GKN Aerospace has launched a “one stop” repair facility for fixed and rotary wing flexible fuel tanks in Portsmouth, U.K. It hopes to halve the repair times that operators in Europe and the U.K. normally experience. The EASA Part-21 repair services will encompass all types of flexible fuel tanks, including self-sealing, crashworthy and explosion suppressing products.
EASA has taken steps to codify its rules on major aircraft type design changes impacting noise and emissions, incorporating guidance into the regulations that include specific examples of each type of change. The changes, introduced in November 2010 as notice of proposed amendment 2010-13, were adopted in August. They modify paragraph 8 (“environment”) of Appendix A to GM 21A.91, “examples of major changes per discipline.”
Mentor Graphics' new product Capital Publisher is a set of electronic tools for creating technical publications specified to the needs of each service technician repairing a wire harness on a unique aircraft.The product streamlines technical publications preparation by assembling design information like schematics, wire lists and location views into electronic document packages. Mentor Graphics says that this will reduce costs, improve accuracy and speed up troubleshooting for MROs dealing with AOGs. www.mentor.com
Satair USA has acquired aviation battery distributor Aero Quality Services for $30 million. Atlanta law firm Chamberlain Hrdlicka assisted in the sale, which involves the acquisition of assets in the United States as well as the shares of Aero Quality Sales' U.K.-based subsidiary.
Paul Scherrer, the airline's managing director, engineering & planning, reports that the carrier rents hangar facilities in Zurich and Geneva, but it has no overhaul shops of its own. It performs light maintenance up to and including A checks, and other tasks such as engine and APU changes. It sources all heavy maintenance.
GA Telesis believes the Airbus A340-300 is a top disassembly pick because acquisition costs are low, parts have commonality with the other A340s and the A330, and the CFM56 engine has a large operator base, says Stefan Kageman, VP aircraft sales and marketing. In addition, because the aircraft is powered by four engines instead of two, its powerplant maintenance costs are higher, which also means there's a demand for used serviceable components.
Air Maintenance Estonia will start operating a new three bay hangar in August 2012 at its location in Tallinn, Estonia. The new facility will allow the MRO to offer three main base maintenance lines and two light maintenance lines. It is adding the Airbus A320 family to its base maintenance capability list, joining its existing Boeing 737 capabilities.
Precision Castparts has completed its acquiring Primus International, a supplier of aerospace components and assemblies including swaged rods, advanced composites and machined aluminum and titanium.
Co-Operative Industries has an AS9100 facility to manufacture and design wiring harnesses, cable, ignition leads and flexible conduits. Its repair station is certified by the FAA, EASA and CAAC and provides customers such as Delta TechOps with check and testing of accessories, repair and overhaul services. Co-Operative Industries repairs harnesses and cables for GE's GE90 and CF6-80C engines, the CFM International CFM56-5A/5B/5C/7B models and the Pratt & Whitney PW4000 QEC. www.coopind.com
Lufthansa Technik Sofia is investing €15 million ($20.5 million) to nearly double its narrowbody airframe MRO capacity. As the new capacity comes online next year, the Lufthansa Technik-Bulgarian Aviation Group joint venture plans to increase its number of employees by more than 150, to about 500.The first bay of a new 56,000-sq.-ft. hangar is expected to be operational in the first quarter of 2012, and a second bay will come online a few months later. Additionally, a separate “light weight” hangar will be built and used for line maintenance and lighter checks.
A.J. Walter Aviation has purchased four Boeing 737-300s from Pembroke Capital Aircraft to part out. The aircraft were last operated by Berlin independent airline Germania, which also chose A.J. Walter to provide power-by-the-hour support for its new Airbus fleet.
Kubotek makes CAD products that embrace the direct modeling concept, a method of computer-aided design that replaces traditional parametric history-based CAD. In direct modeling, the engineer creates the geometry of a part without needing to refer to previous history of the creation process. The software adjusts the size of a feature while maintaining the other features of a part when the engineer is working on it, making it easy to change designs during the creative process.
Chromalloy has established Chromalloy Korea, a new subsidiary in Seoul, South Korea. The new company will serve as a sales, marketing and customer support office. Chromalloy has been establishing itself in Asian markets, opening a new Beijing office in 2010 and doubling capacity at its turbine engine repair and manufacturing facility in Bangkok.
TAM Airlines has completed commercial flight operations with Shell Aviation's AeroShell Ascender high performance capability turbine engine oil. Avionics/IFE
In the last couple of weeks, I have heard about a surprising number of new hangars that are, or will be, opening in the not too distant future around the world.
Boeing Shanghai Aviation Services has received a maintenance certification for the Ukraine and will support charter airline Air Italy's fleet of Boeing aircraft. The certification, from the Aviation Administration of Ukraine, will allow Boeing Shanghai to do line and base maintenance work on Boeing 767-200/-300 aircraft for Ukraine-based customers. Boeing Shanghai will support Air Italy with maintenance services for its Boeing fleet for up to two years, starting with a C check on a Boeing 767-300ER scheduled for this month.
StandardAero signed a service agreement with Russian regional carrier, Ak Bars Aero, for aftermarket support of its General Electric CF34-3B1 engine fleet and Honeywell GTCP36-150RJ auxiliary power units. The engines and APUs power Ak Bars Aero's fleet of Bombardier CRJ200 aircraft. StandardAero will perform the engine work at its engine facility in Winnipeg and it will support the APUs at its Maryville, Tenn., location.
Beginning this month, FAA inspectors will have to wait two years after they leave the agency before they can take certain industry jobs. While the new “cooling off” period—imposed through a recent rulemaking—will only impact a limited number of agency employees, it closes another chapter in the spring 2008 controversy surrounding Southwest Airlines management of airworthiness directives (ADs).
Air Panama has become the fourth operator to use Fokker Services' FlyFokker program, which it will use for its two newly acquired Fokker 70 aircraft. The program will offer on-site technical training and a modification to change the aircraft from 48 to 72 seats. The operator also will use Fokker Service's Abacus per-hour lease and exchange program for major rotables, APUs, landing gear and brakes.
As more health monitoring and diagnostic information is cultivated at the aftermarket level, software companies are finding ample opportunities to feed aftermarket data upstream to improve component design before parts even roll off an assembly line.
Aircraft electrical wiring systems can be complicated, but new tools are helping maintenance, repair and overhaul facilities quickly and easily obtain the materials in the case of an aircraft on ground (AOG) situation.
Merger mania is gripping the airline industry, with high profile consolidations taking place in the U.S. and Europe over the past two years. In the U.S., United Airlines and Continental Airlines expect to operate under a single operating certificate (SOC) and the United name before year-end 2011. Southwest Airlines, which purchased AirTran Airways in May, aims for an SOC for the two companies by March 2012—under the Southwest brand.
BEIJING—Guangzhou Aircraft Maintenance & Engineering (Gameco) will try specialization as a way to drive up efficiency by allocating one of its sites to Airbus A320 maintenance.
