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Maintenance and Operations Electron Beam Welder Restores Fan Blades Miami - Worn or damaged jet engine fan blades are being restored to serviceable condition by the API Corp. through application of an electron beam welding technique whice achieves weld strengths equal to the original base metal properties, according to company officials. Harry Hokanson, plant manager for welding operations at API's Miami maintenance facility, estimated that savings on the order of 75% can be realized by both commercial and military customers. in the past, the expensive titanium blades generally had to be replaced if they became damaged. The new welding technique was perfected by API, a subsidiary of Aerodex Inc., over the past two years, said Hokanson. Repaired blades have been tested successfully over long periods of time in test cell engine operations. Currently the company is overhauling blades for one major airline for purposes of service evaluation and progress is being made on a similar program for a second carrier, Hokanson said. The process apparently will have greater in the near future. Hokanson estimates that many of the jet engines in service with airline fleets only now are reaching the point where natural erosion of the fan blade can be expected to affect engine efficiency. Safety Weather Found Cause Of BAC One-Eleven Crash The National Transportaton Safety Board's official report on tje crash of a Braniff BAC One-Eleven in whice 42 persons died near Falls City, Neb., Aug. 6, 1966, indicates the accident was caused by structural failure due to extreme turbulence encountered in an area of avoidable hazardous weather. the aircraft crashed on the Kansas City-Omaha leg of a New Orlean-Minneapolis flight. Across the path of the flights was a 30-mi. squall line which, according to the board, had been adequately forecast and reported by the Weather Bureau. The pilot elected to penetrate the weather system at an altitude of 5,000 ft. NTSB found that the aircraft never reached the squall line. It broke up in a roll cloud approximately five miles from the nearest radar echo, apparently ON THE LINE Vernon A. Taylor From what we hear, Butler's Aviation's Blue Seal warranty program for navcom installations has grown so fast in the last few months that they are beginning to refer to the equipment as "blue boxes." Carl B. Shroeppel Jr., manager of Butler's avionics sales and service group, tells us that move than 1,000 pieces of equipment have been installed so far and are covered by the new program. Carl pointed out that this includes IFR packages recently installed in 24 Twin Otters for Air Wisconsin, Trans-East and Skymark commuter airlines. James Morrison, Boeing's senior engineer on the Boeing 747 propulsion and fuel system, told us recently that the maintainability design concept applied to the Pratt & Whitney JT9D engine includes both maintenance/overhaul functions - such as inspections, servicing, troubleshooting, repair - and the installation of the JT9D and its accessories. Although the installation will have the same number of plumbing and electrically disconnects as the engine on today's Boeing 707-320B, Jim is predicting a complete engine change on the 747 in just half the time. Still another real plus, as we see it, is that the P&W JT9D power package is designed to permit off-the-wing trimming and rigging of the throttles and reverser controls, leaving only a leak check to be accomplished after the engine change. We feel sure that if anyone were to come up with an award dubbed "the maintenance man's pilot," Capt. Michael A. Gitt might well be the first recipient. With more than 25,000 flight hours in everything from a DC-3 to the stretched DC-8, Captain Gitt saw the FAA's age 60 airline pilot retirement rule bring his Eastern Air Lines flying career to an end last month. Not unlike any other pilot, Mike wrote up thousands of maintenance squawks over the years, but they were always detailed and oriented in such a way as to help the line mechanic trouble-shoot the airplane and get it set up for the next trip. There seems to be little doubt that along with the 747s, airbuses and Concordes will come an increased number of complex and costly black boxes. Some airlines already have moved toward automatic test equipment to reduce inventory-investment costs and to boost the reliability factor. Others, according to Robert Hallman of Bendix, soon will be faced with the decision to change over from a manual test procedure to an automated system. Hallman took the time recently to brief us on the new Bendix Model 200 automatic test set designed specifically for the airlines with the number one unit set for delivery to Continental Air Lines on the West Coast. From what Bob tells us, the Model 200 will be used by Contintental to test the Bendix PB-20, including CAT II boxes, the Sperry SP-50 with CAT II, and the Sperry and Honeywell CADCs used on Boeing 727s. Growth capabilities inherent in the design of the Model 200, Bob said, also will allow for the testing of flight directors, 747, and Concorde AFCS, and RF systems. Atlantic Aviation's computerized maintenance program, initially aimed at Grumman Gulfstream I and Hawker Siddeley DH-125 operators is, in our option, long overdue. Developed by Transware Inc. of Pittsburg, the new Atlantic service will store and analyze maintenance records on a fleet-wide basis, alert the operator on coming component part changes, and forecast, in dollars, future annual budgets for inspections and parts. Lester Wolfe, Atlantic's assistant manager of maintenance, told us that Pittsburgh Plate Glass and Gulf Oil Co. were the first firms to subscribe. 102 AMERICAN AVIATION JUNE 10
