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The move into electric and hydrogen-powered aircraft is going to present MROs with an unprecedented set of engineering and operational challenges.

To map out a survival strategy for MROs, Aviation Maintenance convened a virtual roundtable on what lies ahead.

Our panelists are Roei Ganzarski, CEO of Alitheon, previously served as CEO of magniX, whose electric propulsion systems have powered multiple electric-aircraft programs and Universal Hydrogen’s hydrogen-electric Dash 8 demonstrator. He was also executive chairman of Eviation, developer of the clean-sheet Alice all-electric commuter aircraft, and later served as an adviser to Universal Hydrogen. And Beyond Aero’s Luiz Oliveira (chief engineer), Anaïs Cateni-Caudéran (head of marketing and communication), and Benjamin Le Drogo (head of sales): Beyond Aero is an aerospace company actively designing and developing a purpose-built hydrogen-electric business aircraft. Alitheon develops optical-AI technology for item-level authentication and supply-chain traceability.

Aviation Maintenance: What new maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) business opportunities do you see emerging first as hybrid, electric, and hydrogen aircraft enter service?

Roei Ganzarski: Start with the uncomfortable part: scheduled heavy engine overhaul revenue shrinks drastically. Electric propulsion has a fraction of the moving parts of a turbine — no hot section, no fuel control, no oil system, and no borescope inspection cycles. Anyone whose financial model depends solely on traditional engine overhaul profit pools needs a different plan. The opportunity is that the money doesn’t vanish; it moves.

First to arrive are shop qualifications and approvals. High-voltage DC, arc flash procedures, battery handling, and hydrogen safety do not sit in a standard A&P curriculum. Repair station ratings have to exist before the first revenue flight, making training and certification sellable products years ahead of the fleets.

Energy on the ramp is another major frontier. Charging is the new fueling business, and whoever owns ground energy at secondary airports owns access to the network. MROs and FBOs are the natural owners because they already hold the ramp, the permits, and the handling relationships.

Battery swapping and pack pooling will turn the battery pack into a rotable rather than a fixed installation to minimize turnaround time. That means logbooks, cycle history, state-of-health testing, conditioning, storage, and leased pools — the closest structural analog to engine leasing and power-by-the-hour that exists in this architecture.

On-site hydrogen production via small-scale electrolysis inverts fuel logistics for remote networks in places like Alaska, northern Canada, or island routes. Alongside it, tank inspections, leak detection, high-pressure handling, and fuel cell stack health monitoring create new revenue streams.

Additionally, second-life battery packs retired from flight still retain significant stationary storage capacity to buffer airport chargers, giving MROs a second customer for pulled packs. Finally, short-sector regional flights will accumulate cycles fast, driving increased demand for line maintenance, airframe, gear, brakes, tires, and non-destructive testing.

Luiz Oliveira: We expect the first opportunities to appear around specialized support services rather than traditional heavy mechanical overhaul.

For hydrogen-electric aircraft, these include specialized training for technicians working around hydrogen and high-voltage systems, alongside specialized tooling, personal protective equipment, test equipment, and calibrated equipment packages.

There will be strong demand for fuel-cell health monitoring, inspection, repair, exchange, and overhaul services. Electric motors, inverters, power electronics, and high-voltage distribution systems will require clear inspection and component exchange policies.

MROs can also capture value in hydrogen storage system inspection, remote diagnostics, and rapid component-exchange programs rather than extensive on-aircraft repairs.

Furthermore, mobile technical response teams for propulsion-related Aircraft On Ground (AOG) events, software configuration management, and hydrogen ground-handling support for operators and airports present strong growth avenues.

Because AOG response, parts availability, and fast component exchange are major pain points in business aviation today, next-generation OEMs must design an integrated support model from the outset. Early on, OEM involvement will remain high for specialized propulsion systems, while local MROs perform conventional tasks like wheels, tires, brakes, and airframe inspections.

Aviation Maintenance: What specific new skills and knowledge will future Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) mechanics need to safely complete inspections on high-voltage systems, batteries, and fuel cells?

Ganzarski: Today’s A&P is trained for an airplane whose electrical system exists to run lights, radios, and fuel pumps at 28 volts DC. They are low energy, easy to de-energize, and treated as a support system. In an electric or hydrogen aircraft, the electrical system is the propulsion system. That single change reorders the entire skillset.

Mechanics must become comfortable with inverters, motor controllers, contactors, and liquid cooling loops, as thermal management becomes a flight-critical system. Diagnostics shift from physical inspection to data interpretation — reading logged parameters, cell balance, impedance trends, and thermal history. Firmware and configuration control become maintenance actions with direct airworthiness consequences, while bonding, shielding, and EMI control move from housekeeping to safety-critical mandates.

High voltage (800 to 1200 volts DC) leaves zero margin for error. Stored energy in a battery cannot simply be switched off, making standard lockout/tagout incomplete. Mechanics need arc flash awareness, PPE discipline, insulated tools, and insulation resistance testing on high-voltage harnesses.

Aviation also introduces challenges automotive training ignores: dielectric strength falls with altitude, making creepage, clearance, and partial discharge behavior critical, while thermal runaway in a confined fuselage requires entirely different containment strategies.

For hydrogen, instincts built around Jet A must be unlearned. Hydrogen is odorless, colorless, buoyant, and ignites across a wide concentration range with an almost invisible flame. Technicians need leak detection instrumentation, line purging and inerting procedures, an understanding of hydrogen embrittlement, and strict torque discipline.

For liquid hydrogen, add cryogenic handling, cold burn protection, boil-off behavior, and fuel cell stack health management. The talent for these systems exists today in automotive traction, industrial gas, rail, and space launch, but it doesn’t hold an A&P certificate. The industry must deliberately create pathways for lateral entry rather than expecting traditional schools to start from scratch.

Anaïs Cateni-Caudéran: Technicians will increasingly combine traditional aircraft maintenance skills with electrical safety, energy-system knowledge, software diagnostics, and isolation procedures.

For hydrogen-electric aircraft, relevant competencies must encompass high-voltage awareness, electrical shock hazard prevention, safe de-energization, and lockout/tagout procedures using insulated tools and proper PPE. Mechanics must understand systems that remain energized after aircraft shutdown, as well as fuel-cell fundamentals spanning electrical, thermal, air, water, and hydrogen interfaces.

On the hydrogen system side, technicians require skills in hydrogen detection, ventilation requirements, leak-response protocols, ignition-source control, and high-pressure depressurization precautions.

They will also need to handle power electronics, electric motors, cabling, and cooling loops safely, while using digital diagnostic tools to interpret system-health data and manage post-maintenance software configurations.

A useful analogy comes from the automotive industry’s handling of high-voltage vehicles: mechanics should not be permitted to intervene on high-voltage or hydrogen propulsion systems simply because they hold a general maintenance qualification. Additional system-specific authorization, training, protective equipment, and dedicated tooling must be strictly required.

Aviation Maintenance: How will traditional MRO facility infrastructure need to change to accommodate cryogenic hydrogen storage, fuel cell testing, and large-scale battery management?

Ganzarski: Hangars were designed around Jet A, a fuel that pools on the floor, stays where you put it, and needs a controllable ignition source. Neither hydrogen nor a lithium pack behaves that way, and the building envelope must change accordingly.

Because hydrogen is buoyant, it collects at the structure’s highest point. Hangars require fixed gas detection at the roof line and ceiling pockets, ventilation engineered to sweep the top volume, and updated electrical classifications for fuel-present zones. Vent stacks must route to safe discharge points, purge capability must be plumbed directly into the shop, and separation distances must be reassessed.

Cryogenic liquid hydrogen demands vacuum-jacketed lines, boil-off management, cold burn protection, and oxygen deficiency monitoring. Most facilities will not retrofit this into an existing hangar, opting instead for separate outdoor or semi-enclosed areas with dedicated permitting.

