9 Day C checks

[The hippy]

I have just seen a company memo that states that FLS are going to do DC-10 C checks in 10 Days,(Airtours Aircraft) (anyone got any gen?)
seams a bit quick for me!!!

[spannersatcx]

We used to do 747-400 c checks at BAMC in that sort of time, the variables are what mod's sb's etc need incorporating and the big variable of faults found could double that time.

[NFF_PRF]

Yes and we've all seen the state of the aircraft after a visit to Taff's Garage!

[aeroguru]

With great respect for the viet taff at BAMC,
a B7474 is generally a bit younger than your average DC10 and has the great advantage,corrosion wise anyway,of vaccy bogs.
Now to change the subject slightly,I thought the lamms manuals of the Douglas were the best for their multi functional simplicity.
Anyone agree?
Also,slightly off beam,the DC10 is the only type where I have done an airframe borescope.
On the gear grease channels!
Never add to confusion by pretending you know what you're doing.
Oh yeah!Everyone I speak to professionally seems to be concerned about declining standards in aviation.

[Leatherman]

Someone,somewhere in some office ,probably came out with the statement;"we'll do it in 9 days".
I once worked for an airline,where someone in some office,somewhere,had done some research and came up with figures for each route and load that amount of potable water on to the b747.Great said the management this is going to save us pennies.
Anyway I,m sure you've all guessed already,that the first flight to Vancouver ran out of H2O en route,hence urgent telex issued to disregard those figures and fill em up.Never did hear what happened to that guy?
Those 9 day c checks can be done if the aircraft has been exceptionally well maintained and you put blinkers on so you only do exactly what is on the job card!

[growler]

Sounds about right to me. The 10 days willbe purely for the basic check. Any additionals such as defects or sb's etc will take extra time. They (FLS) do our 737 C checks in 6 days (but these are new aircraft). As stated previously, when the time was calculated it was assumed that the inspectors would only look at exactly what is on the card, ignore everything in the surrounding area, that will be covered by another card..........

[Jango]

It is always the same old marketing ploy these outfits use.."we will do it in less time than ...." SASCO in Singapore have signed up for qty 5, B747-400 C checks for LH to be done in 20 days...for sure LHT in Hamburg could not do that!

As stated before, amazing what turns up on a non routine card. Same old story around the world, you and me carry the can and some marketing guy gets his 0.5 percent slice of the pie for making promises.

[spannersatcx]

NFF PRF, that's why I don't work there anymore. I did add a few variables on, a basic work pack would be around that. General rule of thumb was for every 2 routine manhours you would add 1 for defect rectification, so 9 + 4.5 would be a better guess.

[Flying Banana]

If I remember rightly the record for an aircraft out of Taffs Garage when I worked at Gatport Airwick was eight tech log pages and twenty four cabin log pages filled with defects and that was only flying Cardif-LGW. The bloody heap didn't fly for about a fortnight after arriving back in civilisation.

And to cap it all the beancounters blamed us for the aircraft being unserviceable, after all it left Taffistan on time so must have been our fault!! That's what comes of giving kwikfit mechanics six weeks training and letting them lose on Mr Boeings wonderful flying machines.

'Nil stock spares, add raised....'
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[NFF_PRF]

Mr Banana, I agree totally with your comments about unskilled labour.

This industry is rapidly becoming a very dangerous place to associate ones-self with.

I don't blame the blokes for taking up the career. You can earn good money compared with a Kwik Fit Fitter repairing tyres in your local garage.

However there is an accident that is waiting to happen, AND IT WILL and it will kill hundreds of people. I've seen the aftermath of an incident where people lost their lives and believe me it's not something I want to experience again.

When it does happen I don't want to be around to say "Told you so!"

There are still aircraft at Gatport that have the scars from Whales after a "major" (Ha what a joke!) several months ago.

If I put my car into a garage and it came out in the ex-Taffs state I'd sue.

[juicy]

I got stuck at taffs garage for five years, luckily i managed to escape to tell the tale. Scary old place though, lovely blokes those kwik fit mechs, just a bit thick !!!
:) :) :)

[Jango]

Unfair to blame all snags on Kwikfit Fitters lads. To put a C check in perspective. If it was signed up as a fixed price contract and with penalties if the aircraft was late out of the hangar, it would not matter if you were an ace with more certs than you could shake at stick at, or a lowly kwikfit fitter, that aeroplane would be going out of the door purely due to commercial pressures, not because of any lack of ability on the engineers who did the work.

