Twin Commander Service Centers Strive For
Productive Partnerships
By Geoffery Pence
Customer Service Manager,
Twin Commander Aircraft
I had the rewarding experience recently of traveling first to Indianapolis and then Naples, Florida, on Twin Commander business. It wasn’t the getting-there part that was rewarding—quite the opposite, given that I flew coach on the airlines. Rather, it was the experience of working with authorized Twin Commander service centers.
Why was that rewarding? Because it reminded me of how efficient and effective the teamwork approach—factory representatives working with authorized Twin Commander Service Centers—can be when it comes to supporting the fleet.
The Indy trip involved a most interesting assignment: auditing the results of the Grand Renaissance Twin Commander that was built by Eagle Creek Aviation Services.
This is the first Grand Renaissance that has been completed in several years, and it is a dandy. The quality of Eagle Creek’s work is outstanding, and the visual impact of the airplane—thanks largely to the bold scheme and flawless paint applied by Byerly Aviation—is dramatic.
The exterior design is intended to make the Grand Renaissance highly visible to other airplanes and helicopters in the air, as well as people on the ground. That’s a desirable objective given its intended role as an aerial command and control platform for directing wildfire-fighting efforts in Kern County, California. I’d say the design more than meets that specification.
Eagle Creek devoted more than 8,200 hours to the project, in part because of a special observer’s station in the passenger cabin and avionics required for the aerial command and control role.
The work scope for performing a Grand Renaissance conversion is quite extensive and involves almost complete disassembly and thorough inspection of every facet of the airplane—the airframe structure, engines (upgraded to TPE331-10T configuration) and propellers, fuel and hydraulic systems, landing gear, flight controls, cabin environmental and ice protection systems, and appearance.
All critical components, as well as many others, are either overhauled or replaced with new parts.
SIGN OFF
I spent nearly two days at the audit, inspecting the airplane, reviewing the paperwork, and talking to the technicians who performed the work. Their guide during the rebuilding process is a manual that describes in detail every task that must be completed for the airplane to qualify as a true Grand Renaissance. The audit involves going through that manual page by page, and verifying that the work was indeed done and done to our high standards. That verification involves physical inspections, crosschecking the paperwork, and consultations with the technicians. Only then can I sign off each page.
My investigation uncovered only a couple of minor items, but it turned out these were the very last items on the technicians’ punch list. By the time I finished my report and went back down to the shop floor, the squawks had been corrected.
Kern County’s pilots soon left in the Grand Renaissance for the flight home.
Congratulations, Eagle Creek and Byerly, on a job very well done.
ON TO NAPLES
My next stop was the Naples, Florida, Jet Center, where I met up with a contract engineer to troubleshoot a pesky problem with a customer’s new fuel quantity indicating system. After three days of intensive investigation, we determined that the problem apparently does not lie with the indicating system, but is due to a slight anomaly in the geometry of the wing dihedral.
The discrepancy is so slight that it has absolutely no effect on airplane handling, performance, or safety. In fact, it is within production tolerances. However, it does appear to confuse the fuel quantity indicating system. We are confident that a simple software patch in the indicating system will fix the problem once and for all. That fix is in the works.
Naples Jet Center was of invaluable help in our troubleshooting efforts. They supplied whatever and whomever we needed to get to the bottom of the mystery, and we were ultimately successful.
Partnerships are what the partners make of them. They can be productive, or a waste of everyone’s time. Fortunately, Twin Commander Aircraft and our authorized Service Centers strive for the former. My recent trip was a rewarding reminder of just how productive that relationship can be, especially for those who own and operate the airplanes we have pledged to support.
