A Systematic Approach to Determining Aircraft Aerospace Ground Equipment 660700
In order to efficiently maintain an operational aircraft in its intended environment, adequate and timely aerospace ground equipment (AGE) must be made available for the first flight test phase of the aircraft development program.
This demands that a systematic approach to defining AGE be instigated early in the conceptual design phase and that a program considering the following disciplines be established: intended aircraft mission and utilization, maintenance goals, and reliability of the aircraft in terms of individual subsystems and their interface functions. These primary variables are combined to establish the basic requirements for AGE.
The detailed requirements for AGE must be obtained through aircraft subsystem analysis designating to what extent each subsystem requires support and then how this support is to be implemented. Once the AGE requirements are established, a detailed evaluation of customer AGE inventories and commercial AGE sources must be performed to determine the applicability of existing AGE. The remaining support requirements must then be satisfied by the design and development of new AGE.
