Kriya Shortt is the senior vice president of Global Customer Support for Textron Aviation. Last month at the NBAA convention in Las Vegas, Nev., Aviation Maintenance editor-in-chief, Joy Finnegan had the opportunity to sit down with her and discuss the challenges and opportunities of leading the global support effort for Textron Aviation, which now encompasses…

With this issue, safety expert Jeff Guzzetti will begin a series of in-depth analyses of accidents that had maintenance as a cause. Guzzetti is the president of Guzzetti Aviation Risk Discovery (GuARD), an aviation safety consulting firm that he formed following a 35-year career with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)…

With thousands of privately owned aircraft and business jets in the worldwide fleet, how do you make yours standout? To find out, one owner pulled together a crack team of experts including a scheme designer, an experienced paint shop and the paint manufacturer, to come up with something really unique. And the results are amazing.…

In this new partnership, Airbus and Snap-on look to create a pathway for high school students to prepare forcareers in aviation maintenance, aircraft manufacturing and other aerospace-related jobs to help contend with the coming need for skilled workers. Wirbus estimates the aviation industry will need to hire 640,000 new technicians in the next 20 years,…

Military, corporate, and A&P trainers are adopting game-based, first-person technologies as fast as they can. These virtual technologies engage students and supplement lectures and manuals. But the jury is still out on which approaches are best suited to which training tasks. Technologies range from virtual maintenance trainers (VMTs) to virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality…

Whether it’s piston, turboprop or jet, fixed- or swing-wing, sooner or later every business aircraft is going to need the care of an experienced maintainer. And like with every other type of service provider, it’s best to find the right one long before the work begins. So, what do finding a great restaurant and choosing…

There are a wide variety of new tools and products out in the marketplace that have been designed to help mechanics and MROs do their work more efficiently, and to keep employees safe and organized. All these products are designed with two things in mind, safety and the bottom line. If, for example, an inflatable…

For anyone working in the aviation field, it should be no shock that the role FAA plays in our industry has changed over the last several years. The trend started decades ago with the pilot community when FAA no longer provided check rides and written tests, in favor of transferring those activities to persons “Designated”…

Every time I teach a Human Factors (HF) course, I always like to talk about the little things. What I mean by the little things is screws, bolts, fasteners and other types of hardware. The things that can probably fit in the palm of your hand and only cost a few dollars. Yet, these little…

Thailand’s government is offering enticing tax and visa incentives for companies to bring aerospace and MRO businesses to their country. They believe their location, labor costs, technical base and work ethics make it the ideal location for those looking to benefit from the coming Asian aviation boom. When you think of Thailand, what comes to…