Airlines 4 America, or A4A, held the 59th annual Nondestructive Testing (NDT) Forum from September 26-29th in sunny San Diego, California this year. In a previous edition of Aviation Maintenance Magazine I wrote about the purpose of this forum. In this issue I will discuss the emerging topics and trends we learned about from the industry at this meeting.
To save you the trouble of digging out that old issue of Aviation Magazine I will describe what this event is all about again. The A4A Nondestructive Testing (NDT) Forum enables NDT professionals and industry leaders to meet each year and discuss current trends, issues and successes in NDT methodologies. The Forum draws participants from various disciplines, including equipment designers, technicians, vendors, regulatory authorities, OEMs, MROs and airline personnel. The Forum exhibit hall features displays, including the latest NDT and related equipment, processes and services.
This year over 125 of the top professionals from the industry participated in the forum. The key note speaker was Mr. Patrick Shcirmer who is the vice president of customer support for Boeing Commercial Aviation Services. On Monday, September 26th, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) American Materials Society (AMS) Committee K (Nondestructive Methods and Processes) met in order to discuss revisions to standards that were needed in order to keep pace with evolutions in the industry. Also meeting on that day was the NDT network which is a community of NDT specialists who work together towards achieving the highest level of safety in maintenance, inspection, and repair.