-11 had so many problems that it probably was a good thing that no tanker version was ever built. A combined larger fleet of KC-10's and a tanker derivative of the MD-11 might have been worth maintaining.

flyingclrs727 wrote:

ThePointblank wrote:

Max Q wrote:

And keeping the truly ancient KC135, it makes no sense

A combined KC10 / KC46 tanker fleet would have been far more effective

It's about numbers and sustainment. There is a large fleet of KC-135's in the USAF's inventory, compared to the number of KC-10's.

The basic infrastructure costs to keep a fleet of aircraft running, from depot maintenance and training infrastructure doesn't really matter if you have 60 airplanes, or 400 airplanes; it's just that with a larger fleet, the costs are more spread out across the individual airframes.

If you have a budgetary issue, to achieve the best cost reduction, it is more cost effective to completely eliminate an entire type and fleet altogether, otherwise you have to make a deeper cut elsewhere. Eliminating the entire fleet of about 60 KC-10's ends up saving more money than eliminating the same number of KC-135's.

Had the USAF bought twice as many or more KC-10's, they would have probably been worth keeping. Now it's just a fleet of 59 rather obsolescent tri-motor planes in a twin engined world. It's not worth putting money into them to upgrade the cockpits to two pilot glass cockpits for such a small fleet. It's also really hard to re-engine due to the tail mounted engine. The MD-11 had so many problems that it probably was a good thing that no tanker version was ever built. A combined larger fleet of KC-10's and a tanker derivative of the MD-11 might have been worth maintaining.

Seen the numbers of other aircraft types in the USAF (2021) the KC-10 fleet is medium sized, see : https://www.airforcemag.com/article/202 ... equipment/

All the ground support equipment is available, the flightdeck is not obsolete, if neccessary some small tweaks can be made, but certainly not a 2 man cockpit conversion.
The presence of a third pair of eyes at the flightdeck in military operation is still needed.