Aircraft Maintenance Technology - 53

AAR's Miami facility is also piloting the
company's drone assisted inspection technology. Using a Donecle drone for Boeing
737 general visual inspections, AAR has
seen a 50% reduction in time compared to
traditional, manual procedures.
"The drone flies itself on a preplanned
flight and takes 1,500-1,900 pictures per
narrow-body aircraft. As AAR pursues FAA
certification, an inspector is reviewing the
photos and identifying follow-ups and lightning strikes, in parallel," Jessup described.
Another part of their journey into the
digital realm, AAR has developed, in-house,
a closed-loop process for quality and safety management. Called APRISE, the tool
includes everything from investigations to
audit findings, customer feedback, injury
reporting and import/export compliance.
"The tools within it - including selfaudits, decision trees and investigation
checklists - allow managers to immediately review and fix problems," said Jessup.
AAR also developed HangarNotes -
providing a sky view of the hangar floor,
with each aircraft rendered to scale and
color-coded to reflect its status. It is a way
to see where aircraft are, by tail number,
work overview and customer. And although
AAR created HangarNotes to solve problems internally, they are considering commercializing it, Jessup added.

program participants will receive guaranteed interviews from AAR, but have the
option to interview with other industry
partners as well," said Jessup.
A unique aspect about the SkillBridge
program is that students do not have to have
an aviation technical background. To date,
each class has been split 50/50 between
those students with aviation maintenance
experience and those from other technical
or mechanical backgrounds.
"Students with aviation experience have
an expedited pathway to FAA certification
and for those who have always desired to be
in aviation, they now have a pathway to a
career in aviation. After 18 months of on-thejob work experience at AAR, an individual
can submit an application to the FAA to complete their airframe certification process as
well," Jessup continued.
As challenging as the COVID-19 challenge has been for their customers, stockholders and employees, the impacts of the

pandemic have been largely beyond AAR's
control, notes Jessup. Thusly, the company
has been focused on what is in their control
and what they can affect.
"We worked hard to stay ahead of the
declining market for our services and products, resized our business and otherwise
reduced costs," he said. "Our management
team has acted decisively and aggressively
to operate in a consistently excellent way,
adjust operations to meet market needs,
reduce costs, and improve our liquidity so
we look into a strong future. These actions
have been taken while focusing on the safety and well-being of our employees, which
has remained our number one concern.
"We are proud that our team has come
together to help navigate this storm, and
we look forward to the future, as we will
emerge from this pandemic a leaner and
more focused company."

SAFETY COVERS

Tackling the Challenges
The challenges gripping aviation today are
both old, the forecasted workforce shortage
of A&P positions, and new - the COVID19 pandemic. AAR is taking on both. For
the former, the company teamed up with
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in
the development of the first maintenance
SkillBridge program, launched in August
of 2019.
"This program combines 18 semester
credits of civil aviation maintenance training in preparation for the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) knowledge test and
FAA oral and practical exams. In addition,
this course includes industry specific aircraft type training, resume building and an
employee benefit workshop in a nine-week
course. Upon program completion, students
are ready to join the workforce. SkillBridge

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Aircraft Maintenance Technology

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Aircraft Maintenance Technology