How many years an airplane is used?

Question

From when when it takes its first flight until its last flight flight? Just a regular airplane....

Answer 1

The Boeing 747 was introduced in 1969. It has gone through many design changes and updates since it was first sold. Aircraft air-worthiness is governed by not only flight-hours, but also number of take-offs and landing, air-frame stress, areas where its flown (high humidity countries have a higher corrosion rate on aircraft), etc. Provided the plane is service correctly, regularly and in accordance with the manufacturer's recommendations, you can easily get 20 or 30 years life form a commercial aircraft.

Answer 2

There is a wide range in this answer. Right now it is 65 years and climbing for the DC-3 (but not flying continuously of course). Most aircraft are designed with a set number of "airframe hours" which is something like a guarantee to buyers that the plane will not need to be disposed of before this time (at least for airframe failure). The life of the airframe is also determined by the number of pressurization cycles (each cycle adds a lot of wear and tear on an airframe). Note the spectacular failure of a short hopping Hawaiian jet where a large chunk of the roof blew off. The plane did not exceed it's airframe hours in any way, but it had a very large number of takeoff and landings because of the shortness of the routes it flew (and the frequency). Vibration (from piston engines), cold temperatures, and corrosion are other factors in lowering an aircraft's lifespan. You might do a search on "aircraft graveyard" or "aircraft junkyard" to see the operation lifetimes of a lot of currently flying aircraft. Twenty years is typical for a "normal" commercial jet liner.

Answer 3

You can't say when an aircraft is finished.

Last time I heard there were more than 130 DC-3 flying around the world.

Dozens of WWII P-51s are still flying.

So....

Answer 4

depends on its usage and the aircraft