Adding the sUAS to the Maintainers Toolkit

This October 4, Delta announced the FAA accepted the airline’s application to utilize camera-based, small drones to conduct visual inspections of its operational aircraft. Of significance to CAT, and its maintenance training department, the small UAS (sUAS) is an evolving technology tool in the maintainer’s portfolio with implications for training enterprises.

A follow-on email exchange with a Delta TechOps spokesperson this October 15, revealed the drone captures images of a widebody aircraft in under 2 hours and a narrowbody aircraft in under 90 minutes. “Images can then be reviewed by qualified maintenance technicians. The inspections remain the same, just performed with a new tool.” Of importance, the sUAS is a supplemental maintenance tool, as the spokesperson added, “The standard manual inspections are of course still an option if needed at any time.”

And ROIs from this new capability? You bet! Along with reducing the risk of injuries by keeping maintainers off the aircraft and in related activities, the sUAS technology will also help technicians and inspectors make decisions on aircraft conditions up to 82% faster.

sUAS’s are expected to support emergent as well as routine maintenance activities for Delta TechOps. The spokesperson added, “There are several areas of conditional General Visual Inspection where a task could be developed, usually in response to some sort of damage event such as hail events. Delta TechOps also sees this technology as a benefit to assess paint condition, placards, etc.”

As for the deliberate timeline to roll out the sUAS capability for Delta, the spokesperson recalled, “Delta received acceptance to use drones for conditional general visual inspections through our FAA Certificate Management Office in February of this year. We implemented a lightning strike GVI, using the drone, for all Delta mainline fleet Aircraft Maintenance Manuals in June of this year.”

Recruit, train, retain – key 2024-era and beyond challenges for the broader commercial aviation community, including the maintenance enterprise. To that end, GenZ members and other technology-savvy cohorts may have important skill sets they can bring to this evolving maintenance procedure described, in part, by the Delta press release. The document noted, the sUASs “navigate around an aircraft taking images without manual inputs from a pilot. Once images of the airframe are captured, trained TechOps technicians and inspectors will evaluate those photos to determine airworthiness prior to returning the aircraft to service much like they have historically.”

CAT looks forward to observing sUASs being integrated into more MROs and learning details of how maintenance forces are trained to support this emerging capability.