October 8, 2008

DOT IG Wants More Third-party Maintainer Oversight

By Paul Lowe

Following a congressionally ordered probe of outsourced aircraft maintenance by the DOT Inspector General, the FAA and air carriers were put on notice to improve their oversight of the 4,159 domestic and 709 foreign repair stations certified by the FAA to perform maintenance on U.S. aircraft. “Our work on outsourced maintenance has continually found that the issue is not where maintenance is perfo more

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StandardAero Maryville Ready for PW600 Service

By Jennifer Harrington

StandardAero last month concluded a shakedown run of the Pratt & Whitney Canada PW600 at the company’s new test cell facility in Maryville, Tenn. The company began work on the $6 million facility in June last year. It is the first test cell dedicated to PW600 repair and overhaul, but the company said it designed the facility to accommodate engines up to 30,000 pounds of thrust. The 10,000-sq-f more

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GKN Develops Hot Bond in Autoclave Composites Repair

By Matt Thurber

GKN Aerospace has developed a new repair process allowing hot-bonding of composite structure inside an autoclave. Autoclaves are used to manufacture complex composite parts by using heat and pressure to cure the components in a controlled environment. Repairing composite parts in normal atmospheric conditions requires costly specialized materials. By employing a hot bonder heater mat inside the au more

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