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Aviation History
1993
1993 - 2148.PDF
AIR ATLANTIQUE NICHE Hong Kong company on an operating- lease basis: if it does not fly, we do not pay for the aircraft. On the other hand, if it flies a lot, it costs us a lot." Chief pilot Paul Sabin puts the price of a totally re-condi tioned (as-new) Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp (the DC-6 engine) at $40,000; Collett adds $10,000 for shipping it over from the USA. Collett quotes 600h a year as being reasonable usage for a DC-6 and puts the basic operating costs at £l,500/h without route or airport charges, or over heads. That includes maintenance costs of £500/h and a fuel bum of 1,500 litres/h, with fuel at 30p/litre at base, and up to 60p/litre away from base. The airline charges a flat rate of £2,200/h for DC-6 foreign flights and "a little more for UK flights". Compared with modern jets, though, prices are low. "We could buy another DC-6 for $300,000 — less if one were to accept a banger which would probably not get onto PT standards — but there would be at least $200,000 of work to do," says Collett. Sabin remarks: "This is a niche market. You cannot do ad hoc work with Paul Sabin "A pilot who says: 'It's not my job' would not get the job in the first place." Air Allantique's DC-6s are the only two which are flying in Europe (above left), out of 537 built. The car rier's DC-3s have a despatch reliability rate of "better than 97%, having made a "staggering" operating profit of £.1.2 million in 1988 turbine aircraft...the [British Aerospace] 146 would probably cost a third of a DC-3 to run, but it would have to be used on a regular schedule [to justify the capital outlay]." Air Atlantique is acquiring two four-turboprop Lockheed Electras from a company in Miami, however, and has sent out personnel to learn about their opera tion and maintenance and piloting, then fly them back to begin working in about October. The com pany does not see the Electras as a replace ment for the DC-6s, but as appropriate for regular contracts which have all the characteristics of schedules. The car rier has a three- nigh ts-a- week freight "schedule" from Bag- inton to Brussels, in Belgium, and back, carrying mainly small packages both ways, with DHL conducting the handling at Brus sels. Sabin remarks on the Electra's greater suitability, saying: "The DC-6 al most always needs something doing when it comes back." The DC-6, with its 13.5t payload, is best for ad hoc work, for which the most regular customer, Sabin says, is Ford, which often has short-notice requirements for vehicle parts to be moved between its component suppliers and European facto ries. Air Atlantique, loctaed in the heart of the UK car-manufacturing industry, is well-placed and ready to go. "Our DC-6 operation has not done much better than break even in 1991 and 1992," declares Collett, "but it made a reasonable profit in 1990 and will make another in 1993. We like the aircraft and hope to be operating them for many years to come." EXCELLENT MACHINES The DC-3s made a "staggering" operating profit of £1.2 million in 1988, muses Collett, in a year when the company made a £750,000 loss on its British Aerospace 748 twin-turboprop Southamp- ton-Channnel Islands service. "The DC-3s are excellent machines," Collett says. "Everyone knows that, or professes to, but, in reality, few people these days really know that...because there is not a lot of current experience being gained." He believes that the aircraft have 50 more years life if re-engined with Pratt & Whitney PT6 turboprops, adding: "But the engines do not sound right!" The DC-3's problem, Collett says, is that it is ^HWT ! It! *^l The DC-6s have been around since 1958 The veterans Air Atlantique's two Douglas DC-6s, built in 1958, are converted for container- or palletised-cargo carrying. The aircraft were among the last off the production line of a type which entered service in the mid-1940s. The maximum payload is 13.5t. The four engines are Pratt & Whitney R-2800 CB3 Double Wasp air-cooled radial piston engines, with 18 cylinders in two banks and push-rod-operated valves; they produce 2,090kW (2,500hp) and an additional 225kW with water- methanol injection for take1off. The DC-6 was built with cabin pressurisation, but Air Atlantique does not use it, saving on fuel and main tenance. If weather, terrain or air-traffic- control forces the pilots to climb above 8,000ft (2,400m), they use oxygen masks. The autopilots have also been stripped out, as they have been from the DC-3s, and the cabins are bare of trim and insulation. Of the two public-transport-certifi cated DC-3s, one is fitted out for passen ger carriage, the other for up to 3.5t freight, but each can quick-change to the other role. The UK Department of Trans port pollution-control aircraft are perma nently kitted with tanks in the cabin for oil-dispersal solution. The DC-3s' two engines are P&W R-1830 Twin Wasps, 14-cylinder radial, twin-bank, providing 900kW The engines of both types are run on 100-octane unleaded aviation gasoline, which is a lower octane than would have been used when the aircraft were in common ^use and fuel was easily obtaina ble. One of the main operational prob lems for Air Atlantique is to establish, on acceptance of an ad hoc charter to a new destination, whether fuel (if needed) is available at the destination. The Atlantic Group also operates a de Havilland DH.89A Rapide, has just ac quired a Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer and is considering purchasing a South African Air Force DC-4. FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL I - 7 September. 1993 31
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