MICHELIN NORTH AMERICA, reissued STC to install Michelin tires on the main and nose gear of Bombardier CL-600-2C10/2D15/2D24 aircraft wheel assembly, STC SA03642AT
In the MRO world, configuration management (CM) is, as the name implies, the control of the parts that make up an assembly. When used to help determine the economics of repair, CM could be described as a tracking mechanism for new, repaired or re-engineered parts. First developed in the 1950s by the U.S. Department of Defense as a technical management tool, CM is used by OEMs and larger MROs to track the operational performance of a part.
Boeing Shanghai Aviation Services Co., Ltd. raised the 1,936-ton steel roof of its new hangar at Pudong International Airport. The first phase of construction will create a two-bay, 50,000-sq.-meter hangar and is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year. Boeing Shanghai was established in June 2006, as a joint venture of Boeing, Shanghai Airport Authorities and Shanghai Airlines.
How frustrated would you be if you and your colleagues identified a significant business opportunity to establish a repair station in Latin America or the Middle East and tap a growing and potentially lucrative market, only to discover that FAA couldn’t certificate your new operation? Would it increase your frustration to learn that FAA actually wasn’t allowed to grant you the repair station certificate because another government agency had fallen down on the job?
A nearly two-year-old law is prohibiting the Federal Aviation Administration from awarding certification to any new foreign repair station applicant. Now, a potential new law could prevent existing foreign repair stations from renewing their certification.
BAE Systems received two contracts worth £119 million ($170 million) from the U.K. Ministry of Defense (MoD) to provide additional support for in-service Tornado and Harrier aircraft under a strategy known as CAPS (Commodity Availability Procurement Strategy). Under CAPS, the current Tornado availability contract (known as ATTAC) has been amended to include an availability service to support key primary warning and defensive protection equipment for RAF Tornado GR.4 and Harrier fleets.
Sikorsky Aerospace Services and Mubadala Development Co. signed a preliminary agreement to establish a military aviation MRO joint venture in Abu Dhabi to support the UAE Armed Forces and other military aircraft in the Middle East and North Africa. Mubadala, wholly owned and financed by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, said the JV will support both rotary and fixed wing aircraft and provide full logistics maintenance capability for the UAE military.
Last December, Turboméca and the Turkish Ministry of Defense signed a contract to establish a Level 4 repair center for the French company’s Makila 1A1 turboshaft engines that equip some 50 Eurocopter Cougar helicopters operated by the Turkish Army since the 1990s. This new facility is based at Eskisehir, in the Tusas Engine Industries governmental repair center. Turkish Turboméca customers, mainly operating military equipment, also benefit from availability of an Ankara-based field representative.
The MRO business is likely to look very different after the additional and brutal stresses of 2009. There will be fewer independent firms, either through acquisitions or closures. Some sites at major firms may be shuttered. Thinning out will probably be most intense in high-cost regions and for shops that have concentrated on the older airframes and engines that are being shed from fleets.
HYDERABAD—Investments in MRO may have been slow in coming to India, but increasingly companies are finding ways to make homegrown MROs the norm. A trend to incorporate military maintenance in long-term business plans also has emerged, indicating the industry has finally come home to roost. To attract larger foreign investments in India, Special Economic Zones (SEZ) were announced in April 2000, offering fiscal incentives that include tax waivers.
GE bought JV partner Teleflex’s shares in Airfoil Technologies International-Singapore Pte. Ltd. for $300 million in early March. Teleflex previously was the majority shareholder with 51%. GE’s motivation in the purchase was to gain a controlling interest in the Singapore business, said representative Rick Kennedy, who said GE wants to be able to expand the business and to protect proprietary repair processes. And, Singapore in particular is an important location for GE, he noted.
Lufthansa Technik Philippines plans to ramp up to 32 engine teardowns this year, at average turnaround time of 15 days each. It also has plans to add the CF6-50, CFM56-7 and IAE V2500 engines to its portfolio, which currently includes five engine models on two dedicated teardown lines: CFM56-3, -5A and -5C; CF6-80C; and PW4000. LTP started engine teardown work in March 2008, and it performed 11 engine disassemblies last year.
Indonesia’s Ministry of Transportation grounded Lion Air’s fleet of five MD-90s on March 11, to inspect the aircraft and look into the carrier’s safety management. The decision followed runway excursions on Feb. 23, and March 9, at Hang Nadim Airport in Batam, Riau Islands Province, and at Jakarta-Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, respectively.
DRB AVIATION CONSULTANTS, to install an executive interior and reduction in maximum zero fuel weight from 28,814 lbs. to 28,279 lbs. on Dornier 328-300 aircraft, STC ST10933SC
Gulfstream opened an auxiliary power unit test cell at its Savannah, Ga., South Service Center , establishing the facility as a center of excellence for Honeywell APU testing. It is certified to test Honeywell GTCP36-100, GTCP36-150 and RE200 series APUs, which can be repaired on-site. It also completed its 2,000th Airborne Product Support flight, seven years after introducing the on-demand maintenance service.
UNISON INDUSTRIES , reissued STC to replace Slick 4000, 4100, 4200, and 4300 and TCM/Bendix S-20, S-200, and S-1200 series magnetos with its Limited Authority Spark Advance Regulator ignition system on various Lycoming O-320 engines, STC SE419CH
Eurocopter plans to open a second service center in Hong Kong to serve customers in Asia-Pacific, where the helicopter maker says 1,264 Eurocopter helicopters currently are in service. The center, called CSC Asia-Pacific, will be operated by Helicopter CSC and local staff.
GE Sensing & Inspection Technologies and SGS-CSTC, a Chinese joint venture of SGS group, opened a joint non-destructive testing application center in Shanghai. The application center in the Pudong New Area of Shanghai, is equipped with ultrasonic flaw detectors, eddy current flaw detectors, spot-welding detectors, X-ray real-time inspection systems and digital inspection systems, computed-radiography system, microfocus X-ray systems and industrial CT systems.
