E
[email protected]
- Jan 1, 1970
- 0
Hello Mike
Unfortunately, the requirement is worse than that - it's 10 years
shelf-life AND 25 years operational.
However, I accept the principal in what you suggest and we do have
items on the aircraft that have scheduled maintenance, though we avoid
it like the plague if we can.
Part of the problem is that we can't get at some of these caps to
replace them once the unit is fully assembled, due to a partial
encapsulation which is applied for mechanical reasons. This
effectively means we would have to bin the whole PCB, which is rather
expensive.
With regard to failures in use, things are not as bad as they first
seem. We have comprehensive BIT, (Built In Test), that monitors the
circuit at all times and shuts down motor drive in the event of a
problem. If the fault took out the circuit breaker, the loss of power
to the equipment would have exactly the same effect as a shutdown by
BIT.
Under these circumstances, whilst the pilot would have lost some
functionality, he would still have control and would be able to get
home without undue dificulty.
Ted
Unfortunately, the requirement is worse than that - it's 10 years
shelf-life AND 25 years operational.
However, I accept the principal in what you suggest and we do have
items on the aircraft that have scheduled maintenance, though we avoid
it like the plague if we can.
Part of the problem is that we can't get at some of these caps to
replace them once the unit is fully assembled, due to a partial
encapsulation which is applied for mechanical reasons. This
effectively means we would have to bin the whole PCB, which is rather
expensive.
With regard to failures in use, things are not as bad as they first
seem. We have comprehensive BIT, (Built In Test), that monitors the
circuit at all times and shuts down motor drive in the event of a
problem. If the fault took out the circuit breaker, the loss of power
to the equipment would have exactly the same effect as a shutdown by
BIT.
Under these circumstances, whilst the pilot would have lost some
functionality, he would still have control and would be able to get
home without undue dificulty.
Ted