FAA wire incidents report: July 2008
The following are the wire incidents reported in the FAA Wire Incidents Report July 2008 Advisory Circular 43-16A. Read more
Blog
Arc damage modeling tool and damage at a distance
The amount of damage that can be caused by electrical arcing events continues to be an important question for both new and legacy aircraft. Many factors can affect the damage done by arcing events. For example, events occurring a short distance from a power bus can have much higher currents and power than those a long distance […] Read more
Aircraft wire failure and wire component lifecycle
In the life cycle of components, including aircraft wiring and connectors that make up the interconnection harnesses, there are three phases of the component lifecycle that can be distinguished. They are a key part of understanding wire failure and make up the “bathtub curve” and they are: The observed failure rate (Blue) is a composite […] Read more
Use of aircraft “shelf wire” and aircraft wire life projection
Suppose that your customer wants to know if the wiring in the cables, harnesses, or devices that your company produced is good. What if they have questions about aircraft wire life projection. Perhaps the cable that you used was a MIL-spec wire, but had been on the shelf or in the manufacturing plant for a number […] Read more
Physical and functional EWIS issues included in Rule 25.1709
The recent set of FAA rules deal with physical and functional EWIS issues. The rules were released for the Enhanced Airworthiness Program for Airplane Systems/Fuel Tank Safety (EAPAS/FTS) places new requirements on system safety and certification of aircraft Electrical Wiring Interconnection Systems (EWIS). These new rules were effective as of December 2007. They are the culmination […] Read more
Aircraft databases that impact aircraft engineers
There are a number of aircraft databases that exist on the web that can be used to survey aircraft incidents and service problems. One of these databases may have the answer to an important question from an aircraft engineer. This Lectrogram shall provide a brief summary of several of the more robust databases relevant to aircraft […] Read more
Damage at a distance on aircraft wire systems
What is the effective distance in wire systems that electrical arcing can cause? Both lab tests and in-service incidents have shown that arcing is hot enough to cause significant damage when in direct contact with an object, but there is far less information on the damage that can be caused at a distance. Read more
EWIS evaluation of F-16
You may ask about EWIS evaluation of aircraft of a F-16. The results of recent testing indicated a rate of 5.4 breaches per 1000 feet of wire tested. Lectromec and InterConnect Wiring, at the 10th Aging Aircraft Conference, delivered a report describing a recently completed series of tests to evaluate the status of wire harnesses removed […] Read more
XL-ETFE and ETFE for aircraft wire compared
XL-ETFE and ETFE are not the same. ETFE (or commonly referred in the industry as Tefzel®) is a well known material used in the aircraft and space industry. In fact, ETFE is a widely used material in applications as diverse as automotive fuel systems to greenhouse films. ETFE has a long history of use as electrical […] Read more
When applied to aircraft wire systems technology, what is “delamination”?
Some failure mechanisms in aircraft wire systems technology are easy to find. Among the failure mechanisms faced by a wire, one is often overlooked: the failure of the layer to layer bond of wrapped wire insulation. When the bonding material fails to hold together the successive wraps of insulation, this is known as delamination. The basic construction […] Read more