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It is where tired big birds arrive from all over the country to get the wrinkles smoothed out.
Air Canada Jazz has its heavy maintenance facility next to the bright, new-look terminal at London International Airport -- and it is the carrier's biggest maintenance facility in Canada.
For the ladies of the air, these visits to London aren't quite the same as dropping in at Salome's Salon for a facial or even having a little nip 'n' tuck cosmetic surgery for wing droop.
The visits to 1000 Airport Drive in London are mandated by the exacting rules laid down by Transport Canada's civil aviation branch or Bombardier Aerospace, which manufactures all the aircraft in the Jazz fleet.
That means that after every 5,000 hours in the air, each one of Jazz's twin-engine liners -- turboprop or pure jet -- has to check in for a through inspection and overhaul that can include checking major structural joints (such as where the wings meet the fuselage) and replacing engines and landing gear.
"We do it all here," says Moffatt. By 'all' he means the intensive 'C checks' and 'D checks' demanded by Transport Canada. The less-complex A checks (also called line checks) are handled by Jazz facilities at Vancouver, Calgary, Saskatchewan, Toronto and Montreal.
The London facility is busy around the clock, seven days a week, and it's getting busier. It employs 130 technicians, called AMEs (Aircraft Maintenance Engineers) and soon 'we'll be ballooning to 149,' he says.
Moffatt, who graduated from college in North Bay and started in 1987 as an apprentice for Austin Airways in Timmins, 'rose step-by-step through the ranks to his present position.
"I've been working with John Paul II and Regina Mundi since 2000. We usually have two co-op students working here for three months every year -- it takes five years to get an AME licence -- and I've hired five local kids. One of them's a supervisor now," he says.
On this particular day, three jetliners are in the shop. They seem to take up most of the 5,110-square-metre (52,000-square-foot) hanger, but Moffatt says: "If we had to, we could probably squeeze six in here."
The three jetliners in the shop are in varying stages of being pulled apart and put back together as they undergo the full "heavy maintenance" treatment.
Passenger seats have been pulled out from the narrow confines of the tubular fuselage. Suddenly the cockpit seems the size of a broom closet. Leading edges have been pulled off, giving wings the look of gums after all the teeth have been yanked. Floor panels have been pulled up, exposing some of the miles of electrical circuits and dozens of computers and sensors built into each ship.
"There are lots of them," says Moffatt, looking at the exposed, sub-floor, cable-packed metal channel running the length of the passenger cabin in one jetliner.
Just like cars, aircraft age demands more maintenance, but aircraft are far more complex machine and the London facility keeps an enormous inventory of parts on hand, everything from tiny switches to jet engines, to handle the pressure.
He points to a range of sub-shops and notes the range of repairing and refurbishing activities going on as technicians in all categories tackle the bits and pieces yanked off the aircraft sitting in the hangar.
In a sheet-metal shop, a folding metal boarding staircase -- usually hidden behind a jetliner's cabin door -- is being done. In a sealed room, a technician wearing breathing apparatus can be seen through misted windows, spraying a clear liquid on something that looks like an overturned canoe.
A composite is a plastic that has gone to university. It's complex material, such as fibreglass, in which two or more distinct, structurally complementary substances, especially metals, ceramics, glasses, resins and polymers, are combined to make light but strong molded parts.
The cavernous hangar is actually older than Jazz. London residents can remember when it was the proud new headquarters of Air Ontario and all of Southwestern Ontario can remember even further back when Air Ontario was Great Lakes Airlines (formed in 1958 and headquartered in Sarnia).
In fact, the 84,000-square-foot building can be regarded as more than a maintenance facility. It is also a monument to the convulsions that have shaken the entire Canadian airline industry over the past 20 years.
Along with Air Ontario, Air Canada also bought AirBC, Air Nova and Canadian Regional Airlines (all being consolidations of a number of smaller air services) and consolidated them all in 2001 as Air Canada Regional Inc. with headquarters in Halifax.
This new air service was rebranded in 2002 as Air Canada Jazz, one of the largest regional airline operations in the world serving 77 destinations in Canada and the United States with a fleet of 130 aircraft.
36 De Havilland Dash 8 series 100 models and 26 Dash 8 series 300 versions -- have been in service since 1984 and 1989 respectively. They were originally made by De Havilland Canada, bought by Bombardier Aerospace in 1992. Bombardier still makes a newer 400 Series version.
Jazz also flies 68 Bombardier-made CRJs (Canadian Regional Jets). Based on the Canadair Challenger business jet that first flew in 1991, the 50-seat Bombardier CRJ 100 and 200 series contribute 53 aircraft to the Jazz fleet.
But even five years represents a lot of flying hours and takeoffs and landing "cycles," as Moffatt calls them, on the short-hop type of service generally provided by a regional air service.
"Each cycle is a raising and lowering of the landing gear," Moffatt says, explaining that it's the shock of landing a multi-tonne airliner (the CRJ weighs about 26.5 tonnes loaded) that puts the greatest stress on the whole airframe. A landing gear has to be replaced after 40,000 cycles.
