Dallas Airmotive celebrated the opening of its newest turbine engine service center in Boynton Beach, Florida on September 4. The new facility combines Dallas Airmotive's Fort Lauderdale, Florida shop with new capability to offer work including hot-section inspection on Honeywell TFE731 and Pratt & Whitney Canada JT-15D and PT6 engines.

The new Boynton Beach facility received FAA repair station certification on August 1 and began work on customer engines on the same day, according to general manager Marty Jones. Currently seven technicians are employed at the new facility, working one shift. "There is a potential for more [hours of service]," he added. "It depends on the level of inputs."

Dallas Airmotive executives chose to locate the new facility in South Florida because the number of business jets powered by the TFE731 and JT-15D is increasing in the Southeast U.S. and there is a strong population of those aircraft in Latin America and the Caribbean. "This area is expanding with TFE731 activity," said Bruce Van Allen, president, BBA Aviation North America.

The new Boynton Beach center joins existing Dallas Airmotive TFE731 major service centers in Dallas, Texas and Minneapolis, Minnesota and the recently acquired Premier Turbines core zone inspection/heavy maintenance service center in Neosho, Missouri.

"Dallas Airmotive is a long-term player," Van Allen said. "We're still in the acquisition mode." Opportunities for growth may include efforts in the components arena, he added. "We'd like to see more component business and thicken that segment up."

Engine service companies like Dallas Airmotive see trends in the state of the industry earlier than most participants, and for Dallas Airmotive the landscape is looking better. "We've seen a couple of months where the trend is increasing," Van Allen said. "The last couple of months have been easier to take." – By Dale Smith

FAA Releases Best Practices for Aging General Aviation Airplanes

In Sepetember, the FAA released the "Best Practices Guide for Maintaining Aging General Aviation Airplanes." The goal of the guide is to provide "owners of aging single-engine airplanes guidance about maintaining the airworthiness of their airplanes."

The FAA is concerned about aging light airplanes, although it did not, for some unknown reason, include aging light multiengine airplaness or light helicopters, both of which probably suffer from similar problems.

"The general aviation fleet is aging," the Guide states. "In 2000, the average age of the nation's 150,000 single-engine fleet was more than 30 years. By 2020, the average age could approach 50 years."

The Guide was created to suggest "best practices" for inspection and maintenance of older light airplanes "that go beyond normal inspection requirements."

Most airplanes don't ever receive anything more than annual or 100-hour inspections, according to the Guide. Yet as airplanes age, the need for more instrusive inspections grows. The Guide focuses on two best practices that "can have a fundamental impact on the way maintenance and inspection is ap-proached for aging airplanes."

The two best practices are:

� Airplane records research

� Special-attention inspections

The records research is intended to form a baseline for more intrusive inspections. The researcher needs to examine all of an airplane's records, including logbooks, FAA records attached to that registration number, type certificate data sheets, airworthiness directives, special airworthiness information bulletins, service bul-letins/letters, service difficulty reports, NTSB accident/incident records, general aviation airworthiness alerts, and supplemental type certificates. This re-search, the Guide states, "helps establish a baseline to determine what maintenance, repairs, and alterations have been done and how well the airplane has been cared for."

The researcher needs to take into accout how the airplane is and was operated, if it has been hangared or parked outside, the region where it has spent most of its life, and its level of activity.

Once the initial but in-depth research is done, "a detailed inspection or series of inspections, modifications, parts replacements, or a combination of these may be needed for a particular airplane or airplane type."

The Guide suggests that visual inspection methods may be inadequate for aging airplanes. More intrusive methods such as using a borescope and non-destructive techniques may help inspectors find problems.

Access to some areas on many airplanes is often not available, and "you may need panels installed. This should not deter an owner from having it done."

The Guide includes a generic checklist that can be adapted to a specific airplane and an example of a specific checklist applied to a particular airplane. As the Guide says, the checklist is not intended to replace a manufacturer's inspection inspection program, but "can be very useful for assessing addition inspection and maintenance that should be performed on older airplanes."

The Guide does not mention any accident data that ties concerns about aging general aviation airplanes to a safety issue. It does say, however, that "the general aviation fleet is being used well beyond the flight hours and years envisioned when the airplanes were designed. There is concern that continued airworthiness safety matters will become more common as the fleet ages. These airplanes could develop serious age-related problems as they continue to be used well beyond their envisioned design life."

