Canard Aerospace amended STC to install a communication management unit and VHF 3 data radio on Boeing 737-600, -700, -700C, -800, -900 and -900ER series aircraft, STC ST01938CH
Gulf Aviation Academy brought Eng. Mahmood Albalooshi onboard as COO on April 21. The former manager of manpower development for Gulf Air now oversees the academy's programs for pilots, engineers and cabin crew training; ground services and airport management training; and theoretical and practical training.
GE Aviation expanded its TRUEngine program to cover the CF6 and awarded the first CF6 TRUEngine designation to Nippon Cargo Airlines' fleet of 43 CF6-80C2 engines that power its Boeing 747 fleet. GE debuted the TRUEngine concept for the CFM56 engine three years ago. Now more than 6,000 engines operated by 62 customers—or 30% of the CFM56 engines in commercial service, GE says—have qualified for the designation.
Lufthansa Technik offers seat refurbishment and overhaul services as options alongside heavy checks at its maintenance facilities in Frankfurt, Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, as well as European affiliates in Brussels and Malta. Capabilities include the Airbus A320 family, A330 and A340 and Boeing 737-300/-500 and 747-200/-400. www.lufthansa-technik.com
At one point or another, we all find ourselves looking around the house for misplaced car keys or a business card with an important phone number on it. Usually, these things turn up, and the consequence of carelessness is no more than wasted time. But in a maintenance hangar, forgotten tools can transform into foreign object debris (FOD) that can cause serious damage if left behind in an aircraft.
PAS Technologies added Brian Meyer as general manager of its Miramar, Fla., facility. Meyer joins PAS Technologies from AAR Landing Gear Systems, where he most recently held the role of VP engineering. Airframes
SINGAPORE—Southeast Asian countries are developing aerospace parks to attract foreign investment, but poor planning means most lag behind market leader Singapore.
Pratt & Whitney formally launched its PureSolution service program for the PurePower engine family. (For more information, see O&M, April 2011, pg. 66.)
AC Tech added Martin Barila as VP operations at its Garden Grove, Calif., headquarters. Barila joins the aerospace sealant and specialty chemical product provider from Air Industries Co.
A finished aircraft is a good lesson in perspective. A passenger on a long-haul flight may see the Boeing 777 as one finished behemoth, seamlessly constructed as though it rolled off the assembly line in one piece. But an aircraft technician knows that the devil is in the details, working for hours to make sure every fastener, bolt and wire harness is secure after maintenance. Before an aircraft exists at the component level, all of the individual parts must be made from raw material.
Dean Baldwin Painting plans to nearly double in size with a new location north of Indianapolis. It is investing around $10.5 million to transform a hangar complex at Grissom Aeroplex in Peru, Ind., into a state-of-the-art paint facility. When the project is complete, the site will have two widebody and two narrowbody bays. Operations should launch at the new site in December.
Delta TechOps received FAA Part 145 certification for its pre-merger Northwest Airlines hangars at Minneapolis-St. Paul in January, and Delta TechOps inducted its first customer aircraft, a North American Airlines' Boeing 757, there in April for an A check, says Tony Charaf, Delta TechOps' president. “Detroit (DTW) is next,” he says.
Airinmar appointed Tom Wilson COO and member of its board of directors. Wilson most recently was VP component solutions and business development at Aveos Fleet Performance.
The landing gear overhaul business is about to surge as fleets delivered within the century's first decade reach the first removals of their landing gear for major servicing. In tandem, new aircraft delivered during the 1990s are about to hit their second removal period.
Industry groups are strongly urging the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to make some key changes to the emergency revocation review, saying the process must be altered to level to the playing field for certificate holders. FAA, however, disagrees that many of the recommended changes are necessary, saying NTSB should keep most of the current processes in place.
Guangzhou Aircraft Maintenance & Engineering (Gameco) added Norbert Marx as general manager. Marx joins Gameco from Heli-One Inc. in Vancouver, and he formerly held leadership roles at Jet Aviation, Lufthansa Technik and Ameco Beijing. Gameco also named Wu RongXin deputy general manager. Wu joined Gameco in 2008, and has served as CFO for the last three years.
The IBS Group appointed Rajiv Shah CEO. He will lead IBS' business providing IT systems to the global air transportation industry. Rajiv's last assignment was with Wipro Technologies, where he was the chief executive of the securities and capital markets business unit and later the healthcare and services business unit.
LONDON—The European Aviation Safety Agency EASA is considering an innovative proposal that would allow commercial operators to outsource their continuous airworthiness management organization (CAMO) functions, enabling them to adopt, for example, Boeing's Goldcare maintenance model for Boeing 787 and 737NG operators. Boeing, which has CAMO approval, could manage its European-based 787 fleet from a central organization that would provide operators with airworthy 787s. Boeing staff would run the CAMO, while operators would use aircraft from a pool.
Alaska Airlines launched a new inflight entertainment option in April: touchscreen, handheld digEplayer devices that let passengers access new-release movies, television programs, the National Football League network, ReelzChannel Hollywood programming and games. Customers also can pay a fee to use the device to connect to Alaska's Gogo inflight internet. Alaska debuted the system, which is lighter than its predecessor, in 2003. It is available on most flights longer than 3 hr.
In the world of modern MRO, complexity layers upon complexity. All these convolutions have to be chronicled—every move, every time. Few industries on earth are so dependent on airtight documentation. To prove regulatory compliance, operators must unambiguously connect the documentary dots.
Belac shipped its 50,000th parts manufacturer approval high-pressure turbine blade in April to a customer in Europe. The joint venture of Chromalloy, Lufthansa and United Airlines began manufacturing and shipping the components in 2002.