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Air Canada Jazz has its heavy maintenance facility next to the bright, new-look terminal at London International Airport -- and it is the carrier's biggest maintenance facility in Canada.
For the ladies of the air, these visits to London aren't quite the same as dropping in at Salome's Salon for a facial or even having a little nip 'n' tuck cosmetic surgery for wing droop.
The visits to 1000 Airport Drive in London are mandated by the exacting rules laid down by Transport Canada's civil aviation branch or Bombardier Aerospace, which manufactures all the aircraft in the Jazz fleet.
That means that after every 5,000 hours in the air, each one of Jazz's twin-engine liners -- turboprop or pure jet -- has to check in for a through inspection and overhaul that can include checking major structural joints (such as where the wings meet the fuselage) and replacing engines and landing gear.
"We do it all here," says Moffatt. By 'all' he means the intensive 'C checks' and 'D checks' demanded by Transport Canada. The less-complex A checks (also called line checks) are handled by Jazz facilities at Vancouver, Calgary, Saskatchewan, Toronto and Montreal.
The London facility is busy around the clock, seven days a week, and it's getting busier. It employs 130 technicians, called AMEs (Aircraft Maintenance Engineers) and soon 'we'll be ballooning to 149,' he says.
Moffatt, who graduated from college in North Bay and started in 1987 as an apprentice for Austin Airways in Timmins, 'rose step-by-step through the ranks to his present position.
"I've been working with John Paul II and Regina Mundi since 2000. We usually have two co-op students working here for three months every year -- it takes five years to get an AME licence -- and I've hired five local kids. One of them's a supervisor now," he says.
On this particular day, three jetliners are in the shop. They seem to take up most of the 5,110-square-metre (52,000-square-foot) hanger, but Moffatt says: "If we had to, we could probably squeeze six in here."
The three jetliners in the shop are in varying stages of being pulled apart and put back together as they undergo the full "heavy maintenance" treatment.
Passenger seats have been pulled out from the narrow confines of the tubular fuselage. Suddenly the cockpit seems the size of a broom closet. Leading edges have been pulled off, giving wings the look of gums after all the teeth have been yanked. Floor panels have been pulled up, exposing some of the miles of electrical circuits and dozens of computers and sensors built into each ship.
"There are lots of them," says Moffatt, looking at the exposed, sub-floor, cable-packed metal channel running the length of the passenger cabin in one jetliner.
Just like cars, aircraft age demands more maintenance, but aircraft are far more complex machine and the London facility keeps an enormous inventory of parts on hand, everything from tiny switches to jet engines, to handle the pressure.
He points to a range of sub-shops and notes the range of repairing and refurbishing activities going on as technicians in all categories tackle the bits and pieces yanked off the aircraft sitting in the hangar.
In a sheet-metal shop, a folding metal boarding staircase -- usually hidden behind a jetliner's cabin door -- is being done. In a sealed room, a technician wearing breathing apparatus can be seen through misted windows, spraying a clear liquid on something that looks like an overturned canoe.
A composite is a plastic that has gone to university. It's complex material, such as fibreglass, in which two or more distinct, structurally complementary substances, especially metals, ceramics, glasses, resins and polymers, are combined to make light but strong molded parts.
The cavernous hangar is actually older than Jazz. London residents can remember when it was the proud new headquarters of Air Ontario and all of Southwestern Ontario can remember even further back when Air Ontario was Great Lakes Airlines (formed in 1958 and headquartered in Sarnia).
In fact, the 84,000-square-foot building can be regarded as more than a maintenance facility. It is also a monument to the convulsions that have shaken the entire Canadian airline industry over the past 20 years.
Along with Air Ontario, Air Canada also bought AirBC, Air Nova and Canadian Regional Airlines (all being consolidations of a number of smaller air services) and consolidated them all in 2001 as Air Canada Regional Inc. with headquarters in Halifax.
This new air service was rebranded in 2002 as Air Canada Jazz, one of the largest regional airline operations in the world serving 77 destinations in Canada and the United States with a fleet of 130 aircraft.
36 De Havilland Dash 8 series 100 models and 26 Dash 8 series 300 versions -- have been in service since 1984 and 1989 respectively. They were originally made by De Havilland Canada, bought by Bombardier Aerospace in 1992. Bombardier still makes a newer 400 Series version.
Jazz also flies 68 Bombardier-made CRJs (Canadian Regional Jets). Based on the Canadair Challenger business jet that first flew in 1991, the 50-seat Bombardier CRJ 100 and 200 series contribute 53 aircraft to the Jazz fleet.
But even five years represents a lot of flying hours and takeoffs and landing "cycles," as Moffatt calls them, on the short-hop type of service generally provided by a regional air service.
"Each cycle is a raising and lowering of the landing gear," Moffatt says, explaining that it's the shock of landing a multi-tonne airliner (the CRJ weighs about 26.5 tonnes loaded) that puts the greatest stress on the whole airframe. A landing gear has to be replaced after 40,000 cycles.
This is cache, read story here
