Gulfstream Aerospace is shutting down parts of its Savannah, Georgia manufacturing facility from June 30 through July 27. Sales of new Gulfstream jets are "well below prior years," according to president Bryan Moss. The shut-down will help Gulfstream "reduce the number of airplanes to match market demands," Moss added.

More than 1,000 employees will be placed on furlough during the shut-down. Employees can take vacation or personal business time and their benefits will remain in place, including accrual of pension service time. In March, a Gulfstream press release stated that as many as 1,000 employees could be laid off during the following 12 months.

Deliveries of Gulfstreams manufactured in Savannah will not be affected by the shut-down.

BBA Buys Sabreliner’s Premier Turbines

Dallas Airmotive, a subsidiary of BBA Aviation Services Group, purchased the assets of Sabreliner Corporation’s Premier Turbines in late April.

The acquisition adds significant capability to Dallas Airmotive’s Honeywell TFE731 engine services. Prior to buying Premier Turbines, Dallas Airmotive held TFE731 major service authorization from Honeywell, which roughly equates to work up to and including hot-section inspections. Adding Premier Turbines and its heavy (overhaul) authorization instantly propels Dallas Airmotive into the rare ranks of independent TFE731 authorized overhaulers.

Honeywell does not exactly hand out heavy authorization to anyone that wants it. It may have helped that former Honeywell Engines executive Jim Donlan is president and CEO of Dallas Airmotive.

Dallas Airmotive’s engine capabilities now include the Pratt & Whitney Canada JT15D, PT6A and PT6T, PW100, Rolls Royce 250, Spey, and Tay, and Honeywell TFE731 and APUs. Premier also brings government work to Dallas Airmotive, including the General Electric T700 and Rolls Royce T703 helicopter engines.

The former Premier Turbines facility in Neosho, Missouri is now a Dallas Airmotive facility, according to a Sabreliner spokesman. Reason for the sale of Premier Turbines, he said, is "that we want to focus our strategy on our greatest strength: maintenance, modifications, completions, and components. It’s good news for us. We’ll focus on the things we do best."

JANA Wins New Piper Manual Contract

The New Piper Aircraft selected documentation specialist company JANA to update parts catalogs and maintenance manuals for six Piper aircraft. Not only will the manuals be updated, but JANA experts will help Piper incorporate the latest technical information found in engineering orders into the documents. This will help ensure that mechanics work with accurate parts and maintenance manuals that reflect the actual configuration of the aircraft they are servicing.

JANA has been in business for 30 years, specializing in the behind-the-scenes work that goes into the creation of electronic documents. The initial making of maintenance documentation is not necessarily the hard part. Keeping the data current is more challenging, especially as configurations of the original product–aircraft, engine, or component–change via service bulletins and design changes.

JANA can help with any level of the process, from helping an OEM build a fresh documentation database to turning paper documents into electronic manuals to keeping data current and delivering data in a variety of formats. JANA doesn’t deliver products to end users, however. In the New Piper program, for example, JANA is helping the manufacturer update its manuals to reflect recent and not-so-recent changes. But New Piper will still distribute the manuals and updates as it currently does, through the New Piper parts distribution network.

JANA has placed one of its data experts at the New Piper factory in Vero Beach, Florida. This allows the JANA expert to work closely with New Piper engineers and maintenance technicians to ensure accuracy in the manual content.

With its expertise in electronic documentation, JANA also develops courseware for maintenance training. JANA can develop web-based training or instructor-led programs, with animated systems diagrams, troubleshooting training, and maintenance procedures modules.

About 30 percent of JANA’s business is for military customers, according to JANA president Edward Niland. The rest is for commercial customers, including long-time customer Honeywell, which has been working with JANA for 15 years.

Airlines Testing Boeing’s Health Service

American Airlines and Air France have been selected to begin testing Boeing’s new Airplane Health Management (AHM) service during the next year to ensure its operational availability to airlines beginning in the first quarter of 2004.

AHM is a data-monitoring and prognostic service that monitors the health of the airplane in flight and relays that information in real time to airline personnel on the ground via the Internet or a pager. The notification directs them to the Boeing business-to-business Web portal, MyBoeingFleet.com, for flight-specific information that they can use to make accurate maintenance decisions.

The primary source of the in flight data is the airplane’s central maintenance computer or condition monitoring system. AHM continuously integrates incoming data from individual airplanes with engineering design information, in-service experiences that operators report, and industry-wide performance data for that particular model’s worldwide fleet.

"With AHM, airlines will be able to identify problems long before the airplane lands," explained Bob Manelski, program manager in Maintenance Services, a part of Commercial Aviation Services. "Airline personnel will have time to review maintenance procedures, assemble necessary parts, and be waiting for the airplane when it arrives."

"Basically, we’re providing a single source for information from which airlines can make maintenance decisions and identify trends to support long-term fleet reliability programs," Manelski said.

Once current testing ends, Boeing plans to offer AHM to airlines in three releases: Release 1.0, available in the first-quarter of 2004, will involve the reporting of fault data from the central maintenance computer on the Boeing 777, 747-400, and the Airbus A320 family, A330, and A340.

Release 2.0, scheduled for the third-quarter 2004, will use "snapshots" of systems in operation from the airplane’s conditioning monitoring system and will apply to the same airplanes and add the 757, 767, and next-generation 737.

Release 3.0, due out in late 2005, will use a continuous stream of data taken during an entire flight and transmitted over a very high bandwidth delivery method, such as that offered by Boeing’s Connexion. It will be available on all Release 1.0 and 2.0 aircraft.– By Dale Smith

Commodore Launches New Empire at Former Griffiss Air Force Base

The Israel Aircraft Industries heavy MRO facility Commodore Aviation of Miami, Florida is moving to the former Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, New York. Reason for the move, according to Commodore president Joseph Reinherz, is lower costs available in the Rome area and the lack of space for expansion at Miami International Airport. "We’re more than doubling in size," he said, "and we have options to quadruple."

Commodore’s name is changing, too. After the company moves into its refurbished hangar space at the Griffiss Business and Technology park, its name changes to Empire Air Center. The move begins in September and should be complete by the end of this year.

Empire signed a 20-year lease at Griffiss for 355,000 square feet of hangar, shop, and office space and 20 acres of ramp area. Another 225,000 square feet of space is available for expansion.

Commodore’s current business mix is 50/50 commercial/government. "The commercial side is lower," Reinherz said, "but we believe the industry is going to come out of its current condition. It’s the right time to position [our company]. The restructuring of the airline industry is leading to outsourcing more maintenance."

Annual sales at Commodore have been about $35 million, according to Reinherz. The business plan calls for increasing that number to $100 million in four years. Aiding that growth are incentives provided by the state of New York to entice Commodore to move to Griffiss, plus Empire will also enjoy an exemption from having to add sales taxes to the cost of its services.

As part of the move to New York, Commodore also will shift its capabilities to maintain more modern aircraft types, including the Boeing 747, 757, and 767 and the Airbus A320. While Empire will have capabilities for performing heavy maintenance, sheetmetal repairs, paint, interior, and composites work, Reinherz is hoping to encourage growth of local companies into the component service business. "We will create a supply chain," he said. "Our main core business is airframe work, and we may foster someone to come into our facility to create an opportunity for a component overhaul company."