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Flex Track Drilling systems are being used increasingly in aerospace applications providing low cost, highly efficient automated drilling systems. Certain applications like circumferential splice drilling on large size airplane fuselages require multi spindle flex track systems working in tandem to meet production efficiency requirements. This paper discusses the development of a multi spindle flex track drilling system for a circumferential splice drilling on the 777 airplane. The multi spindle system developed uses a variety of flex track carriages attached to the flexible vacuum tracks to allow for offset or wide inside drilling. Segmented machine programmes allow these multiple machines to be deployed on the same circumferential splice on the airplane providing the multi spindle system. Interfacing of the multiple spindles is achieved by a custom OEM interface using a single screen thereby ensuring simplicity of operation.

With the recent development of a multi spindle flex track drilling system for aerospace applications, the challenges of testing and implementation on existing airplane programmes require unique technical methodologies and solutions. This paper discusses the technical approach, problems encountered and methodologies/solutions used to successfully implement a multi spindle flex track drilling system for circumferential splice drilling on the 777 airplane. The multi spindle system uses varieties of flex track carriages attached to flexible vacuum tracks for wide inside drilling. The hardware and software challenges encountered during the interfacing of the multi spindles are discussed as well as the complex problem of indexing and locating all detailed components of the splice accurately and with high repeatability.