Fuel cell and high-voltage test cells require heavy electrical service, water treatment for stack loops, thermal load rejection, and regenerative load banks so energy drawn during testing isn’t dumped purely as waste heat.

Battery storage requires climate-controlled, fire-rated rooms with physical separation between units, suppression tailored for lithium fires, containment for suppression water, quarantine bays for damaged packs, and state-of-charge management infrastructure.

The overriding constraint is electrical utility service. Charging, testing, storage conditioning, and on-site electrolysis all draw heavily from the same feed. Transformer lead times and grid upgrade schedules often exceed aircraft certification timelines, making utility capacity the primary bottleneck to plan around.

Benjamin Le Drogo: For Beyond Aero, it is important to clarify that our aircraft architecture is based on gaseous hydrogen (GH2) rather than cryogenic liquid hydrogen (LH2).

Because we do not use liquid hydrogen, Beyond Aero does not require cryogenic insulation, boil-off gas management, cold-burn protection, or thermal-equilibrium controls. Our GH2 infrastructure requirements focus instead on high-pressure storage, piping isolation, depressurization, leak detection, ventilation, and safe venting.

For traditional MRO facilities, the required level of adaptation depends on the task. Line maintenance activities where the fuel system remains closed could continue within existing MRO hangars using proportionate adaptations.

These include high-level ceiling hydrogen detectors, enhanced ventilation with air recirculation controls, interlocks between gas alarms and ventilation systems, grounding and bonding provisions, hot-work controls, and defined entry and towing procedures.

More detailed maintenance tasks involving fuel system openings require dedicated areas with system isolation, defueling, line inerting, external vent connections, and specialized high-pressure tooling.

Additionally, because our primary energy source is hydrogen rather than battery packs, MROs servicing our aircraft avoid the large-scale battery handling, charging, quarantine, and thermal-runaway infrastructure required by battery-electric fleets. The goal is adapting existing MRO facilities proportionately without recreating the entire maintenance environment.

Aviation Maintenance: What new diagnostic tools and software will technicians need to use, and how will this differ from traditional mechanical troubleshooting?

Ganzarski: The mental shift is bigger than the toolbox shift. Traditional troubleshooting is sensory and physical — looking for metal in a filter, feeling for play, smelling fuel, or borescoping a turbine section. The aircraft reveals its condition physically, and the mechanic’s judgment is the primary instrument.

An electric or hydrogen powertrain does not present that way. A battery pack has no wear you can see, a fuel cell stack degrades invisibly, and a motor controller fails through software, thermal history, or electrical connectors. The system reports its health through data, shifting the technician’s job from physical observation to data interpretation.

The primary tools become battery management system interfaces, cell-level state-of-health and impedance analyzers, motor controller diagnostic software, thermal imaging cameras, insulation testers, and gas detection instruments. Much of the diagnosis occurs on a tablet or laptop connected to the aircraft.

Maintenance triggers also shift from calendar intervals to trend analysis. A cell balance drifting over fifty cycles matters far more than any single static reading within limits. This is true condition-based maintenance, requiring shops to track fleet histories over time.

Firmware versions, calibration files, and software updates become airworthiness-critical items. Loading an incorrect configuration carries consequences as severe as installing a wrong part.

Furthermore, rotables like battery packs and fuel cell stacks require data logs that travel with the physical unit across removal, storage, testing, and secondary applications. Technicians must maintain the discipline to verify diagnostic instruments, ensuring drift or software miscalibrations don’t report false system health.

Oliveira: Maintenance will become overwhelmingly data-driven because electric, electronic, and software systems control a larger share of the powertrain.

Technicians will use tools that integrate traditional maintenance documentation with high-voltage insulation testing, fuel-cell performance diagnostics, hydrogen pressure checks, power electronics health monitoring, thermal tracking, and event-history logs. Remote troubleshooting connections with OEM engineering teams and digital maintenance planning platforms will become standard.

However, more data does not automatically yield better maintenance. Excessive sensing or poorly calibrated alerting can trigger false fault codes, escalating the costly “no fault found” component removals that already burden the industry.

We place high value on predictive diagnostics and prognostic tools that help technicians isolate root causes rather than simply generating more alerts.

We also strongly advocate retaining familiar aviation maintenance conventions. Maintenance manuals should preserve established ATA-style structures and terminology, updated with digital hyperlinks between procedures, parts catalogs, and troubleshooting flows. New propulsion architectures should be easy to navigate without forcing technicians to relearn basic documentation logic.

Aviation Maintenance: How is the current industry shortage of aviation maintenance technicians impacting your strategy for training teams on these advanced, next-generation technologies?

Ganzarski: I don’t agree with the premise of a labor shortage. There is no shortage of people; there is a shortage of people willing to work in aviation maintenance under the terms the industry currently offers.

The skills needed for next-generation aircraft sit in automotive traction systems, industrial electrical work, rail, industrial gas, and space launch. Those workers exist, but they choose other sectors that offer day shifts, air-conditioned working environments, competitive pay, and employer-funded training, compared to aviation’s night shifts, cold hangars, and self-funded certifications.

If you fix the terms, the pipeline fills. Our strategy is to recruit people who already possess the difficult technical skills — high-voltage discipline or gas handling — and teach them the aviation regulatory and documentation layer, which is procedural and teachable. This lateral entry path is far faster than building high-voltage expertise from scratch in traditional A&P programs.

Furthermore, we are establishing job structures before fleets enter service, free from legacy shift patterns or inherited contracts. If electric and hydrogen aviation sets better workplace terms from the start, it will pull talent from both outside industries and legacy maintenance.

We should also market this sector as deep-tech rather than traditional aircraft maintenance to attract modern technical talent.

Cateni-Caudéran: The industry landscape makes simplicity and scalability critical. Our objective cannot be requiring an entirely new skillset for every routine maintenance action. We must preserve the existing technician skill base while introducing clearly defined qualifications for high-voltage, fuel-cell, and hydrogen systems.

Experienced mechanics already understand aircraft structures, flight controls, avionics, human factors, and airworthiness processes. We build on that foundation through a layered qualification model.

Under this model, conventional airframe maintenance remains accessible to existing rated technicians. Specific training modules grant authorization for high-voltage and hydrogen tasks, while deeper propulsion work is handled by specialized OEM teams or qualified network centers.

Digital diagnostics and remote engineering support allow local technicians to troubleshoot effectively without requiring specialists physically present at every station.

Training strategies must also align with workforce retention. A service center loses capability rapidly if experienced technicians leave, making workplace retention and training economics central to long-term readiness.

Aviation Maintenance: What are the biggest safety risks associated with servicing electric motors and hydrogen systems, and how should MROs prepare for them on the hangar floor?

Le Drogo: For electric propulsion, primary hazards include high-voltage shock, stored electrical energy, unexpected system energization, arc flashes, and thermal hazards in power electronics or energy storage units. For hydrogen systems, hazards center on gas leaks, flammable mixture formation, high-pressure releases, and servicing un-isolated lines.

Human factors pose an equally significant risk. New technology can induce incorrect assumptions about whether a system is isolated or safe. Conventional aviation offers many examples where technicians altered cockpit or avionics setups for maintenance without correctly restoring configurations prior to flight.

On next-generation aircraft, configuration control is paramount. Hangar floor preparation requires clearly defined safe-isolation sequences and physical verification that systems are fully de-energized, depressurized, and inert before any intervention begins.

MROs must establish hydrogen detection, adequate ventilation, control over ignition sources, and strict access restrictions for high-voltage zones.

Technicians require insulated tools, dedicated PPE, clear visual status indicators on the aircraft, and double-check verifications for safety-critical interventions to ensure the aircraft’s state is completely unambiguous to everyone nearby.

