Aviation Maintenance Inspection of Parts - Paper Example

In Aviation Maintenance, material department predominantly serves as a critical support staff in the procurement of typical materials in conjunction with ensuring that every function is undertaken effectively as in accordance to what has been stated by Drury, Prabhu, and Gramopadhye (2010). It is from this context that the inspection of the material creeps in. The aircraft parts are considerably expensive and as a consequence, if not handled efficiently, then as a result of their damage an organization may incur significant costs instead of accumulating profits. With these aspects in practice, the paper will address an inspection process of the aircraft parts right from there reception from the vendors to material support until the time the parts are assembled by a technician on an aircraft.

Description of the component

An aircraft has typical component parts, to mention a few they include the following: elevator, aileron, wings, fuselage, an altimeter, an airspeed indicator, engine gauges, the tachometer, gyroscopic, a magnetic campus among many other parts. However, in this context, I will raise a discussion on the Vertical Tail Unit (VTU) part, right from its purchase from vendors to final installation to the aircraft by a technician. The VTU is trapezoidal in shape and it consists of the Rudder (an aircraft control surface) and the Fin (prevents rudder lock and reversal) and the frame of the VTU is made up of duralumin cover and metal sheet spar. The rudder is of trapezoidal shape and is formed with a duralumin cover and spar. It is attached by two hinges at the fin with its upper tip formed with a fibre glass cover. On the other hand, the fin serves as an integral part of the rear section of the fuselage. The fin tip is formed by fibre glass cover paving way for the installation of the anti-collision beacon (Lee, Thimm & Verstraeten, 2008).

Steps of the process

The following steps are followed during the Vertical Tail Unit inspection process after reception of the part from the vendors: First, is the approval of the vendor's list. This encompasses the quality assurance inspection and verification of the VTU materials purchased if it is effective and of high quality. The second step in updating of the inventory, this will ensure have been received and are of the required standards. The third step is incoming, here the receiving inspector act as a sentimental of sorts with an objective of ensuring there is no entry of bad parts in the organization. The inspector will confirm in the packing list to ensure whether all was incorporated, confirm if the package was not damaged while being shipped as well as ensuring that the component has suitable paperwork for the purposes of traceability (Lee et al., 2008).

The fourth step is the part segregation and protection; the part must be put in the parts room away from the workshop surroundings. From the FAR part 145, it necessitate that the repair base should safeguard the parts from any kind of defect or damage (Drury et al., 2010). The VTU awaiting to be assembled will be stored and protected at this place. The next step is the tagging of the part, this will ensure that the part is easily recognized when in the repair post as well as informing others concerning the status of the removed parts within and outside the repair station. The second last process is the final assemblage of the part to the aircraft and lastly, it is the documentation process, this involves noting down the date when the part was put on use as well as removed from the repair station.

Conclusion

In summary, it should be understood that it is critical to ensure that material support should ensure proper handling and inspection of materials to reduce their damages or contamination so as to save an organization from losing its viable profits.

References

Drury, C. G., Prabhu, P., & Gramopadhye, A. (2010). Task analysis of aircraft inspection activities: methods and findings. In Proceedings of the Human Factors Society Annual Meeting (Vol. 34, No. 16, pp. 1181-1185). Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.

Lee, S. G., Thimm, G. L., & Verstraeten, J. (2008). Product lifecycle management in aviation maintenance, repair, and overhaul. Computers in industry, 59(2), 296-303.

Appendices

Fig 1.0: The Vertical Tail Unit (VTU) of an aircraft.

Fig 1.1: The vertical Stabilizer Rudder of an aircraft