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Continuing airworthiness policy and application to flying crane aircraft

This project is part of a collaborative MSc training programme between the
Aviation Industries of China (AVIC) and Cranfield University, aiming at
enhancing the competitiveness of AVIC in both international and domestic
aviation market through applying continuing airworthiness policies in the whole
aircraft development process.
The arrangement of the research project is that all students start with a Group
Design Project which is based on the Flying Crane Project provided by AVIC.
Individual research projects will address some aspects of the Flying Crane
Project during the Group Design Project, and then further developed during the
period for individual projects. The aim of this research is to apply the
airworthiness requirements and the methodology of the Maintenance Steering
Group logic (MSG-3) in the Flying Crane Project. This is because that
maintenance is one of the key factors of Continuing Airworthiness, and MSG-3
logic is the most accepted and approved method to develop scheduled
maintenance for civil aircrafts.
The main objectives of this project include: (1) To investigate current Continuing
Airworthiness regulations, including European airworthiness requirements (as
the main regulation to comply with) and Chinese airworthiness regulations (as
an important reference and supplement to the research); (2) To investigate the
main analysis methodology of reliability and maintainability, including Damage
Tolerance and Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA); (3) To analyse the
data resulted from the Group Design Project using MSG-3 logic to produce a set
of Continuing Airworthiness instructions, for the operator and maintenance
organisation of the aircraft, from the design organization’s perspective; (4) To
develop Continuing Airworthiness instructions for airline operators to compose
maintenance programmes for Flying Crane aircrafts, including maintenance
tasks and intervals for the selected airframe systems and structural components;
and (5) To identify applicable maintenance organisations in China for Flying
Crane aircrafts in accordance with both European and Chinese airworthiness
requirements.
On completion of this research, two aspects of Continuing Airworthiness have
been investigated, including maintenance programme and maintenance
organization. With MSG-3 logic, the author developed the maintenance plan for
three structural components (fuselage skin panel, wing root joint, and
fin-fuselage attachment) and one airframe system (fuel system) based on results
from the Group Design Project. The author also investigated the Chinese
domestic aircraft maintenance companies, and selected suitable maintenance
organizations based on technical and economical criteria.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:CRANFIELD1/oai:dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk:1826/5634
Date01 1900
CreatorsGao, Fei
ContributorsStocking, Phil
PublisherCranfield University
Source SetsCRANFIELD1
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or dissertation, Masters, Masters by Research
Rights© Cranfield University 2011. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the copyright owner.

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