AMC looking to improve aircraft condition monitoring by leveraging ARINC standards

Posted by John McHale
MEMPHIS, 16 May 2011. The Avionics Maintenance Committee (AMC) is seeking guidance relative to leveraging ARINC standards, such as ARINC 647A, for improved Aircraft Condition Monitoring System/Health Management (ACMS/HM) tools. These tools would improve the capture of maintenance event data that involves ACMS recording or reporting by tapping system bus data for improved troubleshooting methods that can potentially change the way we look at maintenance in the future.
Jim Saltigerald of Air Wisconsin drafted AMC Item #17 and last month's AMC meeting in Memphis resulted in strong airline, airframer, and supplier community advocacy.
The group that supported item #17 included Airbus, Boeing, Monarch, Teledyne, Avionica, US Airways, Fedex, American, Skywest, and Southwest.
Item #17 is based on the Health Ready Subsystem (HRS) white paper authored by Mike Sudolsky of Boeing, and Avionics Intelligence published an article last November focusing on the paper's Life Cycle HRS savings. Additionally, Sudolsky and Saltigerald will address Item #17 implementation & progress in a future article to be published exclusively on the Avionics Intelligence web site later this year.