Defence departments, commercial avionics companies and system integrators around the world rely on them. With over 80 years of experience in providing comprehensive, rugged, and secure mission-critical solutions for defence and aerospace applications, Curtiss-Wright is an industry leader in providing wide range of solutions and latest technology.
Chris Thomson, VP- Sales & Marketing, Curtiss-Wright, opens up about the theory behind an indestructible black box, how predictive maintenance is changing the world of avionics and much more in an exclusive interview with Swati Ketkar
Q – In the world of constantly changing technology, between R&D and experimentation what is the approximate time frame to actually bring a new product into the market? Also, how do you manage to stay on top of the game in this extremely volatile market?
A- We are very close to our customer base. We constantly monitor new aircraft technology and guide our R&D spending to make sure that our clients have the instrumentation necessary to conduct their flight test campaign on time and on budget. Over the years, we have grown an unmatched “IP locker” for instrumentation and we’ve developed systems that are easily scalable and configurable to satisfy our client’s flight test requirements with little R&D and little or no NRE cost impact. Our commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) approach also provides a valuable feedback loop from the large number of users developing field experience with our products that provides data that enable us to constantly improve and enhance our offerings.
Q – Predictive maintenance is the new buzz word in aerospace avionics. What are your products for predictive maintenance and how are they different from other competitor products?
A-Curtiss-Wright provides data acquisition hardware that enables data to be collected, typically from parts of the aircraft that today have little or no instrumentation. Our modular and scalable hardware approach allows a great deal of hardware commonality where data can be collected. Examples include aircraft passenger air conditioning systems, landing gear systems, APUs, etc.
Q – Can you explain the challenges faced while implementing predictive maintenance and how did you overcome them?
A – Collecting data is typically not difficult – modern aircraft are data rich, and with Curtiss -Wright’s capability to instrument data poor parts of the aircraft, there is no shortage of data. But data itself is useless; all you can do is carry it around like water in a bucket. The challenge is to establish a “normal” condition from which you can then algorithmically calculate exceedances and trends that without the data would otherwise remain unidentified. By witnessing trends you can be proactive in your maintenance and operation practices.
We overcome these challenges by enabling customers to quickly address predictive maintenance requirements with the use of our size, weight and power optimized off-the-shelf data acquisition solutions. We enable the customer to get from the problem to the solution quicker through use of our data acquisition and data recording equipment. Our long established pedigree as a trusted, proven leader in the data acquisition industry also makes our system solutions highly reliable and lowers the operator’s risk when implementing our equipment.
Q – In case of an accident, the FDR (Flight Data Recorder or Black Box) is the only source of information. However there are cases in history where the Black Box is completely destroyed leaving no clue about the cause of the accident. Curtiss-Wright, being the original pioneers in the development of FDR, do you see the possibility of developing a new technology to replace FDR that is practically indestructible?
A- There have been very few instances where data has not been recovered post-accident. In the 40 years that Curtiss-Wright has been manufacturing recorders, I cannot recall a single incident in which we were unable to retrieve the data. That’s not to say there have not been challenges. The concept being developed by Honeywell and Curtiss-Wright is to make the “Black Box” a connected device resulting in the voice and data being transmitted from the air to the ground before a major event. The result is more timely retrieval of the data which will likely establish root cause and corrective action earlier. The indestructible component is governed by regulatory standards that are mandated and we see no signs of a change to the environmental regulations currently in place.
Q – In all the years of experience in dealing with Flight Test Instrumentation (FTI) can you tell us about your most challenging situation?
A – One challenge that we’ve overcome is adapting our highly reliable rugged fight test to the space environment and being quite successful in placing solutions on the International Space Station, on several launchers in the U.S. and Europe, and on space re-entry vehicles. Another challenge is the need for high capacity and high data rate recorders and switches to be able to handle the ever increasing volume of data from today’s data rich aircraft buses. Related to that is the growing use of high speed, high definition video processing and downloads. The increasing desire to telemeter rich data off of the aircraft to the ground in realtime is driving the need for larger data pipes and higher throughput equipment in order to handle the resulting, ever increasing, amounts of data.
Q – What message would you like to give today’s youth venturing in the field of Aerospace MRO?
A – Predictive maintenance and big data analytics offer careers at the very leading edge of technology. Coupled with its association with aircraft safety, consumer confidence, and participating in “shrinking” the world, aviation and predictive maintenance offers an exciting and rewarding field of work.
