Jet Aviation Basel announced the retirement of Elie Zelouf, effective Feb. 1. Zelouf, most recently in charge of key customers, has been with Jet Aviation for more than 40 years. He will continue on in an advisory role.
The new Sony SXRD T-Series projector for visualization, simulation, and command and control applications now is available through VDC Display Systems. The next generation version of Sony’s S-Series projector combines a dual Xenon arc lamp, a native resolution of over 8.8MB and one of the highest resolution imaging chips on the market today, VDC Display Systems says. The new model also improves brightness.
Atlantic Fasteners won a pair of two-year contracts from Lockheed Martin together worth nearly $1 million. The West Springfield, Mass.-based manufacturer will provide Lockheed Martin’s U.S. business units with hundreds of fastener varieties through December 2010.
Boeing also received a $1.1 billion U.S. Department of Defense contract for C-17 Globemaster III total systems support under the fiscal year 2009 C-17 Globemaster III Sustainment Partnership, a performance based logistics program. This includes a previous award of $514 million for the first six months of this fiscal year (October 2008-March 2009), and extends the period through September.
Kelly Aviation Center earned EASA certification for the CF6-50 engine. The Lockheed Martin Corp. affiliate in San Antonio, Texas, currently does CF6-50 MRO for the KC-10 and E-4B fleet under contract to GE. Minority investors in Kelly Aviation Center are GE and Rolls-Royce.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore in December issued a checklist for Safety Management System assessments. The CAAS SMS Assessment Checklist, available to download at http://www.caas.gov.sg/ caasWeb/export/sites/caas/en/Regulations_And_Guidelines/Guidelines_and_Manuals/AFO/Reference_Materials/download/aw127.pdf, measures SMS effectiveness.
Air New Zealand subsidiary TAE purchased Tenix Aviation, its second aviation services company in Australia. The deal closed on Dec. 9 and Tenix Aviation will be renamed TAE Aviation. TAE (Tasman Aviation Enterprises), headquartered in South East Queensland, provides commercial and defense aftermarket services from five sites in Australia. New Zealand’s National Business Review said the other recent acquisition was Masling Industries in New South Wales, which provides aircraft engine component maintenance.
United Airlines named Mark Mounsey VP of base maintenance for United Services in San Francisco. Mounsey joins United after a 20-year career at Pratt & Whitney. He will report to Jim Keenan, SVP maintenance. Mounsey succeeds Tracy Elving, who, according to a United spokesperson, left the company a few months ago. Airframes
Health and usage monitoring systems (HUMS) have made a major contribution to helicopter safety by keeping a watchful eye on engines, gearboxes and rotors. Now GE Aviation Systems is adding the capability to monitor airframe corrosion under a two-year, $2 million research contract from the U.S. Armys Aviation Applied Technology Directorate.
Growth, consolidation, globalization. Industry leaders agree these three factors will continue and multiply. Maintenance executives around the globe see eye to eye on another shaping factor: human resources, or the lack thereof. The number of people entering the workforce at every level, but particularly as operational employees, struggles to keep pace. This shortage of human resources is the most important issue facing companies and the MRO industry at large, according to a 2008 survey conducted by TeamSAI and Heidrick & Struggles.
ST Aerospace subsidiary STARCO inducted its 10th and 11th All Nippon Airways Airbus A320 aircraft for C checks and modifications under a three-year contract announced in November 2007. Engines
Two sizes of parts washers from Oil Eater are designed to produce little waste and require little maintenance. The larger work station is equipped with a 45-gallon water-based parts washer, measures 24 -by-32-by-9 in., and comes with three five-gallon pails of Oil Eater cleaner-degreaser. The smaller unit comes in a 25-gallon size, measures 19-by-29-by-15 in., and comes with two five-gallon pails of solution.
Spairliners began component support work for Qantas’ A380s under a new, 10-year technical services agreement. The joint venture of Lufthansa Technik and Air France Industries will repair and replace about 750 components from its warehouse under the deal, which covers all 20 of the aircraft Qantas has ordered. The agreement comes a year before Air France or Lufthansa are slated to receive their first A380s; including these future deliveries, Spairliners will provide component support for 47 total A380 aircraft.
Heli-One, an operating division of the CHC Group, with headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia, announced in December its receipt of a new FMV (Swedish Defense Material Administration) contract worth C$11.2 million ($9 million) to complete avionics upgrades on two Eurocopter AS332M1 Super Puma (Hkp 10) military helicopters. From early this year, these will receive integrated defensive aids suite equipment and services, plus night vision goggles, at Heli-One’s facility in Stavanger, Norway.
Singapore’s SilkAir picked Panasonic Avionics’ Multiplexed Passenger Entertainment system for installation on 12 Airbus A319/A320s. A regional subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, SilkAir began the conversion work in August at SIA Engineering Co., but word of the contract was not revealed until Jan. 6. The contract includes nine options. The SilkAir fleet includes nine Airbus A320s and six A319s.
IFS enhanced its IFS Applications maintenance suite with a constraint-based scheduling tool for work orders designed to allow users to see how project changes affect return to service dates for improved turnaround times. IFS says the tool also can help lean programs by identifying bottlenecks and maximizing throughput.
AgustaWestland appointed Air Works its service center in India . Air Works offers MRO for fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. It also provides MRO services for Honeywell engines—TFE 731 and CFE 738 series—and APUs, as per an October 2008 agreement with the OEM. India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) approved Air Works last November for independent airline MRO at its commercial operations center in Hosur, near Bangalore.
Click Commerce and Miro Technologies formed a strategic alliance to complete and market an aftermarket maintenance and logistics software solution with performance based logistics (PBL) specific functionalities, called the ePBL (extended PBL) portal.
StandardAero will provide PW100 and PT6 engine MRO services to France’s Direction de la Defence et de la Securite Civile fleet of 12 CL415 water bombers, nine S2F Trackers, three Beechcraft King Air 200s and two Dash 4-402MR aircraft as part of a maintenance package that also includes site management and logistics and line maintenance.
The Air Transportation Association is hoping to bridge a final gap in the movement to digital distribution of parts with a new specification for parts release. FAA recently approved use of the ATA Spec 2000 Chapter 16, Electronic Product and Part Regulatory Documentation, as a means to use electronic forms for signing off on parts rather than the paper Form 8130-3.