Aviation Maintenance: Finally, what is the single most important step a traditional MRO provider should take today to make sure they are ready when these new aircraft officially enter the market?

Oliveira: The vital step for MROs today is building competency frameworks in early partnership with aircraft OEMs, rather than making heavy investments in hydrogen equipment prematurely.

MROs should focus first on identifying which existing skills remain applicable, mapping new competency needs, defining tasks that require special authorizations, and outlining future tooling requirements.

Beyond Aero is taking action by working with engineering institutions like ISAE-SUPAERO in Toulouse to anticipate the skills hydrogen-electric aviation will demand and translate them into tangible training pathways.

Market adoption will depend heavily on whether operators believe aircraft can be supported quickly when an issue arises.

For an MRO, true readiness means building technical competence while preparing the broader operational ecosystem: trained personnel, approved procedures, parts access, digital diagnostic links, and rapid escalation pathways to the OEM. The strongest model brings the traditional MRO ecosystem into the development process early, building on decades of established maintenance experience.

Ganzarski: The single most critical, unaddressed challenge is battery cell provenance.

In traditional turbine engines, major components like discs are large, high-value, individually serialized parts produced by a small set of tightly regulated suppliers. A battery pack, by contrast, contains thousands of low-value cells drawn from commodity supply chains that aviation does not control, where gray-market and counterfeit channels thrive.

Substandard turbine parts typically degrade gradually, allowing inspection cycles to catch them. A defective battery cell undergoes thermal runaway, propagating violently to adjacent cells and causing an uncontained event in flight. No borescope or visual inspection can detect a compromised cell in advance.

The industry cannot rely on paper certificates, serial numbers, or barcodes for traceability. As recent engine parts documentation scandals proved, paper proxies can be forged or transferred to uncertified items.

Because battery packs will be rotables swapped, leased, pooled, and transitioned into second-life storage, every handoff creates risk. MROs need physical, object-level authentication technologies that permanently bind the physical item to its digital record, ensuring verification does not depend on trusting paper documentation.

Extended reality (XR) technologies — including augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) — are transforming aviation maintenance training and support.

The availability of AR, VR, and XR technologies is presenting MROs with unprecedented opportunities to enhance technician training, safety, and operational efficiency.

But how can MROs use these virtualization technologies effectively, applying methods that are safe, reliable, and trustworthy? To find out, Aviation Maintenance convened a virtual roundtable of experts.

Our experts are David Dwyer, Mass Virtual COO. Mass Virtual develops immersive training technologies such as the MassXR platform, which is used by defense and commercial aviation applications. And Dr. Phillip Mangos, Adaptive Immersion CEO and founder. Adaptive Immersion develops VR training for dangerous work environments.

Aviation Maintenance: Please share a brief overview of your business, including how you are currently using AR, VR, or XR on the shop floor, the main benefits and drawbacks you see, and how you are addressing those issues.

Mangos: What got me interested in this space was my personal history developing personnel selection assessments for individuals in dangerous jobs. I realized that the best way to predict someone’s performance on the job is to let them actually try out the job itself. Back in the day, we didn’t have the technology to offer that safely, especially for dangerous roles before someone was hired and properly trained. Now, with high-fidelity, immersive virtual reality technology, we can.

To this end, Adaptive Immersion develops adaptive VR and XR training for the world’s most dangerous missions and occupations, focusing on military and industrial safety settings. We provide operators with unlimited, variable, realistic practice that classrooms and live drills simply can’t provide before their first real attempt on the job.

Specifically, we provide training for aviation-adjacent operator roles — the personnel charged with keeping aircraft operational, safe, secure, and ready to fly. This includes teams specializing in maintenance on the aircraft itself, weapon systems, and explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) personnel.

An exemplar use case is our hands-on procedural VR training for personnel face to face with ordnance threats. The system provides hyper-realistic visuals and precise task replication so operators can do everything they would do in the real world within a safe virtual environment.

The primary benefit is a large increase in practice repetitions and variability on an accurate replica of a real aircraft, which is crucial because live aircraft impose significant restrictions on availability. More practice across varied conditions improves skill development and permanence while enhancing safety in the vulnerable first 90 days on the job when operators are at the greatest risk of injury or incidents.

One drawback we see is general pushback to training in a headset, usually rooted in a lack of familiarity with the technology. However, when people see the visual quality and psychological fidelity of the task firsthand, backed by quantitative ROI data, that pushback tends to fade.

Dwyer: Mass Virtual develops immersive training and learning technologies that help organizations shift appropriate training into high-fidelity digital environments, creating more opportunities to practice, measure performance, and build capability while reducing unnecessary dependency on operational resources with the ultimate outcome of increasing organizational operational performance.

Our MassXR platform powers immersive training programs across defense and commercial aviation, including Virtual Hangar for the U.S. Air Force. The largest benefit we see here is increased access to training, the ability to safely practice low-frequency/high-consequence tasks, and see true measurable technician performance.

The largest challenge with AR/VR/XR is that not every task belongs in this medium. We focus on applying the right solution to the right part of the learning or maintenance workflow, rather than trying to replace every existing piece of training or support material.

Aviation Maintenance: Which specific AR, VR, or XR hardware and software platforms are you actively using, and can you share concrete examples of how technicians use them during daily maintenance tasks?

Mangos: We use a standard hardware stack built on best-in-class equipment, primarily using the Varjo XR-4 series in pure-play VR mode with some mixed reality (MR) applications. We favor the tethered version for visual fidelity and security reasons, supported by GPU-powered desktop or laptop computers. Some setups require a base station for tracking, and we use peripherals like a floor mat and fan to help orient users in physical space, along with custom training aids, props, and standard controllers to ensure a smooth experience.

On the software side, our custom VR system embeds intelligent scenario generation and visual effects to deliver customized immersive training experiences.

In terms of real-world use cases, military operators across multiple bases use our solution for mission preparation and curriculum-based practice on the exact aircraft they maintain during live operations. Think of an F1 racing pit crew rapidly servicing a car: when aircraft land on an aircraft carrier between sorties, teams must perform rapid maintenance on the airframe, weapons, and ordnance to prepare the aircraft for the next round. Our VR trains technicians for those high-pressure turnaround environments. If an aircraft returns with an ordnance-related hazard, we can train EOD and maintenance personnel in the procedures required to render it safe before maintenance proceeds.

Dwyer: We remain hardware agnostic, but have fielded solutions with numerous COTS hardware solutions including HTC VIVE Pro 2, HTC Focus Vision, Meta Quest 3, Microsoft HoloLens, Magic Leap 2, and most recently Samsung Galaxy XR. Since we are a solutions provider, our focus is less about the specific hardware choice, and more about improving operational effectiveness by preparing and assisting technicians before and while they are on the aircraft.

Our largest footprint of deployed solutions resides within the U.S. Air Force, where we have a large footprint of VR solutions and a smaller cadre of AR solutions deployed across nearly 300 global locations, covering over 35 different platforms, training over 31,000 users annually. This effort has been largely focused on reducing the dependency of training and familiarization on actual aircraft platforms, and preparing the maintainer to be ready when they first touch the aircraft.

A large focus has been placed on developing procedures and training solutions that address low-frequency, high-consequence tasks. By deploying these solutions, we have reduced aircraft downtime by about 45%, decreased classroom training hours by 60%, and increased task efficiency by 15%. In this instance, Mass Virtual’s software platform, MassXR, provides the content, distribution, learning management, assessment, and reporting capabilities behind these solutions.

Aviation Maintenance: What specific operational advantages and improvements in efficiency, accuracy, or turnaround time have you seen from using these technologies on the floor?

Dwyer: Our solutions have been fielded to our customer base, and they have conducted independent studies of the effectiveness.

