THE PLAYERS
Located in Munich, Germany, Airbus UAM is part of the Airbus group of fixed-wing and rotary-wing companies. It is focused on bringing the CityAirbus NextGen eVTOL four-seat urban aerial vehicle to market.
Given its own interest in the eVTOL market, Airbus is ready to provide MRO services to these aircraft once they enter service, and it has the resources to do so. Francois Le Marechal, Airbus UAM’s head of products and services said, “Airbus Helicopters has a worldwide network of 31 customer centers and affiliated sites, which offers services to our global customer base. This covers our entire product line and the complete range of MRO services. It is a huge asset for supporting future eVTOL operators globally. In addition to that, we also have a significant MRO footprint with Airbus Commercial and its subsidiaries like Satair that we can leverage.”
In contrast, the Lee County Mosquito Control District fights mosquito infestations in its Florida region using a range of tools, including fixed-wing and manned/ unmanned rotorcraft for surveillance and pesticide applications. “The MRO facility at Lee County Mosquito Control District is responsible for all general inspections and repairs of our fleet of aircraft: Airbus H125, DC-3TP, and King Air TC-12B (A200C),” said Nick Lefkow, the district’s lead UAS pilot. “While we no longer perform our own component overhaul, most routine maintenance can be completed in-house,
including avionics inspections, installations and repairs.”
This MRO facility also services the district’s drones. “We perform most maintenance on our UAS in-house, but if the nature of the job demands more experience we opt to ship it back to the manufacturer for repairs,” Lefkow said. “Our avionics team has lots of experience dealing with the small wiring components that are very similar to what is on board most UAS these days. Some of our staff even have personal experience toying with drones in their spare time at home, and came to us with a fair amount of experience working on their own unmanned aircraft.”
The Lee County Mosquito Control District’s UAS fleet started when the LCMCD acquired a DJI Phantom 4 Pro. “This is the platform that both accumulates the most airtime and thus requires the most service,” said Lefkow. “The Phantom is flown as an inspection vehicle prior
to...sending out our autonomous drone designed to spread granular materials into the water to kill mosquito larvae.”
The autonomous drone Lefkow is referencing is the large PrecisionVision 35 (PV35) made by Leading Edge Aerial Technologies. “All of the maintenance that has been required for the PV35 has occurred in-house by the UAS Department, though if any larger repairs would have been necessary, we likely would outsource
that back to the manufacturer, with whom we have a strong working relationship,” he said. “We’ve also recently purchased a Freefly Alta X this past year (a large drone capable of mapping with a LiDAR & RGB camera payload), and similarly will take on most of the maintenance required within the UAS Department.”
The third player in this article is Precision Integrated Programs, which provides a range of manned and unmanned aerial services to customers from the company’s base in McMinnville, Oregon. In addition to UAS vehicles such as Lockheed Martin’s Stalker Block 25 and Stalker VXE30, Aerovel’s Flexrotor, AeroVironment’s Puma, and Insitu’s ScanEagle, Precision’s fleet includes multiple rotorcraft such as the Eurocopter AStar, Bell 205, Guimbal Cabri G2, and Super Puma, plus fixed- wing aircraft such as Cessnas and the Pilatus PC-12.
“We perform maintenance in-house unless there is a significant repair needed that can only be completed by the OEM, such as depot-level maintenance on items like engines, cameras, and other payloads,” said Emma Ballantyne, who heads up Precision’s Contracts and Programs department. “Our maintenance professionals are also unmanned operators due to being cross-trained.”
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Jan/Feb 2023
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