Aircraft Spares Kit

[airsmiles]

To what extent do different airliners carry an onboard spares holding?

i.e. would aircraft operating long-haul trips, that might mean 2 or 3 days away from base, carry spares or would they rely totally on local spares availability en-route?

[aviatorhi]

Are you going to a place where spares are common? What type of airplane are you flying? How common are the parts for the aircraft? Normal station for the airline in question or new territory? The list goes on and on and on. It comes down to the companies but primarily the skippers judgement in the case of the operations I've been involved in and/or around. "Normal" flights will typically see a mx kit (about 200 lbs) and a tire (about 500 lbs), the more remote you get the more things will be brought along just in case. Nitrogen bottles, airplane jacks etc. etc. Up north (Alaska) it's not entirely uncommon to COMAT fuel in barrels with the airplane on a long charter as 100LL get's scarce and fill the tanks from the barrels.

[SNS3Guppy]

Long Haul is two or three days away from home?

We typically carry a lot of spares on board, as well as a mechanic. We have spare wheel assemblies, avionics, brakes, engine components, etc.

In a former life, we carried everything we needed on board except spare engines. I flew radial engine powered airplanes, and we carried spare cylinders, etc. Both pilots were generally mechanics, and it was a u-break-it, u-fix-it type of show.

What's carried really depends on the operator and the operation. Operations which have access to parts and service on the road or at bases have little need to carry that equipment. Others, do.

[Piltdown Man]

Flying short haul we carry screwdrivers with exchangeable heads and multiple bits, various tapes, gloves, overalls, some lock-out pins and some electronic components and so forth. Some are only for the use of engineers, normally contracted on an ad-hoc basis at outstations and some items are for us to use. But most importantly of all, we receive some "approved" training for crew maintenance procedures which means that we can fix some minor faults which means we can safely and legally get the plane home after going AOG.

PM

PS. I nearly forgot - we are also given the most vital tool all, the company mobile phone.

[airsmiles]

Long Haul is two or three days away from home? Well it must be if it's a London to Sydney route for example.

Thanks for the info. A useful insight to something I've never thought about before.

[SNS3Guppy]

Long haul to me is a month on the road going east. Two days is a short trip.