One of the strongest advantages of XR is that it decouples training availability from aircraft availability. In a recent article, Little Rock Air Force Base cited an $18.5M savings in mitigated training costs by enabling the ability to train and prepare without real aircraft using our Virtual Hangar (powered by MassXR) solutions. The 913th Airlift Group at Little Rock AFB has no aircraft assigned for this training, yet maintainers use multiple virtual aircraft platforms without needing physical flight line access.

In addition, the ability to become familiar with an airframe or procedure that you may not have experienced in the past, or one that is still in development, is where we are finding a real fit. In these instances, we provide crew coordination and maintenance training before the aircraft is even fielded or configured. The ability to train earlier in the pipeline is one of the most compelling uses of XR.

Mangos: On efficiency, we have documented significant increases in practice repetitions without operators touching a live asset, resulting in reduced reliance on limited live aircraft and classroom resources. Live training exercises are expensive, difficult to coordinate, and carry heavy logistics and personnel costs. Our VR acts as a high-fidelity supplement, allowing maintainers to get many more “reps and sets” safely.

This increased throughput directly impacts on-floor performance. In our training environments, operators show score improvements across 20 reported cognitive dimensions. All of this has been validated against real-world floor performance, demonstrating significant gains in efficiency and task accuracy, particularly for hard-to-practice maintenance procedures.

A prime example is our training for “broken arrow” scenarios — rare, high-consequence events involving crashed aircraft carrying nuclear weapons. Operators rarely get live practice for these events because training sites are so limited, but VR allows them to build readiness for these critical situations risk-free.

Aviation Maintenance: What are the biggest technical shortfalls or limitations of the current technology, and what features or capabilities still need to improve?

Dwyer: For VR, the majority of technical barriers have reduced as the technology has matured. However, the remaining gap for maintenance operations remains in the AR space.

A shortage of mission-capable AR headsets/glasses continues to be a challenge. In hangar and flight line operations, current AR hardware struggles with operating in diverse lighting conditions and battery power limitations. While these remain hurdles for true flight line execution, we continue to find great success utilizing full simulation prior to performing real-world tasks.

Mangos: One of the biggest technical shortfalls is equipment durability. Best-in-class hardware contains sensitive optical and electrical components vital for high immersion. However, maintaining “handle-with-care” hardware is a challenge for hands-on maintainers and ordnance professionals who work in rugged environments with heavy-duty tools and might toss equipment around in the course of their duties. There is a clear need to increase hardware durability for operational field use.

While visual fidelity continues to make great strides, the overarching challenge across all XR training comes down to psychological fidelity — accurately capturing the exact mental and cognitive processes used to solve problems in the real world within the simulated environment.

Psychological fidelity is not purely a hardware issue. You can have photorealistic visuals and high frame rates, but still fail to address the isolated task components most susceptible to skill decay. Building true psychological fidelity requires a strong skill assessment and measurement foundation, adaptive instructional features, and deeply probing after-action review (AAR) and debriefing capabilities.

Aviation Maintenance: What physical infrastructure upgrades, hardware investments, or IT changes were required to deploy these tools across your shop?

Mangos: No major physical infrastructure or IT upgrades were required. Our system is optimized to be highly compact and portable — requiring only a GPU-capable laptop or PC, tethered Varjo XR-4 headset, controllers, tracking base stations, a floor mat, and a fan. Outside of cybersecurity compliance considerations, all that is needed is a dedicated physical space with standard electrical power and climate control.

To ensure success, the focus needs to be on standardization and train-the-trainer programs so local instructors know how to install and run the system correctly.

Looking to the future, there is strong interest in moving toward wireless and cloud-based collaborative experiences, enabling operators at different geographic sites to train together in real time. Building infrastructure that supports remote, massively distributed collaboration without compromising visual or simulation fidelity will be an important evolution.

Aviation Maintenance: How have you handled reskilling and training your technicians, and how has the shop floor staff reacted to using these tools in their daily routines?

Mangos: We address reskilling through two layers. First is basic education — educating users on the benefits of VR and enforcing standard best practices to minimize disorientation or cybersickness. Second is standardization and train-the-trainer programs, ensuring local instructors can onboard users smoothly so technicians learn baseline control inputs quickly without fumbling.

When a training program is designed correctly around “psychological fidelity,” transitioning to VR isn’t a huge leap because it mirrors the cognitive and procedural demands of their actual job.

Because of this approach, end-user reactions have been overwhelmingly positive. We also maintain a direct user feedback loop to identify pain points and continuously improve system usability.

Dwyer: One lesson and theme we have seen over our deployments is that adoption of XR, when incorporated into existing training, has a significantly greater impact than deploying it as a standalone solution.

As evidenced in our Fort Bliss fielding, initial skepticism is easily removed when you present a high-fidelity solution that accurately replicates the real world. The technology has to solve a real problem for the maintainer. If it does not make the task more accessible, effective, or useful, simply putting a headset on will not drive adoption.

Aviation Maintenance: What are the overall pros and cons of using XR platforms in real-world MRO operations compared to traditional paper or tablet-based workflows?

Dwyer: We generally don’t view XR as a replacement for every paper or tablet-based workflow. XR becomes particularly valuable when the maintainer needs to understand location, spatial awareness, or interaction with a complex system or task. Simply reading or looking at a 2D wire diagram doesn’t always give the best theory-of-operations understanding for how things work. XR fills that gap.

Mangos: The main pro of immersive VR/XR is the ability to achieve high visual fidelity and rapid, accurate replication of dangerous, repetitive, or procedurally complex work in a safe environment without interrupting actual operational task flow. This full immersion drives direct, measurable skill development and clear training ROI.

The main cons are that not everyone is naturally suited for immersive VR. Some users are more prone to cybersickness, imposing an upper time limit on headset usage before discomfort sets in.

Aviation Maintenance: Are there any lessons learned that you want to share?

Dwyer: There are two primary lessons we have learned from our deployments:

The experience has to be worth the effort: We must deliver a solution that gets beyond the friction of putting a physical device on. It has to bring efficiency or actionable information that helps technicians do their jobs better. You must see a clear operational gain to justify deploying XR.

Access is paramount: Aircraft are expensive, instructors are limited, and many maintenance procedures occur infrequently. XR provides a continuous training resource independent of physical aircraft availability. This shifts the economics of technical preparedness, allowing rehearsal to occur much earlier so that limited time spent on actual aircraft is vastly more productive.

Aviation Maintenance: What are your future plans for expanding or evolving your use of AR, VR, and XR technology over the next few years?

Dwyer: We are continuing to field VR, AR, and traditional solutions. As hardware matures, we expect the lines between these platforms to blur. VR will remain extremely effective for immersive training and rehearsal, but the next generation of XR hardware — featuring improved hand tracking, pass-through capabilities, and smaller form factors — will bring a massive leap forward.

Over time, we expect the line between pre-task training and real-time performance support to dissolve. Advancements in hardware and AI will soon allow us to deliver contextual instructions, data, and remote expert assistance directly to the maintainer in their live work environment. Our focus remains on building a robust content and software ecosystem that evolves alongside the hardware.

Mangos: We plan to expand our XR technology into adjacent military and industrial domains involving dangerous, hands-on technical work — such as oil rigs, gas, energy, and mining.

We are expanding our software features to make the user experience both highly functional and visually seamless. A major focus is advancing our skill assessment and After-Action Review (AAR) framework, enabling maintainers to pinpoint exact procedural errors and rewind time to play back their specific actions leading up to a mistake.

Lastly, we are expanding our intelligent scenario generation capabilities, leveraging advanced artificial intelligence to create dynamically adaptive scenarios tailored to the operator’s specific job requirements.