The Best Practices Guide was developed jointly by a team of manufacturers, aircraft owners, type clubs, and alphabet groups, and FAA engineers and inspectors. The participating groups include the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the Antique Aircraft Association, and the Experimental Aircraft Association. The full Guide is available at www.eaa.org/communications/eaanews/agingbestpractices9021.pdf

Bell Helicopter Repair Lawsuit Dismissed

On August 15, the U.S. District Court (Western District, Seattle, Washington) dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit filed by Bell Helicopter against H-S Tool and Parts, H-S Tool U.S.A., Able Engineering & Component Services, and Lee Benson.

"Bell filed this lawsuit," according to the District Court, "in June 2002 claiming that defendants' repair procedures constitute trademark infringement, false designation of origin, palming off, and unfair competition under the Lanham Act. Its complaint states that defendants ‘alter genuine Bell Helicopter parts so as to be a different product from that of the original manufacturer,' and that the retention of Bell trademarks on these parts ‘is deceptive and misleading as to the origin of [the parts], and likely to cause confusion to subsequent or downstream purchasers, as well as to persons observing the products.'"

The Bell lawsuit hinged on its claim that the repair company, Able Engineering & Component Services, alters Bell parts during the repair process. "First, the parts in question are worn beyond their useful life," the court documents stated, "and thus any reconditioning or repair of the parts allegedly is so basic and extensive that it is a misnomer to allow them to bear their original marks. Second, defendants work pro-cesses allegedly change the design of the parts. Plaintiff indicates that defendants' actions create a likelihood of confusion because the returned parts look virtually identical to genuine Bell parts, they bear Bell's registered trademarks, and there is nothing accompanying the parts that adequately indicates that they no longer are genuine Bell parts.

"Defendants, on the other hand, argue in their motion that the work they perform on Bell parts constitutes mere repairs, and thus there is no ‘use in commerce.' Defendants state that the Federal Aviation Administration reviews and approves every one of their procedures and has classified each one as a repair rather than as an alteration. Finally, they indicate that plaintiff has failed to identify a single instance of actual confusion, and that there is no liklihood of confusion because they provide the customer with documentation that describes the work they perform on the parts."

"This ruling," said a statement from Able Engineering & Component Services, "marked the end of a bitter dispute in which Bell attempted to preclude third-party maintenance providers from repairing Bell components. The real winner in [the] ruling is the end-user. The repairs Able performs provide operators and overhaul facilities an alternative to buying new. FAA-approved component repair solutions routinely save operators thousands of dollars during overhauls by extending the life of otherwise unserviceable components. Throughout the dispute, Bell maintained that, as the original equipment manufacturer of these components, Bell (or its agents) was exclusively authorized to provide repairs. Ultimately, as evidenced in its ruling, the court was unconvinced by Bell's arguments."

Aviation Maintenance offered Bell Helicopter and Bell parent company Textron an opportunity to comment on the lawsuit, but they declined.

PAMA Wants Mandatory Maintenance Training

The Professional Aviation Maintenance Association has issued a call for regulations to be created requiring training for aviation maintenance technicians. "These requirements will ensure a higher level of professionalism, bolster respect for maintenance professionals, and overall minimize maintenance error," PAMA stated.

PAMA pointed out that training is mandatory for pilots, flight engineers, flight attendants, and dispatchers. "Professionals in these positions must receive approved training at the time of their employment and regular recurrent training thereafter," PAMA stated. "These universally accepted standards of professionalism are appropriate, but missing for maintenance technicians."

"It is necessary to equally apply these standards to aviation maintenance professionals as well," said PAMA president Brian Finnegan.

The PAMA statement cited a three accidents as examples of the training issue, Alaska Airlines Flight 261, Swissair Flight 111, and Air Midwest Flight 5481. While these accidents have raised issues about the quality of maintenance or modifications performed on the above aircraft, all were operating under regulations that do require training for technicians. Finnegan remains concerned, however, about FAA training requirements. "It is clear," he said, "that the time is right for FAA to apply standardized training requirements to insure the airworthiness of our fleet and the safety of our passengers."