The third Technical Conference conducted within the CU School for aircraft engineers was held on June 9-10 in Ulyanovsk. The conference devoted to airworthiness extension gathered over 70 representatives from Volga-Dnepr offices across the world – VDA, ABC, Atran, CLA, AMTES, VDT, VD Gulf.

Two days of fruitful work resulted in common understanding and updated model of airworthiness extension process for all the company structural units. The participants discussed existing problems and possible solutions on airworthiness maintenance considering approaches to foreign aircraft maintenance to be applied for Russian-made aircraft.

This is what the participant shared:

Valentina Shipilenko, leading production engineer B-747, ABC:
– I am very positive about the conference! Such meetings are very useful: you get to know what every company is up to these days, you see the problems from different perspectives – engineering, maintenance, management and can figure out your own solution for the existing problems. I am sure solutions worked out here will be put into practice!
I really appreciate the position our top managers have about airworthiness priorities – first engineering then operations, not the other way round.
It was great to meet CLA representatives – we exchanged information, worked out common vision re total B-747-8 maintenance proposed by the Boeing. During the group work the representatives of CLA group noticed that all the conference participants were united by the same qualities – transparency and honesty. Such assessment is a good way to start cooperation.
An-124 upgrade is a very challenging task and this is a great potential for professional growth of everybody working on that challenge.
I am sure success will result from the combined knowledge and effort of all the VD Group employees. It’s really worth creating a common knowledge base on aircraft operational safety, so as everybody working in the area can be aware of all the news.
Such meetings on airworthiness extension should become good practice and be held regularly – once or twice a year, so as we could both exchange news and opinions and track the achieved progress!

Andrey Surin, quality director, VDTM:
– Generally I am positively impressed about the conference. It was a great chance for live discussions. I was agreeably surprised with a common understanding of existing problems by the colleagues from different structural units. It was also useful to see these problems from different perspectives.

Alexey Maryshev, leading engineer on aircraft reliability, VDA:
– It was all held to a high standard! The most important thing to know was the differences in airworthiness extension systems of foreign and Russian-made aircraft.

Oleg Reunov, leading production engineer on aircraft systems, АВС:
– I was happy to participate in heated debates on different question. It shows how partial the people are about their work. I am also impressed with a high level of the conference organization!

Solutions worked out during the conference are reflected in the conference resolution and are passed for the president’s approval.