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Material for this paper was developed in conjunction with an ADS and Two-Way ATC Data Communications Engineering Trials program involving primarily the FAA Technical Center, ARINC, and United Airlines under the terms of a Memorandum of Agreement signed in September 1989 by the Administrator of the FAA and the Chairman and CEO of United Airlines, Stephen A. Wolf. It was agreed that the focus of effort would be directed to long-range operations over the Pacific Ocean utilizing the SATCOM system developed by Collins Radio, installed and certified by the Boeing Company on a 747-400 aircraft, and an INMARSAT satellite with digital data communications service provided by the COMSAT Corporation.

Commercial transport aircraft have adopted TCP/IP based onboard networking technology to integrate information interchange. This change along with the addition of a TCP/IP based air-ground data link will permit the aircraft network to establish links with ground networks and be integrated into the airline enterprise network. There are many challenging considerations when connecting a remote network to an enterprise network. These challenges are multiplied when that remote network is constantly in motion, both physically and in terms of its link to the ground network. An important consideration in any enterprise network is the element of security. AEEC has published ARINC Report 811: Commercial Aircraft Information Security Concepts of Operation and Process Framework [1] as a guide for the airlines as they consider how to deal with this new challenge.

The past decade has seen a rapid growth in the utilization of industrial gas turbines derived from aircraft jet engines. Maintenance concepts originally developed for flight engines can be adopted for these industrial gas turbines with substantial savings in maintenance expense for the operator. The paper reviews maintenance logistics, including the special problems encountered in providing support for a new model engine, discusses some common service problems, and provides an analysis of one operator's repair experience.

“Maintenance Management Programs” for aircraft and their engines have changed in the past 5 years. The maintenance programs have expanded from the hard time limits and on-condition sampling techniques of the 1960s to include condition monitoring (fly to malfunction). The Boeing 747 and Douglas DC-10 went into service using an on-condition maintenance program. The next generation of aircraft will in all probability go into service with a complete “Maintenance Management Program.” The cornerstone of any maintenance/reliability program is an effective information collection, analysis and dissemination system. The collection of information from the many and varied sources has its problems. All too frequently the data is too little, too late, wrong format, inaccurate or incomprehensible. This paper will review the systems United Airlines uses, or is developing to gather and distribute the information required to support aircraft and engine “Maintenance Management Program.”

United Airlines has been operating long range, two-engined aircraft in ETOPS (Extended Range Operation with Two Engine Airplanes) for almost nine years. During that time, the shared industry experience and in-service operating results have created changes in the maintenance program and plan, and led to policies which have altered fleet operations. With an emphasis on safety-of-operations, this paper identifies lessons learned from experience and it also documents the adjustments to the maintenance program and policies.