One of the major operational disruptions for any airline is unscheduled maintenance. When a system like the auxiliary power unit (APU) is involved, the impact can extend beyond a maintenance task to affect aircraft availability and operations. Though the APU is mostly used for ground operations, it is needed to keep both the electrical and pneumatic systems functional during an in-flight emergency, like the loss of engine power. Being a critical system, its continued serviceability is also a key factor in maintaining safe flight operations. Its availability during maintenance operations can also reduce turnaround time for operators.

Hence, airlines aim to maintain APU reliability to maximize on-wing time and reduce aircraft downtime. Even though this seems like a maintenance issue, the challenge goes far beyond just keeping the APU serviceable for operators.

In-Shop APU Maintenance

An APU is unlikely to require major repairs because of a single in-service failure. In-shop maintenance typically arises from a gradual decline in operational performance over time, alongside recurring faults, which can make continued operation impractical and uneconomical.

“One of the key indicators is an elevated exhaust gas temperature (EGT), which is a known predictor of maintenance needs,” says Ray Boyd, general manager, narrowbody APU product line, Honeywell Aerospace.

However, elevated EGT is just one of many reasons an APU might be removed for maintenance. As APU deterioration is not always straightforward, other system parameters, such as increased oil consumption, leaks and contamination, the presence of foreign object debris (FOD), damage to internal drive shafts, abrupt changes in start performance, and unusual vibrations, can also signal the need for a shop visit. A single abnormal indication is not sufficient reason for removal.

“Vibration, abrasion, contamination and mechanical damage can all contribute to insulation degradation, resulting in increased leakage current in APUs,” says MK Test managing director, Jason Evans. “If left undetected and not addressed immediately, these can eventually lead to functional failure.”

This is why early detection is important. If deterioration is diagnosed before functional failure, maintenance teams can determine the best corrective actions to avoid an unplanned disruption to operations and maintenance.

The Cost of an Unscheduled APU Removal

The impact of abruptly removing an APU from an aircraft is complex, affecting maintenance reliability, logistics and finances. First, the operator has to account for the operational disruptions that arise as a result of an unscheduled shop visit. An unscheduled repair will affect aircraft availability due to unplanned downtime, an increase in the demand for manpower, logistics requirements, and the financial pressure to restore serviceability.

In certain instances, the aircraft might be able to operate under the provisions of the Minimum Equipment List (MEL), within a specified timeframe, often based on the aircraft type and applicable maintenance procedures. This allows operators to continue operations rather than having to ground the aircraft unexpectedly. Through the MEL, a deadline is given, with the possibility of an extension if needed, to carry out the required repairs. Nonetheless, this does not give operators the freedom to continue flying without a functional APU, nor does it fully remove the impact on operations.

Pratt & Whitney Canada confirms that most of its APUs are for commercial aircraft operated by scheduled airlines for whom dispatch reliability is always critical.

For an extended-range twin-engine aircraft, a reliable APU is important to maintain the Extended-range Twin-engine Operations Performance Standards (ETOPS) approval. In contrast, heavy long-haul aircraft with four engines, like the Airbus A380 or B747, are not affected in this manner. They are legally permitted to fly across the Pacific Ocean under strict regulations established by global aviation authorities.

Ground operations are also affected by an unserviceable APU. APUs are used to start the engines before flight and they provide air conditioning for passengers when boarding and deboarding. When an APU is unserviceable, there is an increased reliance on ground power units (GPUs) and other related ground equipment to perform these functions.

The operator is still required to schedule the required maintenance tasks within the timeframe allowed for rectification, taking into account the aircraft’s routing, operating requirements and the availability of replacement components for the aircraft.

The financial implications of an unscheduled APU removal extend beyond the maintenance and repair costs. For every hour the aircraft is grounded, the airline is losing valuable aircraft utilization time and potential revenue from scheduled flights. This disruption can also result in rescheduling flights, additional operational costs and possible refunds or compensation for delayed and cancelled flights. Meanwhile, the airline might have to put more workload on other aircraft in its fleet to meet the affected flights, which in turn will increase their operating time and result in less flexibility for subsequent flight disruptions.

APU Testing, Troubleshooting and Fault Detection

Testing an APU involves a combination of manual methods and automated systems to assess the unit’s functionality and performance. Using these systems, engineers can evaluate the working condition of each component within the unit, identify abnormal indications and determine the root cause of any fault or malfunction. Automated testing can significantly accelerate this troubleshooting process, especially when isolating electrical faults, according to Evans, who further cited the example of the pin-to-pin continuity check on a wiring harness in the Honeywell 331-350 APU Maintenance manual.

“When this process is performed manually, every connection must be verified individually,” said Evans. “Even allowing just five seconds per measurement, you’re already looking at around 380 seconds of testing time and that’s before considering documentation and reporting requirements. With an automated test system such as MK Test’s Automeg, that same harness can be tested for continuity, resistance and short circuits in approximately 20 seconds, with every measurement automatically logged and reported.”

Not only do these systems speed up troubleshooting, but they also ease the pressure of reporting and documentation, which is mandatory in aircraft maintenance.

Automated testing is useful in identifying deterioration before it becomes a hard failure. This forms one of the most valuable benefits of using computerized systems in troubleshooting faults such as increasing resistance, intermittent connection and insulation degradation in the APU.

“Using a four-wire (Kelvin) measurement technique, which is a standard feature of MK Test’s Automeg systems, very small changes in resistance can be detected down to the milliohm level,” Evans adds. “When these measurements are recorded during scheduled maintenance intervals, it becomes possible to monitor trends over time rather than simply assessing whether a component passes or fails on a given day.”

Engineers assess the frequency and nature of these patterns, the rate of decline in performance and the likelihood of the need for an unscheduled removal later on. This helps predict the exact fault and determines the appropriate maintenance actions to prevent failure in service.

Predictive Maintenance in APU Testing

Predictive maintenance is essential in maintaining the serviceability and reliability of APUs. It relies on condition and health monitoring, which is the basis of this maintenance approach. Condition monitoring allows operators to track important APU performance parameters while in operation and identify indications that are not apparent in regular inspections.

For this, Honeywell Aerospace adopts the Predictive Trend Monitoring and Diagnostics (PTMD). This technology continuously monitors APU performance and alerts airlines to potential maintenance needs before failure occurs. Operators can see these trends, and when monitored over time, they can identify the abnormal indications which may be a sign of ongoing deterioration.

“The real benefit of predictive maintenance for APUs isn’t predicting the exact day of service failure, but giving the operator enough warning to plan maintenance around the aircraft’s schedule,” said Scott Arms, vice president, Honeywell Commercial Programs for StandardAero.

Health monitoring takes this a step further by combining data obtained from the APU with that of its operating environment. Instead of relying only on the APU’s performance data, maintenance personnel can monitor several parameters in other related systems to determine the APU’s earlier operating data; if not, they can determine if they need to investigate the changes.

The operators can use these health-monitoring tools to monitor the APU’s performance with respect to other aircraft systems during operations and create a baseline for future comparison. Thus, the bottom line of predictive maintenance is the action taken after analyzing these data. Once current datasets begin to deviate from ideal operating parameters, engineers can examine the data, decide the root cause and determine the best maintenance action to be taken.

“Our APUs are equipped with health monitoring tools that allow operators to monitor the APU performance. Operators can use this data to implement predictive maintenance actions based on their expected utilization and operation,” according to Pratt & Whitney Canada.

This is why condition and health monitoring is important. They help operators differentiate a one-off incident from a potential reliability problem. By monitoring these indicators, operators can detect declining APU functionality using sensors and generated aircraft data. This also assists maintenance teams in making safety-critical decisions before failure occurs. Instead of waiting till the APU fails, operators can monitor performance indicators and determine when the component is due to be removed and coordinate a shop visit with scheduled maintenance to avoid unnecessary aircraft downtime, allowing more effective management of maintenance scheduling.

