Thanks for posting the story too, Dave.

Perhaps they should think of buying some old 172′s or Cherokees to substitute for the jets … Captain, First Officer in front and two FA’s in the back seat … then they could save the fuel and much more expensive hourly maintenance/wear and tear on the ‘real’ airplanes. (wow, maybe I shouldn’t have written this … next time I am back in the States I am liable to see a Warrior taxing by emblazoned with the logo of XYZ Air Lines on the side

When I was with the USAF in a flight line capacity our role (nowadays called Air Mobility Command) was to run transport aircraft much as a scheduled airline might have … 4 engine jets, often on a fixed schedules, etc.

The one thing we were chronically short of was spare parts, so the schedule got maintained by heavy use of ‘cann birds’ … so-called hangar queen aircraft which essentially never flew but spent their careers in the hangar being robbed or ‘cannibalized” for parts as required.

But Congress, who couldn’t find the funds for spare patrts, did manage to micro-manage aircraft flight time and decreed that every aircraft we owned had to fly once at least every 60 days. So on the 59th day for every “cann bird” massive efforts were underway to stick serviceable parts back in all the empty holes and ready the aircraft for ‘flight”. Where did the spares appear from? Why from the next aircraft being put into cann bird status, of course.

Park them side by side and spend all night ripping out and reinstalling. Hard work for the maintainers and a bit risky for the aircrews (not to mention the passengers LoL). But no fear.

In the same regulaion about every arcraft flying every 60 days there was an offical Congressional definition of a “flight”.

“When the nose wheel leaves the runway, on a regularaly scheduled mission.”

So every 60th day, ther “former” hangar queen would taxi out with a fully qualified crew on board (couldn’t fly a regularly scheduled miission without them, now could we?) complete with a flight plan, IFR clearance ,active transponder code, etc.

At end of runway the engines would spool up, brakes would be released, black smoke would pour, PF and PNF would crosscheck and call out “airspeed alive” at 80 knots. the PNF would call “Rotate” at the appropriate speed from the TOLD Card (Take Off and Landing Data) card clipped to the panel next to the right seat flight display, the PF would apply back pressure and the second the rumble of the nose gear stopped, would smoothly lower the nose, state the word “Reject” and bring the throttles to idle as the crew went through the rest of the “Rejected Takeoff” checklist.

After slowing and turning off the runway, as you can guess, their taxi clearance was back to the same hangar they had departed from, to start the ‘clock’ on the next 60 day ‘must fly’ cycle.

A long story and perhaps a bit removed from airline flying, but then again, flying an empty airplane and getting paid for it doesn’t seem all that much more wacky.