NOTAM: Aircraft Maintenance & Fleet Tracking

[nwadc10]

Effective December 1, 2007, GC will begin mx operations. Our mx specialist, Allan Burek, has written an article covering common maintenace practices and is available here: http://www.globecargova.org/docs/Prefli ... ctions.pdf This article covers real world procedures and GC procedures. Please take the time to read this informative article in preparation for the opening of our new maintenace department.

If you have any questions regarding mx, Allan is an excellent resource and has a lot of great real world mx experience including working on the real Polar's 747 fleet. Just post here on the forum or you can email Allan at mx@globecargova.org.

Also beginning on December 1, 2007 is our fleet tracking/assignments. You may have noticed that on the bid form this month a tail number was assigned to each flight. Please do your best to operate that tail number (aircraft type specific) on your flights. If you selected a flight which is assigned a type that you do not own (PMDG 744 or RFP 742) you can find an alternate tail number in the aircraft's forum. For example, if the flight was assigned a 744 but you only have the 742, go to the B742 forum and you can find a tail number you can use in place of the 744 assigned. This alternate tail number will be placed in a sticky post at the top of the aircraft forum and won't be the same for every month. This applies only to 747 operations because of two different variations of the type.

Tying the two together... After much consultation with Craig and Allan we have developed a realistic maintenance operation. If you report a mx issue using the form provided (Fleet>Maintenance>Report a MX Issue) at a station where mx can not correct the issue, that tail number will be tracked by mx to make sure it gets to a mx base before the deferred item is required to be repaired per the MEL. If that aircraft is not scheduled into a mx base within the time allowed by the MEL the aircraft can be swapped with another (as the two tail numbers reach the same station where the good airplane can take over the route of the aircraft requiring mx) so that it will reach a mx base in time. Other failures may be fixed at the station in which it was reported depending on if that station has the virtual parts. When a swap like this happens, the tail number is updated for your flight so check the Flight Operations>Route Assignments page before departure to ensure you are taking the right tail number.

Allan may provide details on deferred items to specific tail numbers in the aircraft type's forum. This is in addition to the conditions you can view in the MMEL document. Be sure to review the aircraft log book for proper entries and repaired items.

Currently the aircraft assignments apply only to Polar flights but we may add this feature to Atlas and DHL operations in the future.

We hope you enjoy this new added realism to the VA!