MTU accessories specialists

Vital engine components

It’s 11 p.m. in central Europe, or 2 p.m. local time in Rich­mond, British Columbia, Canada. Here, right on the door­step of Vancouver and its inter­national air­port, there’s a lively buzz of activity at MTU Main­tenance’s Ac­ces­sories Repair Center. Various de­fective ac­ces­sories have been an­nounced and arrive punctually for main­tenance. If you imagine an aero engine — with its com­pressors, turbines and combustor — as a human heart, then its ac­ces­sories could be likened to the coronary blood vessels. Just as the human heart is sur­rounded by a net­work of arteries, the engine is sur­rounded by a range of sup­porting com­ponents. The analogy continues: ac­ces­sories are critical to the func­tioning of the whole, as in the human heart. Should these ac­ces­sories fail, the engine is at risk of suffering some­thing akin to a heart attack: in the worst case, the air­craft must remain grounded — and mean­while, the costs increase with every passing minute. Christian Ludwig and his team are there to do all they can to avoid such a scenario. “And if it does happen, we’re the ones who can get the air­craft back in the air fastest,” says the Director of Operations, Ac­ces­sories at MTU Maintenance Canada.

450 repair procedures for all accessories

Founded in1998 and currently employing a staff of around 400, the MTU sub­sidiary offers an extensive port­folio of ac­ces­sory repairs for every­thing from busi­ness jet engines such as the CF34-3 to the mighty GE90 that powers the Boeing 777. At the Ac­ces­sories Repair Center, MTU’s team of some 100 engineers takes the units apart, gives them a good clean, per­forms visual inspection and tests on the com­po­nents. Repairs are then carried out, followed by re-as­sem­bly and final testing, before the ac­ces­sory is sent back to the customer. “The biggest chal­lenge when it comes to ac­ces­sories is the enormous complexity involved,” says Ludwig, mindful of the fact that one single engine has an average of 80 dif­fer­ent ac­ces­sories. Accordingly, in Richmond, repairs draw on some 450 dif­ferent pro­cedures. Speed is of the essence when carrying out repair work and this is precisely the Canadians’ strong point: they are so well-organized that defective ac­ces­sories can be replaced with func­tioning ones within between four and 24 hours.

In addition to traditional repair work in its own shop, MTU also offers manage­ment of line replace­able units (LRUs). This is an all-inclusive service package whereby MTU takes care of all an airline’s ac­ces­sories and replaces specific ac­ces­sory compo­nents on site during routine operations, with the assis­tance of MTU’s local air­line support team.