What is Airplane Maintenance?

As the aviation industry is highly regulated, the aircraft must undergo rigorous and detailed inspection.  However, no aircraft is so tolerant as to neglect the effective inspection and maintenance program. It is a necessary process to sustain the integrity and performance of the airplane. It is a crucial process that ensures that the system continually performs its intended function and checks for the level of reliability and safety.

However, in the modern world, the crafts are carefully tuned to fly up to several hours non-stop without skipping a beat. Here is a quick summary of the checks that happen while aircraft maintenance.

Line Maintenance

One of the first periodic inspections in aircraft maintenance is Line maintenance. The transit checks include inspecting wheels, brakes, and fluid levels. All commercial and civil aircraft are required to take this maintenance after a certain amount of time. The thousands of onboard sensors on the craft tell the professionals if there are any running repairs. However, per week, most of the aircraft receive twelve hours of line maintenance. Moreover, this happens around the clock all over the world.

The A Check

In this process, the filters are changed every ten weeks. Furthermore, the key systems such as hydraulics in the ‘control surfaces’ that steer the aircraft are lubricated. A detailed inspection of each emergency equipment is done in the A check process. A typical A-check maintenance takes over 24 hours.

Heavy Maintenance

Aircraft’s heavy maintenance occurs every eighteen months or six years, depending on the aircraft’s age and type.

The C Check

This process happens every eighteen months or six years, the process goes on for three weeks. The goal is to assess the aircraft’s functionality as well as serviceability at the time of the inspection. Typically including a thorough inspection of the plane’s majority components, this process requires a lot of work. However, most aspects require greater scrutiny which comprises the specialist tools and equipment.

Some of the parts of the aircraft that are subjected to C check include load-bearing components on the wings and fuselage to ascertain that they do not have damaged or corroded as well as lubricating the plane’s cables.

The D Check

The D check includes comprehensive inspection and repair of the entire aircraft. It often involves taking apart the aircraft for inspecting damage and corrosion. However, the D check may take up to 30,000 to 50,000 labor hours over about six weeks. It is the far most comprehensive and demanding check for an airplane. Every cabin is taken out including seats, galleys, toilets, and overhead bins so that the engineers can inspect them inside out. With the entire aircraft stripped down and the equipment removed then airlines often refurbish the aircraft’s interiors and tend to upgrade them altogether.

Conclusion

Maintaining the aircraft is a strict system, to be properly inspected, maintained, overhauled, and repaired. This helps in preventing mishaps and safety of the flight, it is what airplane maintenance is all about.