The problem will always be unrealistic deadlines, budget or time wise.

[aeroguru]

Jango?5 c checks in 20 days or 5 at 20 days each?Both seem to be wrong but knowing SQ it will be the 5 in 20.
Maybe that is why they are desperate for contractors at the mo.

[greaseytech]

With regards to 'C' checks, I read an artical that stated 'C' checks will become a thing of the past, and Britannia are using this as justification for putting E & M up for sale. The thing is, all the inspections, all the annual routine maintenance that does not get covered on 'A' checks, all the tests and functions that are mandatory requirements and very time consuming are going to have to be done at some point. Someone somewhere, and I expect sitting in an office with no concept of aircraft maintenance has wirtten this drivel and our financial wizz kids are believing it. Sorry lads, but I think that the bean counters have won this one.

[Blacksheep]

Maybe we have to share some of the blame?

In the end its the maintainance engineers and certifiers that set the standard. If we accept commercial pressure to get the aircraft out of the door, then its only natural for the 'bean-counters' to assume that everything is OK and it can be done every time. One of the problems of 3rd party maintenance is that the customer is king. When a customer rep. decides that he doesn't want something fixed, we accept it and turn a blind eye. The aircraft goes out on deadline in cr*ppy condition, the customer has his Certificate that the AMS has been satisfied. Then the next aircraft into the hangar is one of our own. Isn't it only natural for the bean-counters to wonder why we can do someone elses "C" check in 5 days and then spend 10 days on our doing our own?

Perhaps the answer is for us to start refusing to withold defects. When a customer wants one ignored, he might sign it off himself. What happens if we refuse to certify the Scheduled Task? The employer is sure to exert pressure, very strong pressure, but I simply don't believe that any company can afford to threaten penalties if the defect is genuine. In the end we are supported by the ANO (in UK anyway) and threatening a certifying engineer would be grounds for removal of the company's approval. I must put it on record that in my career I have refused to certify on three occasions. Twice I came under severe pressure to sign and stood my ground. Nothing ever happened, in fact after one occasion I was promoted! Taking this a step further, maybe our willingness to "get the job done" is the reason for our low status and pay?

This is not a wind-up, but an attempt to provoke some serious discussion on the current trend to 'get them out the door as fast as possible.' Let's have some more opinion on this subject.

**********************************
Through difficulties to the cinema

[Jango]

Aeroguru, it was 5 checks in a 20 day period. 4 days per check, straight c, noextra work...if you believe that. And no doubt the guys who first get the aircraft back on the line in sausage eating country will be moaning like phook at the state of the aircraft...and the bean counters will be laughing all the way to the golf course...

(Sasco...not SQ)

[Jango]

The only sure fire way is to stick to principles and not realease the aircraft until the defect is sorted. After you've been in the shed for a 14hr day and you just want to go home, 9 times out of 10 you are going to sign and worry about it all the way home ...right?

I have been on both sides as a operator trying get my aircraft out on time and as the facility trying to not to give in to customer pressure. It is not easy from either view point. You can not say it is down to lose ethics of an engineer either, some guys may appear to pen things off sooner than others, some are sticklers for perfection and crossing tees and dotting the eyes?? In reality how many times does it come down to a crunch confrontation? probably not that often when you consider how many dogs you kick out of the hangar week in week out....so whats the answer? If there is an answer, you are a better man than me Gungadin.


[This message has been edited by Jango (edited 06 June 2000).]

[The hippy]

Here's some more points of interest.

On a C check the tech normally has to insp areas ,and certify for work
carried out.
He has the unenviable task of being responsible for the final product that
his men have produced , whether its a single nut on a seat or a whole skin
repair,
If the check time is reduced does this mean that his time spent on insp
work carried out is reduced? I think not!
This must mean that he has to allow his lads no matter how experienced to do
certain tasks with out him seeing them.
Less time must mean more men. This must mean less actual work monitored.
I do trust most of the fitters that work under me but no matter how good
they are they DO MAKE MISTAKES, they may only be minor, but a damaged O ring
maybe the oil leak on an ETOPS flight, and its the poor guy that signed for
it that they will look for not the fitter.
The way the law is now, they do say that the directors of a company are
liable if a disaster occurs (you know what I mean!!!) but remember this,
come the big inquiry they will look for the tech signature as well.


