How do pilots contact maintenance?

[chullan]

Hi all,
i am a lil confused with pilots contacting their maintenance on ground during flight. I have watched in some episodes of Aircrash Investigation on National Geographic, pilots contact their maintenance. My question is
1.Where actually are these maintenance people stationed at, Are there in every airport or at some specific locations? (NatGeo said in all occasions " When pilot contacted THEIR maintenance")
2.Do you use normal radio to contact them or some other type??
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but i think its better to ask the experts rather than keeping it.

SAFE FLYING

[NVpilot]

Wasn't at a real airline but at my small airline we could contact radio via HF and request a phone patch to maintenance control, in our case, an engineer for our airframe on duty 24/7 for that purpose.

[chullan]

thanks for ur input....

so tht means that they are not really contacting their own company's maintenance but someone else who is trained for the type of bird at the nearest tower ... rite???

[cortilla]

If you are near enough you can contact your engineers via VHF say up to about 100 odd nautical miles. Otherwise contact stockholm radio on HF and ask them to patch you through via a phone link to your maintrol department.

[NVpilot]

At our head office location we had engineers for each airframe on duty and at least one dispatcher on duty, not contractors, our personnel.

[flite idol]

Satcom.....the only way to go!

[Conan The Barber]

There are several ways to contact maintenance while in flight.

One way is via a radio be it VHF, HF or satellite. Using this method you can either dial directly or use a phone patch*. Another way is via ACARS, which essentially is a text message system much like that used on mobile phones.

Either way, you will be in contact with your own maintenance.


*Phone patch: The ground station you are calling connects you to the person you want to talk to via a telephone connection.

[chullan]

ok.. got the point...