Fleet Upgrades: Share the Rewards—and the Cost

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Preparing a legacy fleet for the NextGen National Airspace System is, perhaps, the most pressing challenge facing fleet operators today, especially if they fly transport category aircraft of different makes and models. It is tempting to consider type individually. During aviation’s analog era this often made sense, given its electro-mechanical constraints, but it can be an extraordinarily expensive thought process in the second century of powered flight.

In the era of digital decision making, the goal—the desired capabilities—matters more than the legacy systems to be replaced, says ASIG Managing Partner Luke Ribich. The same hardware, connected with aircraft specific wiring harnesses, can serve any number of different aircraft. The displays ASIG uses in its STC for a four-screen DC-8 EFIS also fly in Barons and King Airs under STCs created by others. Software that defines an airplane’s “personality,” from number of powerplants to operational and performance data, is what makes it possible to share the rewards—and costs—of a whole fleet upgrade.

Upgrading a fleet across multiple types is “absolutely less expensive than the total cost of doing each type individually,” Ribich says. ASIG’s Fleet Planning and Support covers every step of the process, starting with a SEMPER (Systems Evolution, Modernization, Execution, and Realization) evaluation. “The likelihood of providing a common solution goes up exponentially if the fleet has a good CAS or reliability program,” Ribich says.

Cost is a big part of any upgrade equation. As the fleet shares in the rewards of its new capabilities, it also divides the cost of engineering and certifying them under a single STC approved model list. Certainly, Ribich says, operators must pay for “non-recurring engineering,” work specific to each model type. But that cost, too, is divided by the number of airframes involved.

Modernization costs can also be divided by time. ASIG’s SEMPER process builds a long-term integrated technical and business plan that incorporates lifecycle costs and open-system commercial off-the-shelf components. This allows a building-block plan that adds a particular NextGen capability to the fleet just before the FAA puts the service online.

Quantity discounts also apply, says William Helliwell, ASIG’s manager of engineering and programs, and they count more than airframes. Using the same boxes, the same screens, in every airframe reduces the overall cost of upgrade kitting as common fixtures and basic elements such as connectors and wire types remain static across the various kit packages. Equally important, operators “don’t need as many spares on the shelf to support the fleet.” The digital decision making process applies to all manner of fleet upgrades, including in-flight entertainment systems, he says, adding, “there isn’t very much we can’t do with an airplane.”

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