Bidding farewell to our B737 “workhorse.”

Rebel · Post by **Rebel** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 3:10 pm

Bidding farewell to our B737 “workhorse.”

It’s time to bid adieu to a dependable friend. On Sept. 7, the Saskatoon and Whitehorse Zip flights will arrive in Vancouver at 11 a.m. P.S.T. for the final journey of the B737 fleet at Air Canada. The airplanes will then be parked and returned to lessors by the end of the year.

To mark the occasion, employees in Vancouver are invited to watch the arrival of these final flights which will be acknowledged by a flypast of two other retiring B737s.

To learn more about the B737 and its history, read the story in New Horizons found on http://www.achorizons.ca .

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Panama Jack · Post by **Panama Jack** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 3:33 pm

Sad to see the day has come Rebel. I doubt that many of them will fly in airline service again. About a year ago I read a magazine article (with step-by-step pictures) of how Air Canada flew a Boeing 737 (still in Canadian Airlines livery) down to Florida to get it scrapped. It was sad to see them go through the stages of deliberately turning an airworthy aircraft into scrap metal, not unlike when they take a healthy human and condemn him to death.

slowstream · Post by **slowstream** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 8:26 pm

Before too long it will be a rare site to see one of those old 200 series around.................can't say I'll miss some of those Zip paint jobs.

Rebel · Post by **Rebel** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 10:19 pm

Hi Panama Jack

As you well know it’s now cheaper to buy a used aircraft off the desert then do a heavy maintenance check. The cost of fuel is only going to accelerate the retirement of fly worthy but fuel inefficient aircraft. Still pretty sad...

Cheers

Panama Jack · Post by **Panama Jack** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 12:16 am

slowstream wrote:.................can't say I'll miss some of those Zip paint jobs.

My 4-year old daughter sure will. Spotting a pink airplane while at the airport was one of the highlights of her trips!

Swamp Donkey · Post by **Swamp Donkey** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 6:16 am

Yeah...the pink, green and orange ones were easy to pick out as traffic too!

Wild Cat · Post by **Wild Cat** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 12:35 pm

You know what guys, I'm not sure why Air Canada is doing this, but the last time I read about this airline in the newspapers was that Zip was actually becomeing profitable. I'm not sure for how long or if it continues to be, but I actually thought that this was the fleet that was going to be their backbone in the force.

The Raven · Post by **The Raven** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 2:11 pm

Wild Cat,

I believe that the mainline wages were brought close enough to Zip wages during the restructuring to allow the merging of Zip into the mainline operation.

I think you will find that the domestic mainline operation is now very close to a Zip operation anyway...as far as costs go.

Zip served its purpose.

The Raven

linecrew · Post by **linecrew** » Thu Sep 09, 2004 5:23 am

So did anyone catch the flypast? Get any pictures?

Rebel · Post by **Rebel** » Thu Sep 09, 2004 5:54 am

I just checked the Horizon’s photo section and there are no pictures of the fly-by posted yet, however I expect that an official photo was probably taken..

Mitch Cronin · Post by **Mitch Cronin** » Thu Sep 09, 2004 6:14 am

There are some good pictures posted on The AEF.

linecrew · Post by **linecrew** » Thu Sep 09, 2004 8:25 am

What's the AEF?

Got a link?

CClub · Post by **CClub** » Thu Sep 09, 2004 8:42 am

It's sad to see the -200 series pass on. And soon WJ will have 600's instead of 200's. Farewell to old smokey. I have always enjoyed the loud smokey takeoff of the 200, the clamshell reversers, engines that stick out the front and the back of the wing.

Farewell Fat Albert.

Mitch Cronin · Post by **Mitch Cronin** » Thu Sep 09, 2004 8:45 am

AEF = Aviation Employee Forum
http://www.aeforum.net

The Raven · Post by **The Raven** » Thu Sep 09, 2004 6:54 pm

A couple of good pictures at http://www.acpa.ca

corn-shoot · Post by **corn-shoot** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 7:31 am

For some reason, I always thought that the 200 looked like a big version of the ME-262...

Panama Jack · Post by **Panama Jack** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 11:33 am

Funny, I always thought the ME-262 looked like a mini -200.

Out of curiosity Rebel, how used are the -200's? How many airframe hours, how many cycles? Is there a lifetime limit for -200's? Is there still much life in them or are the old workhorses destined for the glue factory?

Rebel · Post by **Rebel** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 12:03 pm

Panama Jack

Sorry I know little about them as they were acquired via CDN. However I do recall that at one time the highest time ’37 in the world was been operated by one of the down east airlines owned by one of the fellows that everyone hated.. I believe that CDN acquired those air frames via the various mergers that went on. Perhaps the WJ folks know more about them as many of their original mechanics came from CDN.

I did meet some of my ’37 PWA/CDN buddies down in the Caribbean now and then and was struck by how similar the ’37, ’27 and ’07 flight decks were.