Predictive maintenance is more than just reacting to a fault. Maintenance personnel no longer need to wait till the unit breaks down before maintenance tasks can be done to prolong the service period. Rather, performance data can give maintenance personnel an indication when intervention may be necessary and take corrective action, which can extend the APU’s time-on-wing.

Keeping the APU On-Wing Longer

The goal of every operator is to maximize the APU’s serviceability, keeping it within the required performance range for safe operations. From an expert’s perspective, Arms highlights that understanding and monitoring how the condition of the APU changes over time is the primary factor to extend the on-wing time rather than simply tracking hours. This requires consistent maintenance practices, regular inspections, oil and chip monitoring and paying attention to start performance, which is part of their processes at StandardAero. These will help operators identify problems on time before they become major failures. Manufacturers also have a role to play in this.

Modern APUs are now being fitted with new technologies to enhance APU efficiency and extend time-on-wing. For example, in the Honeywell 131-9 narrowbody APU, the High Efficiency Mode (HEM) is designed to improve both fuel efficiency and time-on-wing.

“HEM offers an additional time-on-wing of 1,500 hours, about 2% fuel savings to the operators that enable this upgrade and delivers 9% better baseline reliability than the next-best competitor due to design,” Boyd adds.

These developments show that extending APU time-on-wing is not reliant on only one maintenance practice. Instead, it involves a combination of technology and strategies, with these improvements made by both the operator and manufacturers.

APU Turnaround Time, Repair and Replacement

Turnaround time is also an important factor to consider when determining how long an APU stays on-wing. Many factors such as the inspection findings, work scope and availability of parts and manpower can determine the extent of the turnaround time.

Based on this, not every APU maintenance task will require a shop visit and not all shop visits require an overhaul. Parts of this unit are assessed to determine their individual serviceability, and decisions are made on whether to repair, overhaul or replace in accordance with applicable manuals.

To improve turnaround and parts logistics, Pratt & Whitney Canada confirms, “We continue to invest in our supply chain network and in new hires and new capabilities for our MRO facilities around the world to meet our customers’ demands.”

To minimize operational disruptions, having a serviceable APU ready for immediate replacement reduces downtime, speeds return to service, and eases pressure on other available units in the fleet.

Software Takes Aim at APU Turnaround Time

The inherent unpredictability of APU maintenance makes the shop visit particularly challenging to schedule, staff and price. Unlike routine component work, teardown can quickly reveal problems that dramatically alter the original workscope.

“APU is like a self-contained, mini gas-turbine engine, and hence, shares all the complexity of an engine MRO,” says Manoj Singh, chief customer officer at Ramco Systems. Teardown findings can generate additional work across fuel, pneumatic, electrical and mechanical systems, changing requirements for labor, parts and testing as the shop visit progresses. APU article-AMM -Ramco inputs

Some of the greatest risks to turnaround time occur at inspection, during parts procurement and in the test cell. NDT inspections can uncover previously unknown hot-section damage; shortages of high-value components and life-limited parts can stall reassembly; and a failure to meet EGT margins or vibration limits during testing can require additional teardown, balancing and retesting. APU article-AMM -Ramco inputs

Increasingly, MRO software is being used to anticipate those problems rather than simply record them. Historical teardown data, operating conditions and APU type can help forecast potential non-routine findings, allowing planners to pre-stage parts and technician capacity. APU article-AMM -Ramco inputs

“Pre-induction visibility lets planners pre-stage materials via a centralized marshalling hub, accelerating execution and significantly reducing Turnaround Time (TAT),” Singh says. APU article-AMM -Ramco inputs

Digital systems can also address a less obvious source of lost time: customer approvals following unexpected teardown findings. Software can connect a newly discovered defect with contract requirements, estimated costs and parts availability, then present that information electronically for customer review.

“The customer receives real-time visibility into the exact teardown findings, cost changes, and parts availability,” Singh says. Customers can then approve or amend the revised workscope electronically, potentially eliminating days of back-and-forth communication.

Beyond APU Reliability

As airlines move towards more sustainable operations, the focus is gradually shifting from corrective APU maintenance to a more proactive approach. Instead of waiting till a component fails in service, preventive maintenance measures are now being taken before extending the APU service periods whilst reducing aircraft downtime. This approach is not just a maintenance goal. It is a business strategy for fewer unscheduled removals and reduced disruptions for better operational reliability. This transition from responding to failures to managing operational deterioration is the key to keeping the APU on-wing for longer while maintaining aircraft availability and operational reliability.

PMA Use Continues to Grow as an Alternate Material Option to Ensure Operational Continuity.

The commercial aircraft Parts Manufacturer Approval (PMA) market plays a critical role in global aviation, offering certified alternatives to original equipment manufacturer (OEM) parts while maintaining equivalent safety and performance standards. Commercial airlines use PMA solutions to lower operational costs and reduce dependence on OEMs. To ensure safety, the FAA reviews the proposed designs of PMA parts to verify that they meet their safety regulation requirements and are functionally equivalent to the OEM components they are designed to replace. No longer a niche alternative, PMA parts are being embraced by airlines, MROs and leasing companies as reliable, cost-effective solutions that help ensure operational continuity.

The PMA market continues to grow. According to a research report by the market research company IMARC Group, the global commercial aircraft parts manufacturer approval (PMA) market size was valued at USD 11.8 Billion in 2025. Looking forward, the report estimates the market to reach USD 16.1 Billion by 2034, exhibiting a CAGR of 3.37% during 2026-2034. The report states that it’s the rapid expansion of the aviation sector, the stringent implementation of a favorable regulatory regulation, aging of the existing aircraft fleet, the comparatively low cost of PMA-made parts, and significant technological advancements in manufacturing processes that make up the key factors driving the market.

How are these PMA parts positively affecting the aviation industry’s supply chain, efficiencies and cost control?

The Supply Chain

FAA-approved PMA positively affect the aerospace supply chain by increasing part availability for the airlines and their maintenance providers. “PMA primarily functions as an alternate material option for parts that the OEMs do not routinely have in stock and suffer from long manufacturing lead times,” says Joseph Allen, director of alternate parts and design engineering, Aviation Technical Services (ATS), DFW International Airport, Texas. “Additionally, many of our PMAs incorporate reliability improvements. By implementing simple design improvements, ATS ensures all our FAA-approved PMAs perform identical to, and in most cases better than, the OEM part. This directly leads to a longer on-wing time for our parts that reduces required maintenance activities across the life of an aircraft. Maintenance-related delays are ultimately minimized because PMA provides air carriers with available options at high levels of reliability to meet their material part needs.”

“By providing an alternative to OEM parts we are keeping aircraft flying,” says Paul Bolton, DVP business manager, First Aviation Services, Ametek MRO, Clemmons, North Carolina. “There are continuing supply chain issues causing AOG situations on a daily basis and by working with our customers we are able to provide solutions.”

Because of supply chain challenges, Gilbert, Arizona-based EXTEX Engineered Products has entered into agreements with engine OEMs to supply licensed PMA parts to the marketplace. These agreements ensure legacy products get supported while OEMs can focus valuable engineering, quality and supply chain resources on newer, higher visibility programs. Larry Shiembob, general manager at EXTEX explains, “Supply chain issues are not improving and OEMs continue to stress their existing suppliers with demanding requirements to support new programs. As a result legacy product lines are experiencing even more delays than in previous years. PMA supplies often utilize non-OEM focused suppliers allowing an independent supply of parts, which can compensate for OEM shortfalls. PMA companies are also smaller and generally more nimble than OEMs. They can respond to supplier questions in days, not weeks/months, which keeps parts moving and they ultimately reach the end customer much quicker.”

