MoD uses 'cut and shut' chopper

An admission that a "cut and shut" helicopter was used in Afghanistan has angered the father of a dead soldier. Ian Sadler, from Exmouth, has been openly critical of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) since his son Jack, 21, died in Afghanistan in December 2007. The MoD told Mr Sadler the helicopter was a combination of a crashed RAF Chinook and an Argentinian Chinook

BBC

Sort of says everything about the state of our military at the moment, is it even safe to fly this thing? wouldn't the two halves of the aircraft have aged differently? and what unseen damage would the crashes of the original aircraft inflicted upon the supposed undamaged halves?

reply to post by solidshot

Not uncommon. In 'Give War a Chance' P.J. O'Rourke recounts how during the first Gulf war, the press corps were ferried to the front in a Hercules nick-named 'Franken-Herc'.
An airman explained to him that the aircraft was made up of two Hercs, bolted together after two separate crashes.

hmmmm

I'm not sure we're talking cut and shut as in what would happen with a road car, ie welded down the middle

are we?

surely we're talking about say a good wing being transplanted etc

sounds all a bit sensationalist to me

I have a sneaking suspicion that the story is being overblown.

I don't see anywhere a definition of "cut and shut" on the article, so it's hard to say what they mean exactly. But the idea of taking a blowtorch or a big saw to an aircraft and then patching two halves together seems incredibly difficult due to dealing with structural components and other difficulties that arise from the destructive nature of "cutting".

What the article does say is that two halves of aircraft that were serviceable were attached and used as one functional unit. For the record, this is not overly dangerous, and it's not even new. I do work on an Avro Lancaster bomber from time to time and it was pointed out to me that certain sections of the fuselage were designed to be held together by bolts. This allowed you to just undo sections from each other in case parts of the aircraft were shot up but others unharmed. This is a very useful capability for aircraft, and I have little doubt that a similar trait would be present in modern aircraft, including helicopters. If that's the case, then this aircraft was no more dangerous than any other, and the lives lost in the accident were due to really bad luck than any bad practices.

It's been pointed out the aircraft might have been damaged or aged differently, but in both cases where the salvageable parts were identified you would have had technicians inspect the aircraft inside and out to make sure certain things were present or not present. Since the aircraft were then combined it's highly likely that they found that the joined sections were independently airworthy and putting them together is not the stupid idea as presented by the article, but a very shrewd one. I find it unlikely that the techs would have falsely passed the parts off as serviceable since, in the event of a failure that can be traced to non-airworthiness from the start, the mechanics themselves are liable for the fault. And we all know that techs aren't paid based on how many aircraft they put back in the air.

Take the article with a grain of salt. Unless it's proven that the reattachment failed or damage from the crash was much greater than the techs claimed, I say that this was just a really nasty accident.

Pr0

All the article says is that the rear of one aircraft was transferred to another aircraft. It is unlikely it would of been any significant part of the airframe itself.

is it even safe to fly this thing?

Why wouldn't it be? The technicians are highly skilled and really know what they're doing. The report is hazy and has no details, if it were only 1 washer that was transferred they would probably say exactly the same thing.

FYI, I would fly in anything maintained by the MoD.

wouldn't the two halves of the aircraft have aged differently?

You inspect both and conduct an analysis to see if it would work.

and what unseen damage would the crashes of the original aircraft inflicted upon the supposed undamaged halves?

Inspect them. One thing with the mainstream media is that they are almost always wrong on anything remotely to do with aviation.

[edit on 19/7/2009 by C0bzz]