I was recently reading an article on the retirement of the F-14 Tomcat from the Navy fleet. It was interesting to read that the F-14 had gotten to the point that for every 1 hour of flight time it required 48 man hours of maintenance time to keep her flight safe. The replacement F-18 is something like a 1:9 ratio.
I am curious to ask the maintenance types that read the board here are there similar type of metrics for the US Fleet? How do US 737's compare to the A319/320 fleet. How do US 757's compare to the A321 fleet (and yes, I have read about Christine the hangar queen!). B767's vs. A330? ETOPS vs. no ETOPS?
I don't mean to turn this into a Boeing/Airbus discussion – I know thats been done before. I am just curious as to what it takes to keep the US fleet up in the air from a maintenance perspective.
I am curious to ask the maintenance types that read the board here are there similar type of metrics for the US Fleet? How do US 737's compare to the A319/320 fleet. How do US 757's compare to the A321 fleet (and yes, I have read about Christine the hangar queen!). B767's vs. A330? ETOPS vs. no ETOPS?
I don't mean to turn this into a Boeing/Airbus discussion – I know thats been done before. I am just curious as to what it takes to keep the US fleet up in the air from a maintenance perspective.