Quote:
Originally Posted by flatbutt
Jeff what's the scrap value of a totaled jet? Can the structural materials be recycled? Every time I see that picture of the aircraft graveyard I think of all of that aluminum etc just sitting there.
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Like a car, the real value is in the components that make it operate, like the control surfaces, actuators, and tracks, hydraulic systems components, electrical components, etc. All of the wear items. The airline would likely keep all of that as spares for the rest of their fleet. The structure is mainly 7075 aluminum, plus a fair amount of titanium in some of the heavily stressed beams and such, so even all of that has a fair amount of scrap value as just raw material.
We actually use that aircraft graveyard as kind of our own giant "pick'n'pull" wrecking yard. Much of the time we wind up repairing out of production aircraft, and our only source for parts is that graveyard. When the 747 changed wings on the -8 variant, for example, we wound up down there pulling upper and lower outboard wing skins for a -400 repair in South Africa, because that version was out of production. No one stocks those kinds of parts, not even us.