• What Does Damage Tolerance mean to you?
• Service Equipment Maintenance
• Get Your First Choice
• WSI Inflight Obsolete April 30, 2007!

Download PDF Version

What Does Damage Tolerance Mean to You?

- Scott Shefke

Every so often in Challenger circles, the issues of damage tolerance and transport category standards come up. What do these issues mean for the technicians maintaining these aircraft?

Transport category aircraft are required to have multiple load paths and a failsafe structure to prevent catastrophic failure. Critical structures must be tested per the defined inspection criteria and intervals. These intervals must allow for the maintenance technician to have at least two opportunities to detect cracks as specified by the task. The threshold and repetitive inspections exist because of the established engineering of material tested to critical crack length.

These standards also provide definitions of inspection criteria. For instance, Operational Check is defined as a task to determine if an item is fulfilling its intended purpose. This is a failurefinding task and does not require quantitative tolerances or any other equipment other than itself. This is different from a Functional Check, defined as a quantitative check to determine if each function of an item performs within specified limits.

These topics are just a few of many that affect how this style of aircraft is maintained and highlight the value of a technician who understands these principles.

If you have any questions about this topic, or any Challenger issue, please contact me at 402.479.1681.

Service Equipment Maintenance

- Karl Detweiler

Water containers, water heaters, food ovens, and other service equipment is often ignored on an aircraft until it breaks or leaks. A good time to consider revitalizing water containers, heaters, ovens and other interior equipment is when an aircraft is down for service or inspections. New gaskets and seals replaced at your convenience can prevent equipment problems later. Heating elements can be checked for operational integrity or corrosion from leaks or condensation.

A little preventative maintenance can go a long ways toward preventing “last minute” flight preparation problems when the crew discovers the hot water heater isn’t working.

If you are interested in having water containers, heating ovens, etc., checked and serviced, you can call Duncan Aviation at 800.228.4277, and ask for Chris Gress, ext. 1664.

Duncan Aviation is a MAPCO Products approved service facility.

Get Your First Choice

High service activity levels in the industry are making it more and more difficult in securing your first or preferred choice of service centers and schedule.We have some tips that will help you avoid some of the pitfalls when planning your next event.

First and foremost, three months is not enough! With only three months lead time; you are not likely to get your first choice of schedule and facility. Plan at least six months in advance for an average workscope–twelve to eighteen months in advance for a large workscope.

Just a few advantages of advance planning are: getting your first choice of facility and schedule; obtaining the best downtime; having plenty of time for planning and ordering parts and materials.

For more tips, please contact Alan Huggett at 269.969.8442.

WSI Inflight Obsolete April 30, 2007!

- Jim Wheaton

If your aircraft has a WSI AV100 or AV200 Inflight Weather System, look for a notice from WSI in the mail soon. WSI is partnering with Sirius Satellite Radio for improved service and more opportunity for further product enhancements.

Call Dennis DeCook at 269.969.8418 for more information.

( Return to top )