by Charlotte Adams Composites are popular in business aviation aircraft. Equally important for aftermarket care is the fact that these materials are frequently found, not just in essentially cosmetic parts, but also in critical components such as flight control surfaces, tail assemblies, and even fuselages. Composite materials are attractive to manufacturers and operators because of…

by Andrew Drwiega The volume of ‘big data’ that is increasingly flowing from the engines of commercial operators should result in less maintenance and increased profits. We talked to Pratt & Whitney’s Asia aftermarket director Kevin Kirkpatrick When the public think about commercial aviation development, they envisage cleaner lines, better features to enhance their travelling…

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…

By Jason Dickstein There has been significant hub-bub in the United States over recent changes to the FAA-EASA agreements. The gist of the changes is that US-based dual-certified repair stations must receive a Form One (from the EU or Canada) or an 8130-3 (from the US) for each part/component in order to be able to…

by Andrew Drwiega, Editor-in-Chief The international MRO market has strong and sustainable growth ahead of it. Boeing has revealed that the Chinese market will need 6,810 new aircraft over the next 20 years, over 5,000 of which will be single-aisle aircraft. All those aircraft need maintenance and engineering expertise, not all of which can be provided to…

by Doug Nelms There will always be a need for a good, experienced A&P mechanic on the shop floor flanked by a large tool box on wheels and – in today’s world – a cart with a laptop computer taking the place of stacks of aircraft maintenance manuals. But now MROs, aviation operators and major…

By Dale Smith As “safe” as today’s workplaces seem, simple slip and fall accidents still account for way too many injuries and deaths every year. In fact, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics an average of 3.3 out of every 100,000 workers will die from a slip and fall accident. And that’s not…

by Mark Robins AVM professionals are faced with a huge range of different tools to service, repair, over haul and maintain many a wide assortment of aircraft to ensure their structural soundness. The size and type of an AVM tool will differ from one aircraft to another because of differences in aircraft size. Engine and…

By JASON DICKSTEIN The FAA really is trying to make it easier for industry to use safe aircraft parts. I have been writing blog articles about the FAA’s problems with the 8130-3 (Airworthiness Approval Tag), but relatively little press has been given to the FAA’s efforts to make the 8130-3 tags better. A recent policy…

By DAVID WESTLUND The corporate climate is highly competitive, the competition fierce; best your competitors or be bested. Narrow margins between profit and loss, urgent deadlines to meet, and logistics are all challenges that corporations face. Perhaps nowhere is this truer than in the airline industry. There is one venue, however, where the airlines put…