I hope you have evidence to back up your clam that KQ can fabricate aircraft parts from scratch eg aircraft wings. Ikiwa nchi kubwa yenye aircraft manufacturing history like Russia are not allowed to produce any part of Boeing or Airbus, how could Kenya be allowed to do so huku Kenya hasn't produce or build any commercial aircraft. Aircraft parts are produced uniquely to that particular aircraft. Meaning a part for Boeing 787 A, can not directly be fitted to Boeing 787 B, modification and testing has to be cared out before the transition. Manufactures like airbus or Boeing they hold these secret very close to there chest. There is difference between replacing tires or glass window to produce tires or class windows from scratch. I tell you, if British airways or Emirate flies to Kenya and fly out with parts which are not been supplied by original manufacture, that aircraft will be grounded until safety check had been cared out.
My uncle is an Aircraft engineer he tells me all these things, but I will try and bring you tangible evidence since anyone can begin to claim they were told this and that by someone they know...
KQ service center is for Boeing planes, if you want airbus, I think its in Ethiopia, read this story first, there is a point there they talk about using Kenya airways resources..
HOW KENYA AIR FORCE SET HISTORY BY REPAIRING JET FIGHTER OUTSIDE FACTORY
HOW KENYA AIR FORCE SET HISTORY BY REPAIRING JET FIGHTER OUTSIDE FACTORY
When an F-5E jet crash-landed on the LaikipiaAir Base, Nanyuki, on the rainy afternoon of 1980, the plane suffered such extensive damage that its manufacturer recommended that
there was no alternative to repairing the aircraft outside its factory. The ill-fated F-5E fighter, one of the most enduring military aircraft designs ever produced, was built by the Northrop Corporation Aircraft Division with the mind-set that only the manufacturer had the brains behind its repair.
However, when an assessment report from Northrop officials concluded that the F-5E had to be taken to their factory in California, the news did not sound appealing to then Kenya Air ForceCommander General Mahmoud Mohammed. According to the officials, the jet fighter was to be dismantled, crated and then flown over a distance of more than 9,600 nautical miles to their factory.
Seven years later, after their assessment, a team from the Kenya Air Force under the command of Warrant Officer II Luke Kangogo Kittony of the F-5 Engineering Squadron could start repairing the aircraft in what was a mission impossible. Kittony and his team managed a feat that would set the Kenya Air Force’s F5-E tail number 909 into history as the only fighter jet to be rebuilt outside its factory.
The manufacturer, Northrop, applauded the great engineering accomplishment. Details of their heroic achievement are contained in The KenyaAir Force Story 1964-2014 book. This article borrows from narrations in the book and interviews done with serving and retired air forcepersonnel.
The jet fighter was being flown by Captain ABA Mohammed when it skidded on the runway as he was landing due to aquaplaning, a situation where a film of water forms between the tyres and the surface limiting braking efficiency. On that fateful afternoon, the plane’s tyre burst and as a result it veered off the runway for some 30 metres to 40 metres.
Although he successfully ejected, the F-5E that is powered by two General Electric J85 turbo engines delivering 3,500lb st of thrust, veered off the runway digging into dirt and as a result most of its right side
was extensively damaged and some of its panels ripped off. Without knowing what to do, the plane was towed to the hanger where it was to be packed until a decision on what steps to be taken could be made.
As the plane lay wasting in the hanger, most of its parts were “robbed,” where some of the parts of the grounded airplane were taken to repair other aircraft whose parts where not readily available from the manufacturer. “In airman’s slang, it is called robbery. After 909’s crash, we used to rob spares from it to service other aircraft in the squadron.
This plane was robbed until it was just a skeleton. And there was no documentation. If a part was missing somebody reflexively said ‘just get if from 909’. All good parts were robbed from it,” Kittony writes. When the military top brass ordered that the aircraft be rebuilt, Northrop was invited to come and access the damage. The manufacturers were accompanied with officials from the US Air Force.
The team from Northrop found that most of its parts had been robbed that “they couldn’t even take an inventory to determine what was there and what was not,” Kittony writes. The extensive damage to the plane would not help either.
The manufacturer concluded that the aircraft was irreparable in Kenya with the firm observation that there was no alternative to rebuilding it outside its factory. According to Kittony, “In their assessment, the aircraft had to go to the factory because it required a lot of parts to be machined before being refitted into it and then subjected to a jig.”
Jigging involves the alignment of an aircraft to ensure that both wings are on the same angle of attack. However, the idea of taking it to the US did not sound convincing to General Mohammed, a former truck driver at Kahawa Garrison, who rose to become the military general, courtesy of crashing the 1982 mutiny. Despite being the air force commander, General Mohammed was not versed with aircraft. He was not an aviator but an infantry soldier, whose work entailed carrying a gun as he walked in the battlefield.
When he made the decision to repair the F-5E locally, it was regarded as an act of ignorance rather than wise reasoning. However, the barely educated army man had the sixth sense that not only a white man could repair his spoilt craft.
Mohammed ordered his men to rebuild the fighter jet six years after it crashed. His decision was based on a tip he received that one of his soldiers had been trained about rebuilding aircrafts in the US.
That serviceman was Kittony, who had been sent to the US in 1983 for a course that dealt in aircraft structural technology, where one of the disciplines was sheet metal aircraft structural technology.
Kittony had been nicknamed the Doctor of Sheet Metal at the Williams Air Force Base in Arizona, where he emerged as the best student in the course that involved building an aircraft. The class was made up of 15 countries, including the US itself.
When Gen Mohammed received a confidential report about Kittony, he is said to have remarked: “If Kangongo can lead people from all these 15 countries, including America itself, why can’t he repair this aircraft that is supposed to be taken to the USA? He was leading them, why should it be taken there?”
The General ordered that Kittony be exempted from all military duties for a year and be given the free hand to choose any technician he wanted for the job. The crew he chose was made up of Corporal Martin Warare, Senior Private Aron Kiprotich and Senior Private Malla.
Their first task was to carry out an inventory of the aircraft then they moved to repair it. He writes: “
We didn’t have the machines in the AirForce to curve the metal and form certain shapes of the skin as required.
So I used to cut them into size and take them to Kenya Airways and form them and return to Nanyuki, fix them, measure another one, form, return to Nanyuki and on and on like that….” The
The crew looked at the engineering drawings from Northrop on how to repair the spar, the part of an aircraft that connects the wing to the body of the aircraft. If the spar is weak or wrongly repaired, the wing can fall off in mid-flight.
After getting thick metal parts from
Kenya Airways, the crew used special fasteners to attach the wing to the body of the aircraft. Other parts that were missing and difficult to procure were robbed from grounded aircraft. “Our
biggest challenge was the electrical area. Unlike hydraulics, electrical currents have no leakages.
The only way one could tell faults was by operating the various surfaces and following a wire from end to end when an instrument selection from the cockpit yielded no response. It was extremely time consuming,” Kittony writes.
Within a year, the plane had been repaired except for getting
the angle of attack, something that can only be done in the factory. Although that could not be done locally, Colonel (Rtd) Seth Shava flew the aircraft without incidence with the F5E tail number 909, becoming the only fighter jet to be rebuilt outside the factory.
----------
On the last paragraph. If it was a commercial aircraft, that plane could have never been allowed to fly a passenger..
