Conair expands in-house aircraft testing capabilities
Conair Group has expanded its ability to perform non-destructive testing (NDT) on its Canadian fleet of 55 fixed-wing aircraft
The expansion reduces Conair’s reliance on third-party providers, and will allow it to schedule and complete more aircraft inspections between fire season contract periods.
Conair now has six accredited NDT technicians at its maintenance facilities, and a two-person team dedicated to executing inspections.
The company stated that NDT is an “essential component to safety and sustainability within aerial firefighting” due to the various stresses that airframes undergo during operations. This includes heat, repeated changes in altitude, turbulent conditions, as well as rapid in-flight changes in weight due to water and retardant drops.
Conducting an NDT inspection on a large airtanker such as the Dash 8-400ATs that Conair flies would typically require one to two weeks to complete.
“NDT is split into surface and sub-surface techniques,” explained Alfred Modino, Component Shop Level 3 NDT Technician at Conair. “Conair is now fully equipped to support the fleet using both technique types.”
Modino added: “In the future, we plan to develop the NDT program further, performing inspections on our US subsidiary’s fleet, located at Aero-Flite in Washington state. And we are investigating adding digital X-ray capability.”
Oliver Cuenca
Oliver Cuenca is a Junior Editor at the Voyageur Group. He was previously a News and Features Journalist for the rail magazine IRJ until 2021, and studied MA Magazine Journalism at Cardiff University. His favourite helicopter is the AW169 – the workhorse of the UK air ambulance sector! He also led the creation of Waypoint: The AirMed&Rescue podcast, serving as its Production Editor and co-host.