I wonder if this is an argument to get me a pay rise (DIRECTORS MONEY )

[Jango]

We all know that if the companies employed more licenced and experienced guys, the work load on each would be less and the quality of the final product would increase ...but tell the bean counters that! I think that more often than not an extra day on the check would solve the problems. How many times do customers push for an aircraft, fly the thing back to line and it frigging sits there while they complain what a state it is in? Let me have it one more day and it will be clean?...vicious circle

[Clever Bloke]

At a presentation by my employer it was stated that you can't sell quality.

All the customer wants is the aircraft out of the hangar on the correct date/time.

I think what the management were saying was "we don't care what you do to the aircraft as long as it's made serviceable at the correct time"

Hence work gets "rubber stamped"........scary isn't it?

YES IT DOES HAPPEN.

[Penn Doff]

Good point CB, I have also seen what can happen when doing operators "A" checks. When you raise a defect and the tech rep clears it as ok (one happened to be a leak from a hydraulic pipe dripping on to a brake unit).
One also wonders how much work is carried out without the proper tooling and certification.
The bottom line is that a good job cannot be done on such an old aircraft in such a short time, something must give and that can only be quality!

------------------
"please report further"

[redtail]

I swear a lot of it seems to be a beancounter contest on who can stick whom with the bill. Our heavy check is a separate department from line maintenance, and if the aircraft goes out fast from the farm-out shop and then dies on the line, heavy check still looks good because it is not on their budget, it is on line maintenance's. What a racket.


[This message has been edited by redtail (edited 11 June 2000).]

[Flying Banana]

One of the biggest problems with the beancounters is they only see the immediate cost of everything. If they can shave two or three days off a check they think they have saved the airline money. What they don't consider, and can't because they have no engineering knowledge at all is the money it costs, one week, month, year down the line to fix a grounded aircraft with a fault which would have been prevented if the Checks had been done properly.

Unfortunately, and I really hate to say this, the trend will continue until the inevitable happens and people lose their lives. The beancounters are not going to listen to anything which doesnot reduce costs and unfortunately it is they who the airlines listen to.

NFF, glad to hear Taffs Garage are still churning out the same old rubbish they always did, at least you know what you are getting from there, an aircraft which won't fly on revenue service for at least a week after arriving back at base.

[H721]

what maintenance organization sells is manhours (man x hours). obviously the hours side is controlled by the airline customer, a service provider can only use the man ingredient to adjust. but tell me how many more engineers she has deployed to meet the need?

although it is true that with process improvement and better communication we can do things in shorter time. but tell me if this is the case.

we all want quality work to be done and every parties must sit together and work as a team.

for fellow engineers i know how heavy the pen is/will be when signing a work card. i have all my faith on all professional certifying engineers. afterall we all have our own go/no go gauge embedded on our mind. we have the instinct of what is ok and what is not.


------------------
Not much of an engineer


[This message has been edited by H721 (edited 11 June 2000).]

[redtail]

<<<<<< Read between the lines. This was after a SASCO a/c flew to one of our stations and the crew wrote up that all three engines would not make take-off power. The pilots took issue with the farm out shops, but then kissed and made up so the public would not worry. >>>>>>>>>>>>>

Published Thursday, March 30, 2000

Northwest quells pilot worries about outside repair shops
Tony Kennedy / Star Tribune

A meeting Wednesday between top Northwest Airlines executives and pilots union safety officials apparently erased pilots' concerns about the safety of aircraft maintenance done by outside vendors.

The meeting was prompted by a strongly worded complaint letter the union sent last month, which cited five recent pilot reports of trouble with planes freshly returned to service from maintenance vendors in San Antonio, Seattle and Dothan, Ala.

Greg Cardis, air safety chairman for the Northwest Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), said he left Wednesday's high-level meeting satisfied that there is no chronic problem with Northwest's system of hiring government-certified independent repair stations for jobs not assigned to the airline's own mechanics.

"Our concerns have been addressed," Cardis said. "In the end, we don't see it as a system problem. The data that we were provided shows that vendor maintenance is every bit as reliable as our own maintenance."

Northwest Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Richard Anderson and other airline executives met with ALPA officials in response to a complaint letter that ALPA Central Air Safety Vice-Chair Bob Aaron sent to Northwest's senior vice president of technical operations. Referring to the five incidents, Aaron's letter said, "When viewed collectively, their mix is one for potential disaster."

