Messier Services U.K. (Safran Group) and EADS are providing landing gear overhaul services for the RAF’s Tornado combat aircraft fleet, via BAE Systems as prime contractor. This 8.5-year contract covers 134 Tornados.
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.
Northwest Turbine, amended STC to install two Pratt & Whitney PT6A-35 engines and two Hartzell HC-E4N-3N/D8292B-2 propellers and associated hardware on Raytheon B60 aircraft, STC SA01672SE
AAR Corp. added Dave Cann as VP, regulatory compliance. Cann, who retired as manager of the FAA Flight Standards Service, Aircraft Maintenance Division, in January 2008, now is in charge of quality and regulatory compliance efforts for AAR’s repair station business under senior quality officer Mickey Cohen. On the safety and environmental side, Rayner Hutchinson continues as VP, quality and safety, also reporting to Cohen.
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.
Hamilton Sundstrand received a firm fixed price U.S. Air Force contract worth an estimated $6.2 million to repair and overhaul digital electronic engine controls, engine diagnostic units and associated parts for F-15 and F-16 aircraft. As of early January, no money had been obligated. Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., was responsible for the contracting activity.
The Fuel Cell added the IAE V2500 to its fuel component repair capabilities. The Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based repair station is an FAA-approved, Hamilton Sundstrand-licensed facility that also has capabilities for Pratt & Whitney, Rolls-Royce and GE fuel components.
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.
Bar Air, to install the BAR Air supercharger system on Teledyne Continental Motors IO-550-N engines and install the supercharged engines in Cirrus SR22 aircraft, STCs SE10926SC and SA10925SC
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A Boeing-led team recently completed a major mission-system upgrade for the NATO Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) fleet from a $1.32 billion mid-term modernization program. Modification of NATO’s 17th and final AWACS aircraft was completed on schedule in November, by the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS), as an industry partner and sub-contractor to Boeing, which also delivered two NATO AWACS mission simulators modified with the Mid-Term configuration.
Flight data results can be uploaded wirelessly from Cirrus SR 20 and SR 22 aircraft upon landing with a roadband unit from Alakai Technologies and integrator and safety analysis firm CAPACG. Alakai received amended supplemental type certification (STC) approval to install the unit in December. The partners, who market the broadband access unit under the brand name GA-FDM, aim to enable non-commercial owners and operators to monitor and share engine trend and flight operations data with their equipment and the monitoring services they offer.
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.
Ameco Beijing’s test equipment for air cycle machine (ACM) repairs passed airworthiness audits , the MRO said in late December. The equipment simulates ACM conditions on both Airbus and Boeing aircraft to check the air conditioning system component’s temperature, pressure and airflow.
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.
Cairo-based carrier AlMasria Universal Airlines signed a total maintenance agreement with Egyptair Maintenance & Engineering to support its Airbus A320 fleet. AlMasria begins operations in the first quarter of 2009 with two A320s, offering service from Alexandria, Luxor, and Assiut to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, and Libya. It plans to add another four A320s in 2010.
