Aplicação do conceito Maintenance Steering Group 3 (MSG-3) às Aeronaves da Aviação Geral para Otimização da Manutenção da Frota

Pedro Daniel Gomes Ribeiro da Silva Teixeira

Key information

Authors:

Pedro Daniel Gomes Ribeiro da Silva Teixeira (Pedro Daniel Gomes Ribeiro da Silva Teixeira)

Supervisors:

Virgínia Isabel Monteiro Nabais Infante (Virgínia Isabel Monteiro Nabais Infante)

Published in

07/06/2022

Abstract

The present study aims to study the application of the concepts of the Maintenance Steering Group-3 (MSG-3) maintenance philosophy to General Aviation aircraft operating in an aviation school. The aircraft used in the context of practical training of pilots are mostly old aircraft, where their technical documentation is quite outdated and the maintenance instructions are out of step with the reality of their operation. In this work, a study was carried out on the performance of the current Maintenance Programs of a fleet composed of 7 Cessna 152/172s, where they were not adjusted to the operation performed (about 1000H of flight annually). An analysis was then carried out following the steps of the method presented in the MSG-3 where the maintenance tasks were adapted to the aircraft through a top-down analysis focused on the failure of the components, also reviewing some concepts and documentary nomenclatures such as the adaptation to the ATA100 chapter system. Following this analysis, new maintenance programs were compiled and maintenance tasks were readjusted in order to minimize aircraft downtime. Despite the difficulties in obtaining and compiling data, the results were promising, showing an increase in the operational availability of aircraft and a reduction in the associated direct and indirect costs. The concepts of the MSG-3 maintenance philosophy, with minor adaptations, can still be explored in other industrial branches where there is often a lack of clear and directed instructions for equipment maintenance.