Review of EWIS for Sustainment

January 30, 2020 Michael Traskos

We measure everything that matters. In the last decade, the efforts of organizations to measure EWIS has been progressively increasing. Perhaps this is because wiring is now considered a system, or because regulations and requirements have emerged, or it may be due to a better understanding of the EWIS maintenance costs. Whatever the reason for better EWIS maintenance issue quantification, it has been a positive because there is data available to substantiate aircraft maintenance actions. The old saying is, “You can’t beat something with nothing”, and for too many years, EWIS maintainers were trying to take on EWIS maintenance without supporting data. Read more

Is my aircraft wiring serviceable?

January 29, 2019 Michael Traskos

A concept employed in the civil engineering field is that of serviceability. At its core, a structure should only remain in-service as long as it is serviceable. A serviceability limit should be based on measurable performance criterion that, if exceeded, remove it from service. In limit state design, the structure fails its serviceability if the criteria of the serviceability limit state are not met during the service life with the required reliability. Read more

When to Pull the Component – End of EWIS Component Service Life

March 30, 2018 Michael Traskos

What is the end of life for a wire, cable, connector, or any Electrical Wiring Interconnect System (EWIS) component? This is a straightforward question that should have a straightforward answer, but often, this is an unanswered question. Regulatory guidance such as Fuel Tank Ignition Source Prevention Guidelines from the FAA think of wiring as something […] Read more

Getting the Most Value from Wire System Degradation Assessments

November 6, 2017 Michael Traskos

Task four of military handbook MIL-HDBK-525 (also incorporated into the mechanical subsystems integrity program standard MIL-STD-1798) outlines a set of considerations and procedures for the assessment of an aircraft electrical system specifically for the service life extension program (SLEP). The important factor is to ensure that resources are not wasted on this effort and that […] Read more

Getting the Most from Visual Inspections

October 12, 2017 Michael Traskos

Good data is anything that can be turned into actionable information; this is a critical element in nearly every project. For those that regularly perform EWIS inspections, unless the data is gathered in such a way to improve the aircraft reliability, address technical errors, and/or be used as part of trend analysis, the effort is […] Read more

A case study addressing EWIS sustainment needs

April 10, 2016 Michael Traskos

This white paper is a case study on recent work performed by Lectromec for the U.S. military to achieve Electrical Wire Interconnection Systems (EWIS) sustainment of an aircraft fleet. Read more

What is an aircraft wire Service Life Extension Program (SLEP)?

November 10, 2015 Lectromec Team

Over the years, the Lectromec website has received hundreds of thousands of visits. Often the topic of interest deals with Aircraft Wire Service Life Extension Programs. Because of this popularity, the Lectromec Podcast sat down with the president of Lectromec, Michael Traskos, to talk about Service Life Extension, or SLEP. During the interview Michael starts […] Read more

Taking a look at aircraft wire testing and evaluation

July 15, 2015 John Gilroy

For the past thirty years, Lectromec has been a leader in the area of aerospace wire testing and evaluation. In order to provide aerospace professionals with information to increase their knowledge of this complex topic, we began creating educational materials. Accordingly, Lectromec has published almost two-hundred articles, distributes a monthly newsletter, has a podcast, and […] Read more

Aircraft EWIS failure trends

April 1, 2015 Michael Traskos

The process for identifying an EWIS problem on an aircraft often follows these steps: At some point during aircraft operation a system malfunctions and the pilot reports the malfunction. Maintenance starts by replacing the system component. Depending on schedule and criticality, the maintenance action is scheduled. Often, the first action to be taken is the […] Read more

EWIS SLEP: 5 days in the desert

December 5, 2014 Michael Traskos

As part of a project with the US Navy, Lectromec staff was in Tucson for one week supporting a service life extension program (SLEP). We all know that aircraft are designed for a given number of flight hours. One question that an asset manager may ask is if the aircraft has reached this threshold, is it still able to accomplish its mission? In the terms of commercial aircraft, can the asset deliver passengers safely and reliably? It is only reasonable that an assessment should be performed to determine what changes might be necessary to accomplish this. Read more