personally i’d have thought all this talk of c-130 floors cracking up is total rubbish.
the floors (and supporting structure) are exactly the same as H or E model Hercs.
the floor loading may be different between a stretched Herc and a short one, but the fact that its a J model has no bearing on it.
having worked on Hercs for the last 12 years, i can also confirm that the floors do not crack up, they get dented or pierced, and may crack as a result of this damage, but cracking up do to overloading (as implyed earlier) just does not happen.

i’m not sure that the dublin link will be very succesful, back in the 80’s it was tried with dublin city helicopters flying large sikorsky s-61’s, but passenger numbers were so few it folded after a while.

isn’t the B-2 a bomber not a fighter?

RAF aircrew in fighters have a small plastic bag with a dried sponge inside, the wee in this, and bin it when they land. there are no provisions for the pilot to take a number 2.

marshalls is still a family firm, so the shareholders are very few.
i’ll bow to your superior knowledge if you say that that the hourly rate they are quoting, it just seem incredibly high compared to the hourly rate i’m led to believe they charge airline customers.

At last i see sense emerging

here is my thumbnail sketch

25 chaps (marshalls)………there were 25 clock cards on the wall last time i was allowed in there

lets say £90.00 per hour charged out, 8 hours per day
25 x 8 x 90 = £18,000/day

18,000 x 5 = £90,000 per week
90,000 x 4 = £360,000 per month

2.73 million divided by £360,000 = about 7.5 months work

I think they started working in about July…………ok so about 9 months ago….maybe some of my figs are out a bit, maybe only 20 guys, maybe only £50.00 per hour, point still stands

this doesn’t include VOC employees salaries or buying any bits.

100% increase in contractors costs kinda says to me the need another 9 months to finish it.

IMHO It was never gonna happen………….ask anyone actually involved in aviation their true gut feelings

major sponsers ain’t that stupid to put that sort of money into something so flakey.

go on everyone take a pop at me, i don’t care anymore but moggy’s point is well made and exactly what i have been saying all along….. as a reminder…….[B]”But lottery money meant for good causes has been wasted on keeping Marshalls profitable and some self-serving Vulcan fanatics in (presumably) gainful employment for the last few years.”

I very ragerly agree with moggy but i do this time

here is what to do…….take an estimate and then double it in cost and time…….for example, Beech 18, estimated 5 years and here we are in year 11, estimated £25,000 now about £50,000

stahlhelm on ready for the flak heading my way

it seems to me to be a little unfair to start implying Marshalls dont give a hoot, and are just in it for the money.
surely when they first got involved with the project, a budget would have been set. they would have had a rough idea the ammount of work involved, so would have had a rough idea of the cost of having marshalls, and any other companies on board.
with any aircraft, be it old or new, once you start doing major work, you WILL find unforseen problems. that is a dead cert.
so its not unreasonable to assume that the budget will increase, and a contingency should have been allowed for.

it seems to me that the whole project is being rumn very amateurishly. not to have a budget for the whole project right up until air test seems madness to me, even if they dont have the funds in place, they should have an idea of a figure that the whole project will take, including contingencies.

and just to get things a little more in perspective, i’d say the hourly rate for the marshalls fitters is more likely to closer to half that of the figure above.

aaand relax…rant over.

bit early to be sitting in the dog and partridge isn’t it!

drop tanks aren’t generally dropped in peace time unless its an emergency or there’s a fault with the wiring (oops!)