By going to training, you stay current on the operation of your Pilatus, but how do you stay current on what’s happening with your maintenance program?
Over time, the maintenance program for your aircraft evolves with the aircraft and there may be new options or upgrades available to you. Also, inspection items may become more restrictive or permissive. All of these factors need to be considered when planning your operations. Service centers do a great job monitoring the changing landscape for maintenance planning, but what if you knew about the changes before you arrive for your inspection?
Many Pilatus owners are members of POPA and attend the great conferences they put on. Those conferences tend to cater to the operations and ownership sides of the equation. Pilatus will have representatives there and frequently so will the maintenance teams from the local area. But what if you’re looking for a maintenance and operations focused event?
Recently, Pilatus hosted an operators’ conference in Orlando. These conferences are put on directly by Pilatus and they bring many of their vendors to give updates on their own programs also.
Pratt and Whitney, Williams International, Garmin, Honeywell, Hartzell and CAE (formerly SIMCOM) were among the presenters along with the folks from Pilatus’s operations, tech support and engineering teams. Pilatus had a very frank discussion on the spare parts situation and what they are doing to improve it. Broadly, they have teams based at the vendors who are the most problematic pushing them to improve. They’re trying to qualify new vendors for the long term but getting new vendors approved by EASA and the FAA is a non-trivial task.
The good news for parts supply is that while Pilatus is not satisfied yet, the performance metrics show that all the indicators are moving in the right direction now.
Pilatus also gave updates on the new facilities under construction in Sarasota and Denver. Sarasota will add manufacturing capacity for PC-12’s in the US and an MRO facility. Denver is adding a new design and specification center as well as providing room for their growing tech support teams. A team of Pilatus’ in-house pilots gave operational updates and shared tips for flying the PC-12 and PC-24. Pilatus engineering shared upcoming service bulletins, maintenance program changes and upcoming certification milestones. CAE talked about their facilities in Orlando and shared some of the most common mistakes they see in the simulators. Garmin gave a good presentation on the new PC-12 PRO avionics including a video of the autoland feature.
Do you have a propeller coming due for overhaul soon? Hartzell may have the answer for you. During their presentation, they introduced their new flat rate overhaul program. Their labor and parts are covered giving you a cost you can plan around. Basically, the only thing not covered is damage due to accidents such as propeller strikes.
Pilatus puts these conferences on generally once a year with one day each for PC-12 and PC-24. Contact your service center to get signed up for the next one. The only restriction is that you must be an owner or operator of a Pilatus.