Keith Lipscomb, chief executive officer and president of Aviation Component Solutions (ACS), Richmond Heights, Ohio, believes PMA parts make the aviation supply chain stronger for a very simple reason: competition is better than dependence. “For decades, many replacement components effectively had a single source of supply. If that source had significant or inconsistent lead times, the customer had very few alternatives. The supply-chain disruptions following Covid exposed the inherent weakness in that model. Airlines and MROs learned that even a very good supplier presents risk when it is the sole-source supplier. PMA changes that equation by introducing another FAA-approved source. At ACS, we have even sold parts to OEMs that could not otherwise fulfill their own customer obligations. That tells you something about the role PMA can play in the supply chain. The argument for PMA, therefore, is not merely that an alternative part may be more readily available or cost less. It is that a competitive, diversified supply chain is inherently more resilient than a single-source supply chain.”

Efficiencies

The efficiency benefit of PMA extends well beyond purchasing a less expensive part. “PMA parts are required to provide the same fit, form and function as their OEM counterparts,” explains Alan Voeller, vice president of sales and marketing at Jet Parts Engineering. “With exceptions involving approved product improvements, PMAs deliver equivalent performance at a fraction of the cost and often with better availability. More for less: the very definition of efficiency.”

At Hollywood, Florida-based HEICO Aerospace, Patrick Markham, vice president of technical services explains that in addition to the supply chain benefits, HEICO PMA parts bring efficiencies to MROs and airlines by providing alternative sources for the various expendables, consumables and rotatable parts for component, airframe and engine MRO.

Bolton believes that for OEMs, inventory is a bad word, even now. “With our PMAs, we ensure there is availability thus providing a seamless maintenance experience for the end user and allowing them to efficiently schedule the maintenance events.”

If an airline can obtain a component in days or weeks rather than months, Lipscomb explains it enables several benefits: carrying less safety stock, responding more quickly to maintenance requirements, and reducing the operational consequences of a part shortage. “If the PMA component also has an improved design or longer service life, the operator will reduce replacement frequency and associated costs.

“That is why we look at the entire customer problem when evaluating a PMA opportunity. Sometimes the problem is price. Sometimes it is lead time. Sometimes it is premature failure. The best PMA opportunities solve more than one of those problems simultaneously.”

ATS branched into developing PMAs consumed during airframe heavy maintenance checks after originally starting as a leading airframe MRO in 1974. “Our wealth of airframe maintenance usage data and experience allow us to forecast upcoming material usage for a given fleet based on its utilization, size and age,” Allen says. “This helps our customers understand and prepare for material demand spikes before they occur. The result is shortened span times for heavy maintenance visits and an agile understanding of upcoming material demand.”

Cost Control

Many believe cost control is the most straightforward economic argument for PMA. In the aerospace aftermarket, the OEM possesses significant pricing power because the customer historically has had no competing source. PMA and DER repairs introduce competition into that market.

“ACS PMA products, for example, are generally priced approximately 25% to 50% below their OEM equivalents,” Lipscomb says. “However, acquisition price is only one cost component. A lower-priced part that is available when the customer needs it is even more valuable, and a lower-priced part that also lasts longer can create an even greater lifecycle advantage. Airlines operate in an extraordinarily competitive industry. If two airlines operate comparable fleets and one can safely reduce its maintenance costs through FAA-approved alternatives while the other voluntarily pays monopoly prices that cost advantage ultimately matters. PMA gives operators a mechanism to introduce competition and take greater control over maintenance economics.”

In addition to inventory management efficiencies and reliability improvements, Allen says his FAA-approved PMAs save multiple major airlines around the world between 40-50% on their applicable material spend, annually. While Bolton states that cost saving has always been a factor within the PMA marketplace, over the last three or four years it has been less of a focus as time-to-market and availability have come to the fore. “We still generally offer a very cost-effective alternative but this is no longer No. 1 on the list of questions when talking to operators,” Bolton adds.

“PMAs inherently have a pricing ceiling: the OEM,” Voeller explains. “Airlines and third-party MROs that have adopted PMA strategies benefit from lower material costs than those that have not. Even when PMAs are not utilized in every eligible application, maintaining an established PMA program strengthens negotiating leverage with OEM suppliers and can drive more favorable commercial outcomes.”

Overcoming Acceptance Issues

FAA-approved PMA parts have been around since the 1950s and Allen says their popularity has been booming since the turn of the millennium. “The reliability and performance of PMA have led to its long-standing reputation as being equivalent in reliability, safety, fit, form and function to an OEM part.”

The “lessor non-acceptance” PMA stigma has largely been eliminated with the PMA market/process now reaching maturity. Some of the largest aerospace organizations are now built on PMA such as HEICO/Wencor, Transdigm, LOAR and Ametek. However, Scott R. McNew, president of Aero Brake & Spares Inc., Lago Vista, Texas, asserts that, “There will always be contention in using an aftermarket product. Having inventory ready for repair stations and airlines tends to drive the acceptance of PMAs.”

Markham explains that, “As the OEMs suffer supply chain challenges, some OEM or OEM-aligned MROs will look to HEICO PMA parts to meet their Turnaround Time (TAT) commitments. When the OEM asks an airline to approve the use of a PMA part in their repair, the OEMs are affirming that the PMA parts are of equal quality.”

Sven Dicke, director of business and services—customer services at Liebherr-Aerospace & Transportation SAS, Toulouse, France, explains that, “There’s a misconception that maintenance decisions are simply a choice between OEM and PMA parts. In reality, operators typically utilize a combination of new OEM components, repairs, service bulletins, exchanges, used serviceable material (USM) and other aftermarket solutions. [Another misconception is] that acquisition price alone determines value. Most operators evaluate total lifecycle cost, including reliability, technical support, repairability, availability, warranty considerations and long-term fleet support.”

Nothing is more persuasive than the recommendation of a fellow operator. As airlines and MROs continue to share their experiences, PMA acceptance continues to accelerate, highlighting the important role associations like MARPA play in educating the market. “We recognize that PMA parts are often held to an even higher standard of scrutiny than the OEMs when under review at the airlines and third-party MROs,” Voeller says. “That’s understandable, and it’s a test that PMAs repeatedly pass. Operators gain the same fit, form and function, with better availability and lower cost. Try PMA once, and the value proposition becomes difficult to ignore. For many operators, the question is no longer whether to use PMA, but where to use it next.”

In today’s environment, operators are increasingly focused on resilience, lifecycle economics and operational performance. “Successful aftermarket solutions therefore combine engineering expertise, technical support, product reliability and a long-term commitment to customer support,” Dicke says. “Regardless of the source of a component, the aviation industry relies on trust. Maintaining that trust requires rigorous standards, strong technical oversight and a commitment to continuous improvement across the entire value chain.”

There was a lot of publicity surrounding the Artemis II mission and the Orion capsule’s flight around the Moon. Just to remind you, the astronauts flew from Earth to the Moon, made one orbit around it, and then returned safely to Earth. When I was a little boy, I was fascinated by that great adventure. Apollo 8 was the first crewed spacecraft to leave Earth’s gravitational sphere of influence and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times without landing and then returned to Earth. The three astronauts — Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders — were the first humans to see and photograph the far side of the Moon and witness an Earthrise. All of that happened between 21 and 27 December 1968.

Many things happened after that, and eventually, after Apollo 17 in December 1972, there were no more crewed flights to or around the Moon. In the spring of 2026, mind you, 54 years after Apollo 17, NASA decided to send people around the Moon again. That was not an easy task because the blueprints and technology of Apollo could not simply be reused in a new environment. Technology has changed and improved, and new ideas and engineering approaches have made the spacecraft completely different. This time NASA sent four astronauts (three men and one woman), and the Orion spacecraft is significantly larger than the Apollo Command Module. The flight was successfully completed, and Orion splashed down in April 2026 at 00:07:27 UTC. The splashdown occurred within one mile of the target location. Orion was recovered by the U.S. Navy, and for the media that was essentially the end of the coverage.

