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Anyone have any idea what this proposal would boost the thrust output to?
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I believe, under the latest proposal, the Sea Level thrust on a standard day will remain pretty much static. The thrust increase comes in at higher altitudes and it's not really an increase, just an engine that's able to deliver rated thrust across a wider range of temps and altitudes. I think it was JackB who said the original engines have worked fine for 20 plus years, and that's true. But, the original mission for a lighter A-10 was in the mud, not at FL altitudes.
I have to agree with Hawg166. 300K per engine is cheap. When you look at what it costs when you induct an engine into the shop (used to be around a 100K depending on what time changes were needed on that particular engine), getting new hot section parts for that amount of money is a bargain. I don't know what the new prices are for something like an HPT, when I retired we were spending sixty thousand for one..note the price for ONE part..and that wasn't a new one, you were gettting something that was used and could have as little as 400 hours left before it had to be changed. For the crew dawgs here, ever wonder why the engine shop does so many water washes when the simple solution is to click the fuel control up a couple of notches to fix a low thrust write-up? It's all about dollars and sense. When an engine gets up-trimmed, it shortens the time it stays on the wing. Once an engine gets inducted, there are certain inspections that have to be done..and they're not cheap. The longer the engine stays on the wing, the lower the cost per flying hour. And speaking of, the A-10 has the lowest cost per flying hour of any aircraft in the inventory.
A little history on engine upgrades might be in order at this point. The original proposal was for a completely new engine. I believe the CF34-8 was the leading candidate. This would have been a great choice, at least on the surface. The problem was, it, with the new fuel control, weighed around 300 pounds more per engine. Ask your weight and balance folks what another 600 pounds that far aft of CG would do to the W&B envelope..they'll look at you like you've lost your mind. It also has a larger diameter fan which meant a nacelle re-design and thirdly, the price tag was around 5 million per airframe..you can do the math on what it would take to do the fleet. I was at a meeting one day, topic was engines. Col. Donahue (a VERY cool SPO btw) was briefing and when he finished, an OG commander stood up and said "that's totally unacceptable". When the OG Col. finished his diatribe, Col. Donahue said "You find me the money and we'll look at a totally new engine. Right now, I've got the money to do what I've proposed". What struck me was his statement "we'll look at...". I asked him about that after the meeting and he said "I'm trying to make this airframe last. Before we put heavier, more powerful engines on this airframe, we'd have to take a close look at what it would do to the service life". I'm willing to bet that proverbial beer that Stress has some ideas what would happen if you hung another 600 pounds aft of the wing with almost 50% more thrust on the old girl.
Finally, this one's for Fender. Things like office supplies, toner cartridges and awards folders are different color money and bear no relationship to fly dollars. The cut-back of flying days may have more to do with your unit's flying hour contract than anything else. Fourth quarter flying time is always a crap shoot. What you don't want to do is fly out your contract by say, the middle of August. Ideally, on September 30, your afternoon block lands just as the unit flying hours are totally expended..don't know too many times that happens but, hey, anything is possible.
Okay, I'm done.
Old Chief
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