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I have no idea what ratio is a good ratio and what's a terrible ratio so I googled it and the first link said the Boeing C-17 globe master iii specs say

only 20 aircraft maintenance man-hours per flying hour

https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/16121/how-shoul...

I don't know anything about flying but I assume there's a limit to amount of the parallelization you can do? Can twenty technicians finish the maintenance in an hour? More importantly, how long can you put off this maintenance? Do I have to spend this before each flight or can I delay this as a batch process later in the week?

Sorry for stupid question



I think it's a very good question.

For commercial aircraft, this article would suggest massively less wall clock hours in maintenance than in flight, about a ratio of one to ten (assuming 12 flight hours per day and 16 hour days in maintenance). Maintenance man-hours would be about three per flight hour. So comparable to the cockpit crew.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_maintenance_checks

A check: 500 hours of flying, 20 hour, 200 man-hour (0.04 h/h, 0.4 mh/h)

C check: 2 years of flying: 2 weeks, 6000 man-hours (0.03 h/h, 0.7 mh/h)

D check: 6 years of flying: 2 month, 50,000 man hours (0.03 h/h, 1.9 mh/h)

EDIT: this doesn't include unscheduled maintenance.


And to compare to military planes, the B-1B: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_B-1_Lancer

"With upgrades to keep the B-1 viable, the air force may keep it in service until approximately 2038.[133] Despite upgrades, the B-1 has repair and cost issues; every flight hour needs 48.4 hours of repair. The fuel, repairs and other needs for a 12-hour mission costs $720,000 as of 2010.[134] The $63,000 cost per flight hour is, however, less than the $72,000 for the B-52 and the $135,000 of the B-2.[135] "




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