Way back when, I ferried into an RCAF station north of Brandon that CP operated as a RCAF mothball overhaul base and was suprised to see what I believe was the ME-262 (?) in storage/waiting to be restored and sent on to Ottawa. Hmm from what I can recall the machine that I touched and climbed around had a rocket engines(s) a very thick window and a steel airframe with a skid as landing gear. I seem to recall that the ME-262 had two wing mounted engines with conventional gear so maybe its not the same machine. Perhaps the ME-262 that I saw was on display at Duxford. Small world..

Nark · Post by **Nark** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 12:49 pm

Rebel, I think the first plane our talking about was the ME-163. It was used a a recon plane during the latter part of WWII. Took off on a cart, then landed on the skid's a short time later. If memory serves it had about 4 minutes of fuel.

Cheers.

Rebel · Post by **Rebel** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 1:27 pm

nark

You're probably right..How did you know about the ME-163?

The search engine gave me this:

Rocketplane. Year: 1941. Family: Winged. Country: Germany. Manufacturer: Lippisch.
The rocket-powered Messerschmitt Me-163 was the world's first and only operational pure rocket fighter and represented the culmination of Alexander Lippisch's years of research in rocketplanes, tail-less aircraft, and delta wings. As a weapon, the Me-163 had tremendous speed but very limited range. However the concepts developed by Lippisch contributed to the Space Shuttle and Buran orbiters of a quarter century later. Payload: 250 kg. to a: 12 km trajectory. Liftoff Thrust: 1,700 kgf. Liftoff Thrust: 17.00 kN. Total Mass: 3,955 kg. Core Diameter: 2.75 m. Total Length: 5.92 m.

The Me-163 had the following characteristics:

Single-seat interceptor
Powerplant: one 1,700 kgf thrust Walter 109-509A-2 rocket motor
Max. Speed: 960 km/hr; cruise 800 km/hr; landing speed 80 m/s
Range: 80 km during a 7.5 minute flight time. 12 km altitude reached in 3.3 minutes
Dimensions: span 9.33 m; length 5.70 m
Takeoff mass: 3995 kg loaded with 2 x Mk 118 x 60 rockets

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Me-163 Chronology

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1928 Jun 11 - First manned rocket-powered aircraft flight.
Friedrich Stamer made first manned rocket-powered flight in a tailless glider from the Wasserkuppe in the Rhön Mountains of Germany. Takeoff was made by elastic launching rope assisted by 44-pound thrust rocket, another rocket was fired while airborne, and a flight of about 1 mile was achieved. This flight was a part of experimentation directed by A. Lippisch.

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1941 Sep 1 - Me-163A first flight.
Messerschmitt Me-163A powered by "cold" H. Walther rocket successfully flown at Augsburg, Germany, development of which had begun in 1937, but "cold" engine proved unreliable. Flights were also made in October which reached speeds of 1,003 km/hr, or Mach 0.85.

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1943 Jun 1 - First Me-163B flight. Messerschmitt Me-163B rocket interceptor powered by Walther "hot" engine successfully flown at Bremen, Augsburg, and near Leipzig, Germany. Over 300 Me-163B's were produced by Junkers by the end of 1944.
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1944 Aug 1 - Me-163B first operational use. German Me-163B Komet rocket-powered fighters first attacked American bomber formations over Europe. The Me-163 had sweptback wings, Walther liquid-fuel rocket motor, speed of 590 mph, and powered flight duration of 8-10 minutes.

The following on the ME-263 which is sort of mudding the waters:

http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/aircraft/W ... me-263.htm

The following on the ME-262:

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/air_power/ap11.htm

oldtimer · Post by **oldtimer** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 7:37 pm

I remember reading about Aloha Airlines B737 Cabriolet had in excess of the max allowed 90,000 cycles. As experience builds on a type, some of these restrictions are lifted with special inspections. It is all laid out in the Aging Aircraft Inspection Program. The problem is that the inspections and the repair of the problems found are worth more than the airplane. They become BER. Beyond Economical Repair. There are over 1400 airplanes parked in various boneyards ready to be put back in service. Old Fat Albert is too expensive, too old, too noisey and too thirsty. Sell them off to Africa so some poor slob who has very little aviation experience or expertise can get the absolute last out of them. That is the ugly part of retiring old airliners. Can you imagine what some ball of fluff on W5 or some similar program could make of an ex-AC 737 that came apart in the air after it was aquired by some third word airline. Would make good copy.

Panama Jack · Post by **Panama Jack** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 3:33 am

uuugghhh. No wonder Boeing pays money for when a Boeing aircraft is permanently retired and the Serial Number plate is sent into them.

corn-shoot · Post by **corn-shoot** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 5:47 am

[quote="oldtimer"]I remember reading about Aloha Airlines B737 Cabriolet had in excess of the max allowed 90,000 cycles. As experience builds on a type, some of these restrictions are lifted with special inspections. [quote]

That's when Aloha started experimenting with the 737-200C "convertible top", kids!

Not making light of the accident, just pointing out what some of those airframes are capable of. That particular airframe had close to 90,000 on her as well. A good bit of controversy still exists over the exact physics of the inflight break-up and NTSB findings.