AN-124 into Williamtown

[Nigel C]

Pardon the ignorance, but what are the centre barrels?

[damien b]

Originally Posted by Nigel C

Pardon the ignorance, but what are the centre barrels?

Essentially it is the 'heart' of the Hornets fuselage. It is where the wings and forward fuselage connect onto.

I have heard through the grapevine that they may only do 15 aircraft.

[Andrew McLaughlin]

Originally Posted by Nigel C

Pardon the ignorance, but what are the centre barrels?

Just to elaborate on what Damien said...

The centre barrel (CB) is made up of three major internal structural components through which the engine air passes but also onto which the aircraft's wings, undercarriage, engines and forward fuselage are attached.

If you were looking at a Hornet side on, it would go from just behind the engine intakes to a point just past the leading edge of the vertical stabiliser.

In US Navy Hornets, the CBs have taken a real beating around the undercarriage area thanks to the heavy landings aboard aircraft carriers, whereas our Hornets are suffering more in the wing attachment areas because the RAAF has a greater emphasis on air-to-air combat.

These components are built by Northrop Grumman for Boeing (or in our case, L3), and it is a HUGE operation to basically strip a Hornet down to replace the CB, requiring more than 20,000 separate components for each aircraft!

Cheers

[Mark D]

Originally Posted by Andrew McLaughlin

Just to elaborate on what Damien said...

The centre barrel (CB) is made up of three major internal structural components through which the engine air passes but also onto which the aircraft's wings, undercarriage, engines and forward fuselage are attached.

Thanks for that, I was thinking ... gee that's a big effort to replace a gun !!

[Gerard M]

Is the An-124 coming back any time soon?

[Stephen Brown]

Those pics of mine are now out of the queue and into the database. They can now be found here.

[Nick W]

Originally Posted by Gerard M

Is the An-124 coming back any time soon?

Next month i hope

[Philip Argy]

Originally Posted by damien b

Essentially it is the 'heart' of the Hornets fuselage. It is where the wings and forward fuselage connect onto.

I have heard through the grapevine that they may only do 15 aircraft.

News released today suggests that only 10 may need to be repaired:

Hornet repair bill could fall by $500 million: Fitzgibbon


Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon says testing on the Royal Australian Air Force's F/A-18 Hornets has revealed fewer of the planes may need to be rebuilt, saving nearly $500 million.

Testing on the Hornets has found that fatigue in their fuselages is not as bad as first thought.

Mr Fitzgibbon says that could mean the number of Hornets needing a fuselage replacement could be cut from 49 to 10.

[Stephen Brown]

Yeah here

http://yssyforum.net/board/showpost....1&postcount=48