CFDS SYSTEM A319/20/21
 

WHAT TIPS CAN YOU GIVE ME IN USING THE CFDS SYSTEM ?

DON'T PANIC!

Don´t replaced the CFDIU before you have manually recorded all class 2+3 faults.
I know this from experience.
Twice, ......... damn nightshift.
Brgds
Doc

It's your best friend !

Don't be scared of it. Experiment round when the aircraft is on the ground with loads of downtime.

THANKS FOR THE REPLIES.

HOW DO YOU USE THE AVIONIC STATUS OPTION ?
HOW DO YOU USE THE GROUND SCAN OPTION ?
THANKS

Do you have access to ADRES and CAATS?

take time out to use CAATS
once you can use that with the post flight report codes, you will find that all codes that the CFDS gives you are 90% answered.
:D

WHEN YOU PRESS THE LINE KEY TO GET ACCESS TO THE AVIONIC STATUS OPTION ON THE CFDS MENU .
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS OPTION ?
WHAT IS ITS USE TO ME AS AN ENGINEER?

Never change a LRU because of CFDS. Run the test at least twice & then re rack the boxes or swap in the system. If that does not work, de power the aircraft & start again.

If you don't you will have taxis AOG with spares you don't need!

If I remember rightly it gives you class three faults. I'll check later on when I get on one. Class three faults don't always mean something serious is wrong. Usually they are indication of maybe one chanel in a sensor down or something similar. They are worth monitoring on critical systems such as flight controls FADEC etc..., but in general only use them for fault diagnosis. Don't start looking into them all whatever you do or the craft will never fly again!!!! :D

Avionic status is for reading the class 3 faults. These are faults which are of such a low level that they don't trigger any other warning and don't affect the operation of the system. If my memory serves me correct the avionic status prompt only appears when you have ground power plugged in, ie on normal generators in normal service you can't even access them they are that unimportant.
From my experience they can be ignored, You can just read them and test the affected system and it will still pass the test, if the defect becomes serious enough to trigger a message then deal with it. (Just don't quote me)
Incidentally the class 3 faults and their recording were the only computer systems which were not Y2K compliant on the A320.
CFDS is a wonderful tool if used properly but it can lead you up the garden path sometimes so a 'master reset' is well worth a shot before you send the pax to the hotel.

Another tip especially useful if you've got a wide and varied fleet of Scarebuses,
If you want to print out a maintenance task, use the AMM within CAATS rather than ADRES as this is filtered to the individual aircraft by registration so you won't get a large and confusing write up covering all effectivities, you'll just get whats effective to your individual A/C. In some cases this can reduce the print out from 10-15 pages to about 2 or 3.
http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/aircraft2/a320.gif

When your ready we'll start on how to set the AIDS up to call up and printout reports!

:rolleyes: Pengineer is right Caats can help with getting to the right stuff quickly, but so can adres. Ensure that you have the right vendor code for your aircraft (XF,XA type of a/c code),then use the aircraft allocation table to find the reg of your aircraft. Highlight it and your away, the whole of the AMM is now edited to show maintenance info only relevant to your aircraft. you can also edit the IPC part of Adres the same way.