Maintainability is now the buzzword in aircraft design
The longer you’ve been around business aviation, the more you’ve witnessed the revolution in the way manufacturers approach the long-term reliability and m

The longer you’ve been around business aviation, the more you’ve witnessed the revolution in the way manufacturers approach the long-term reliability and maintainability of their aircraft. The shrinking maintenance force, combined with the tightening of corporate budgets, is putting the squeeze on OEMs to deliver more capable, reliable and cost-effective aircraft.

“In the past it was tell the engineers what you want, put them in a room with a piece of paper and a stack of money and they would design an airplane,” Greg Graber, director of light jet technical support for Raytheon Aircraft, told AIN. “Once the aircraft was designed and flight tested, you’d throw it over to manufacturing, then they’d throw it over to the field to let the techs and mechanics figure out how to work on it–there was very little thought ever given to ongoing maintainability.”