FAA Outlines Steps to Revive 737 Max

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) chief, Steve Dickson has set out the milestones that must be passed before the Boeing 737 Max can be returned to service.

Flight Global reported Dickson to have said, “The certification flight test, and then the evaluation of the certification flight, is really the next major milestone.”

Dickson, who made this known during a briefing at the Singapore air show also noted, “That’s FAA pilots evaluating the compliance of the final software to FAA Transport Category aircraft regulations.”

However, the flight test has not yet been scheduled. “We still have a few issues to resolve, but we are continuing to narrow the issues,” he says. “We are waiting for proposals from Boeing on a few items to be able to clear the way to that flight.”

Elaborating on matters to be resolved, Dickson mentions an issue with the “stab out of trim” light, noting: “It’s not a problem with the software per se, but this light that’s been on the airplane forever tends to flicker when the trim is running very quickly… It’s coming on at inappropriate times – it’s essentially getting overloaded with data we think. They’ll have to buffer that a little bit.”

He adds: “We’ll be addressing that, evaluating that. That’s a matter of a few days.”

In reference to a separate issue with wire bundles on the Max, Dickson says: “Boeing has not yet given us a proposal on that. We’ll see to what extent those issues are common with the 737NG.”

Once the certification flight has been completed and the data analysed “within a few days”, operational validation will proceed. Boeing has made a pilot-training proposal, which the FAA will evaluate, says Dickson – himself a pilot.

“My deputy Dan Elwell is going to complete the training in conjunction with this. I’m also going to complete it subsequently before I fly the airplane,” Dickson said.

But he added: “We don’t want to have our thumb on the scale. We’ve got international crews and US crews coming in to evaluate those proposals. Thus will it be determined whether any modifications are required.

“It’s not a matter of us at this point accepting the Boeing proposal or not,” Dickson stressed. “We have a process to run that will give us the answer.”

That process will take nine to 10 days, Dickson said. An amendment will then be made to the Flight Standardization Board (FSB) report – which will take “a few days” – and this will then be put out for public comment for 15 days.

To fully utilise its personnel and provide efficient service to its local and international clients, Aero Contractors has modernised and upgraded its Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility.

Specifically, the airline introduced software that provides digital solutions in its operations.

The company’s Chief Executive Officer, Captain Ado Sanusi, said Aero has invested about N200 million in the software provided by Ramco, which would serve the MRO for a period of five years.

In a joint press briefing with Ramco in Lagos, Sanusi stated that Aero entered into the partnership with Ramco, a software company based in Chennai, India to provide improved digital solutions to its MRO operations.

He stated that with the partnership, every aspect of the airline’s MRO services can now be accessed and tracked real time for enhanced efficiency.

The Aero boss stated that in the last three years, Aero MRO has performed many Cchecks, starting with its own aircraft and then on third party aircraft from other airlines both in Nigeria and in West and Central Africa. It also performed landing gear replacements on many aircraft owned by domestic carriers, which include Azman Air, Max Air and others. It also conducted similar services on aircraft owned by foreign airlines, including Swift Air in Spain, Passion Air in Ghana and Gomair in DR Congo.

“When we took over the company, it was underperforming, we revived the maintenance aspect of the company and started conducting C-checks on Boeing 737 Classics. Before them Aero had the capability and we have been conducting checks on small body aircraft, helicopters and now, we have successfully conducted D-check on Boeing 737 aircraft. “We have trained our engineers on New Generation Boeing aircraft and Embraer. When we receive certification, we will expand our maintenance to include NGs and Embraer aircraft. We want to increase the capacity of our engine workshop. We want to create efficiency in our processes, hence the adaptation of the software,” he said.

On the benefits of the software, the Head of Aero MRO, James Ominyi, said the system would track effectively the optimum utilisation of manpower.

“If you are doing things manually, you can hire 100 people and you won’t know who is doing what. But with this solution, we will be able to capture the manpower hours effectively. You will know who is playing truancy and you will know those fooling around, you will be able to capture a lot and that is why we have subscribed to the software.

“We don’t have to pay people for what they didn’t do. If you engage someone for eight hours the he has to do the work for eight hours or else, we will be shooting ourselves on the legs.

“When we made this known to the management, they bought into the idea. We are fully live on the system. Ramco has very wide spectrum of activities. We haven’t even subscribed to all. As time goes on, other areas of our operation will be covered but we have to start from somewhere and the place we are starting from is the MRO, which is where the major activities take place.

“Eventually, we will go into rotary wing operations, finance, HR, flight operations and other places. We have begun to see the benefits of RAMCO,” he added.

Ominyi, noted that it would be impossible for us to do everything manually in MRO services.

“Our workshops from battery shops, to wheels and brakes, to the main checks etc; they are so huge. They are so huge that if you have to do everything manually, you are going to leave out certain things. To avoid a situation where some things are left out, we decided to subscribe to Ramco Aviation Solutions,” he added.

In her speech, the Ramco General Manager Africa, Europe and Middle East, Mrs. Menaka Sinha, said Ramco, Aviation Software company is a fully web-centric application developed from the ground-up, specifically for the aviation industry is trusted by over 22,000 users to manage more than 4,000 aircraft globally.

“Accessible on cloud and mobile, the innovation-rich aviation solution is a comprehensive software with modules for engineering and programs, maintenance, finance, compliance and quality, flight operations and integration gateway (iRIS), that comes with advanced visualization dashboard on a mobile-ready platform.

“Ramco is changing the paradigm of enterprise software with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning based solutions, powered by new features such as voice-based transactions on Google Assistant or Alexa, chatbots, mail bots, HUBs and cognitive solutions.

“We are excited to add Nigeria’s leading and oldest MRO, Aero Contractors Company of Nigeria Limited to our clientele. The successful implementation of Ramco Aviation Suite at Aero will automate manual work execution processes and enable organisation-wide visibility,” she said.