But the story continues. If you are an engineer, you always ask yourself: what happens next? The rest of the story is just as fascinating. But let me start from the beginning. Space vehicles are, in many ways, similar to aerospace vehicles, and engineers always want to collect data and analyze it. You can always learn something from the information obtained and perhaps improve the design to make it even more reliable. That is exactly why NASA wanted to bring Orion back to the Cape. After a thorough investigation, there would always be time to send it to a museum and display it to the general public.

What could be investigated? Well, every aircraft maintenance program includes regular inspections of parts that have been subjected to stress. Orion experienced extreme stress during launch and throughout the mission. Think about the vibrations, enormous temperature changes, pressure differences between the cabin and the vacuum of space, and many other factors.

But first they had to transport that large spacecraft from San Diego, California, to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. If you transport bricks, you can find thousands of trucking companies willing to haul your cargo. If you transport wind turbine blades, there are only a limited number of companies capable of doing the job. But if you want to transport a spacecraft, you can probably count the qualified companies on the fingers of one hand. It is highly specialized work that you may only do a few times in your lifetime. Yet there are companies that are both willing and able to take on such a challenge. They do this kind of work not because it is easy, but because it is difficult, and that makes completing it so rewarding.

The shipment was too large and too complicated to transport by aircraft. Therefore, NASA contracted Frontier Heavy Haul & Support Inc. to haul the Orion capsule from Naval Base San Diego, California, to the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

Because it was such a delicate assignment, Frontier Heavy Haul & Support completed five practice runs. Altogether, they hauled the test capsule back and forth five times. These trial transports gave NASA the confidence that Frontier could safely transport the Orion capsule back to KSC. Needless to say, there were many technical coordination meetings. Every detail of how and when the capsule would be transported was carefully discussed.

Three trucks were used for the operation. The primary truck carried the capsule, a generator, and an air-handling unit. The generator and air-handling system were required to maintain a constant temperature inside the protective enclosure where the capsule was secured during transport. The idea behind this was to keep Orion in a stable temperature and humidity environment to prevent introducing additional stress to the spacecraft. You can imagine that if the capsule were transported through Arizona and New Mexico without temperature control, the spacecraft’s outer skin could overheat, potentially causing additional microscopic cracks. NASA certainly did not want that to happen.

Because the convoy had to be completely self-sufficient, a secondary truck carried a spare generator, a spare air-handling unit, tools, and a forklift as backup equipment. The third truck was a bobtail tractor unit that served as a spare power unit in case one of the other trucks experienced a mechanical breakdown. The convoy was accompanied by two civilian escort vehicles from Frontier, two vehicles carrying seven NASA engineers, a security vehicle, and police escorts as required throughout the transport from California to Florida.

The first launch of Artemis II was originally scheduled for February but was postponed, so the entire transport project also had to be delayed. Frontier had to reschedule trucks and personnel for the next planned launch in March. The March launch was also postponed until April, when NASA finally succeeded in launching the rocket.

After splashdown in California, it took five days to load the capsule and all of its supporting equipment onto the trucks. The loaded dimensions of the primary transport vehicle were 80 feet long, 17 feet 6 inches wide, and 14 feet 6 inches high, with a gross weight of 96,000 pounds. On April 20, 2026, at 8:00 p.m., the convoy departed Naval Base San Diego and traveled across the southern United States, covering approximately 2,700 miles before arriving at the Kennedy Space Center on April 28, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. During the journey, six different state police agencies escorted the convoy through their respective states. Every night, a two-person security team guarded the load while the NASA engineers continuously monitored the condition of the capsule throughout the trip.

A tremendous amount of planning and effort went into selecting the transportation route because permits had to be obtained for every state along the journey. Frontier also had to comply with state curfews, road restrictions, and construction schedules while still maintaining the planned delivery date. In Arizona, the convoy had to wait for a day and a half before it could continue because of highway construction. Despite these challenges, the load was delivered safely and on schedule, with zero accidents and zero incidents during the eight-day journey.

The spacecraft is now safely secured by NASA at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. I briefly spoke with people from Frontier about the project and quickly realized that they do this work not because it is easy, but because it is difficult. Quite often, NASA and the astronauts receive all the recognition for a successful mission, while important details such as transporting a spacecraft 2,700 miles across the United States receive only a brief mention in a local newspaper. Most people never realize how large and complicated such a transportation project is, or how many NASA requirements must be met to move a spacecraft safely from coast to coast.

Frontier Heavy Haul & Support Inc. is located in Fairfield, Texas. They specialize in transporting high, wide, heavy, and super loads.

Complying with the rules entitles you to a certificate. Holding a certificate means you have rights. The aviation safety regulations include privileges and protections constraining industry non-compliance and government excess.

The United States Constitution guarantees “due process.” The fifth amendment is famously invoked in high profile witness testimony, but it also declares: “No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” In the practical sense, this right requires the government to establish and follow fair and objective procedures before taking punitive action.

For aerospace certificate holders, part 13 provides those procedures. The FAA’s rules for enforcement include required actions and response timelines. The non-emergency process described in § 13.19(b) requires notices of proposed action including the following response options:

(1) Surrender the certificate or pay the fine.

(2) Answer the charges in writing.

(3) Request an informal conference to discuss the matter.

(4) Request the order be issued so it can be appealed.

ARSA members, particularly those who are clients of its management firm, have used informal conferences and written responses — often both — to mitigate wrongheaded government action and protect their aviation business. Upholding the requirements of due process allows an opportunity to either make a case or require the government to justify its actions. When justification is unsatisfactory, the system provides continuing opportunities for appeal to other tribunals.

A certificate is protected by the plain language of the rules. Failing to use the rules to your benefit is foolish; doing so effectively gives away the rights guaranteed by the law. Failing to use the response options of part 13 when facing either certificate action or civil penalty has immediate costs and long-term consequences of ongoing regulatory misbehavior.

An extreme example of such a consequence is the complete loss of legal protection. In June, ARSA informed Congress of an ongoing lawsuit against the FAA alleging the unlawful termination of FAA designees through the improper promulgation and enforcement of rules that deprive individuals of procedural due process. The plaintiffs claim the agency violated the Fifth Amendment as well as the Administrative Procedure Act by removing designee privileges without cause and directing designee action without the authority to do so.

The complaint filed with the district court includes a thorough history of delegated authority showing designees clearly “operated under a certificate” in the 1950s. Subsequent amendments to the rules gave the administrator unfettered discretion to terminate a designation and eventually altered the enforcement rules to separate its treatment of designees from any protection under the law.

“For reasons known only to the FAA, the FAA subsequently asserted that Designees are not subject to [part 13’s legal enforcement action rules],” the complaint said. “Rather, without legal support, and in direct contravention to the representations made to Congress … the FAA has asserted that [procedural enforcement requirements] ‘[have] nothing to do with the FAA’s termination of Designated Pilot Examiners or, for that matter, any other category of non-FAA employees whom the agency certifies to perform particular functions.’”

Given the historical movement stripping designees of due process protections, the complaint’s “prayer for relief” seeks, among other compensation, re-establishment of clear rights for designees to appeal actions taken against them by the FAA.

No certificate holder should let the government take away basic rights. The class action suit represents an extreme situation after decades of changing law and policy. ARSA’s greatest (perhaps) value to industry is leading in the example of vigilance against government actions that can impact the “life, liberty, and property” central to aviation business.

Brett Levanto is vice president of operations of Obadal, Filler, MacLeod & Klein, P.L.C., managing firm and client communications in conjunction with regulatory and legislative policy initiatives. He provides strategic and logistical support for the Aeronautical Repair Station Association.