Delta Air Lines is to broaden its use of prognostic health management technology beyond real-time engine condition monitoring to other critical systems including auxiliary power units (APU) and flight controls.
Delta's Technical Operations (TechOps) division also plans to make the technology available to third-party maintenance customers.
The airline has awarded Smart Signal a five-year contract to provide condition monitoring on its fleet of 550 mainline aircraft, except its remaining Boeing 727s, which are due to be retired by April, and 737-200s.
Data transmitted via the aircraft's airborne communications and reporting system to the ground includes exhaust gas temperature, turbine RPM, pressure ratio, fuel flow, vibration and oil pressure.
"We also want to take this to the APU, flight controls, environmental control systems and pneumatics in the aircraft. All of these systems have data pick-ups. Not only will this give us real-time data and knowledge about our components, we can use it to relieve our maintenance programmes," says Walter Taylor, TechOps managing director of process and technology engineering.
The airline overhauls 700 engines each year, of which 15% are for third-party customers, and it estimates 60% of its maintenance is unscheduled.
The other real saving for the carrier is in spares inventory management. "The savings are significant in this area alone, excluding the cost of labour and having aircraft on the ground. The system pays for itself in six months," adds Taylor.
TechOps also wants to makecondition monitoring available to third-party carriers subcontracting maintenance to Delta. Smart monitoring covers the Rolls-Royce Trent 800s powering its Boeing 777-200ERs, Pratt & Whitney PW4000s on its MD-11s and767-200/300s, PW2000s on the 757 fleet, the MD-80s' JT8D-219s,MD-90s' International Aero Engines V2500s, 767-400ERs' General Electric CF6s and the 737-300/800s' CFM56-3/7 engines.
Source: Flight International
