Cycles

[highsea]

What about Cycles for Aircraft Maintenance? I know small aircraft go by hours. but bigger IE dash-8 or bigger can cycle out if they are use on a short flights and they value drop with the more cycle on the airframe and engines. there is no way a flight with a 747 JFK to LGA will make money with the cycle being put on the plane

[CAPFlyer]

Aircraft maintenance schedules are based on hours in the real world, not cycles. The only times that cycles comes into account is on a very specific number of components like landing gear components where the wear is incurred on the ground or during takeoff and landing. The other time that cycles comes into account is ultimate fatigue life of the airplane as a whole. Once the airplane attains a certain number of cycles, the aircraft has to be either completely rebuilt (rare) or retired/scrapped. The system right now is based on cycles (x% deducted for every landing) and that's where the rub is because the cycle time for the system means that you just pay the same amount each time you put it in to maintenance at a certain level. Real planes have several levels of maintenance that has to be performed and by creating an hour-based system you can track total hours on the airplane and require routine maintenance at certain hour intervals, heavy maintenance at other intervals, etc. and thus make the down-time for the aircraft and the operation as a whole more realistic without being overly burdensome since most of the accounting on time is automatic.