Ken Hylander, Northwest's vice president for quality, reliability and engineering, said in an interview last week that he was eager to meet with the pilots to explain the incidents, which the company knew about before getting the complaint letter. Hylander said it is very important that the pilots have confidence in maintenance procedures.


Incomplete information


Cardis said after Wednesday's meeting that it was obvious the union didn't have complete information when it drafted its complaint letter. Several of the reported problems were minor, and the company already had taken appropriate corrective action, he said.

"We thought there was more to it," Cardis said. "On balance, they responded, and we really don't have any more issues."

In the most serious incident, confirmed by Northwest and scrutinized by the Federal Aviation Administration, mechanics at Pemco in Dothan, Ala., did not reconnect antenna cables that were unhooked from navigation radios during structural repairs to a Northwest DC-9. The cables, located beneath panels in the DC-9's cargo department, were left dangling when the panels were reinstalled.

When the jetliner returned to service in a non-passenger ferry flight, both navigation radios were inoperable, and the pilots relied on voice radio to get directional headings from air traffic controllers. The plane landed safely. Cardis said the navigation radios passed a pre-flight inspection because the DC-9's ground location was near a navigation radio transmitter.

"This one got the attention of the FAA," Hylander said.

Although the regulatory agency did not fine Northwest or Pemco, disciplinary action was taken against individuals who caused the error. Northwest increased its quality assurance work at Pemco, and new training ensued.

Hylander said the mechanics who disconnected the cables did not document their work, and a crew that took over for them did not know from looking at paperwork that the cables had been disconnected.

"They did not follow good maintenance procedures," Hylander said.


Maintenance procedures


The complaint letter from ALPA questioned whether Northwest had enough "hands-on oversight" of its maintenance vendors to assure decisive quality control. Cardis said after Wednesday's meeting that Northwest's system of oversight exceeds FAA requirements.

Union mechanics at Northwest took issue a couple of years ago when the airline ended a practice of assigning its own union mechanics to act as on-site inspectors at outside repair shops. Northwest's Anderson said the inspection program had been installed on a temporary basis when Northwest was adding a lot of planes to its fleet.

When Northwest's demand for airplane commissioning work subsided, management employees trained in quality assurance replaced the union inspectors.

Hylander said Northwest heavily audits prospective repair shops. Once a vendor has been authorized to do work for Northwest, the airline opens a management office on the premises. Staffing includes one full-time quality assurance representative and a site manager responsible for Northwest's overall check program at the facility. Hylander said Northwest also has managers on the scene whenever a work shift is in progress at one of its repair stations.

In addition, he said, the FAA has independent oversight of repair stations even if it doesn't maintain a full-time on-site presence at the shops. Furthermore, Northwest holds quarterly business reviews with each of its maintenance vendors.

"We constantly manage it," Hylander said. "Our on-site surveillance [at repair shops] is effectively more than in our own hangars."

Anderson said his goal is to keep Northwest's own maintenance facilities operating at full-tilt while using outside vendors to handle intermittent overloads.

He said Northwest's use of repair shops was higher than usual in 1998 and 1999, primarily because of a heavy maintenance cycle and partly because of an unofficial work slowdown by Northwest's own mechanics.

Last year, Northwest sent about a third of its maintenance work to outside vendors, Anderson said. This year, the load carried by outsiders will dwindle to about 10 percent, he said.


© Copyright 2000 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

[The hippy]

Third party work and your own can make mistakes!
we had a late delivered a/c with the trust reversers locked out.
The flags and pins where just paneled over,
the first time they where needed brought a shock to the flight deck I can tell you.
But once again less haste may have given the poor man on the floor more time to look at things!!!!

(New system now installed each a/c has its own pin/lock kit must be complete before a/c leaves the hanger.)

[Blacksheep]

Seems Jango hit the nail on the head when he says that given an extra day the aircraft might go out "clean" This would be cost effective due to the reduction in in-service failures.

'Beancounters' pushing to reduce down time think they are reducing costs, whereas all engineering evidence indicates the opposite.
The evidence is clear enough in the reliability data. Unplanned aircraft down-time is much more disruptive and costly than planned down time, but beancounters' accounting programs don't seem to pick this up as a seperate item. The question is, how do engineers and accountants get together to ensure that the cost of unplanned work is factored in? We don't even speak the same language. It is up to engineers to refuse to release the aircraft until it IS fit to return to service. Airworthiness is an engineering decision NOT an accounting decision.

**********************************
Through difficulties to the cinema

[This message has been edited by Blacksheep (edited 12 June 2000).]