Dassault Falcon recently completed successful testing with Falcon operators based in Europe and the United States on a new maintenance program dubbed ‘Falcon E-Maintenance.’ The program allows the Falcon Technical Center or a Falcon service center to remotely access an airplane Central Maintenance Computer, or any other aircraft maintenance application, to troubleshoot and diagnose issues. This connection is made through a laptop provided by Dassault with WiFi or satellite capabilities.

The maintenance laptop allows the aircraft technicians, service center and the Falcon Technical Center to work in real time on one common communication platform that is capable of both audio and video. From there, they can share technical documents, transfer files and organize multimedia conference meetings. If needed, an Authorized Service Center or the Falcon Technical Center will be able to remotely access the aircraft’s central maintenance computer.

“Our plan is to offer this new service in early 2011 after deploying the communications systems required to all of our factory owned and Authorized Service Centers,” said Cyril MacGarry, Director of Customer Service Technical Support for Dassault Falcon. “Each new aircraft will then be delivered standard with a maintenance laptop. Ultimately, we will be able to offer our operators advanced functionalities such as direct access to the digital mock-up of an aircraft or even provide remote electronic sign-off.”

The Falcon ‘E-Maintenance’ program will also complement data broadcast systems that will be available in early 2011 as an option. These systems will integrate new interactive troubleshooting assistant systems, as well as permit real time transmission of maintenance reports in flight and on the ground. This is a vital tool to anticipate AOG situations and unscheduled maintenance.

“These innovations are part of our continuous strategy of customer service progress and will soon allow us to offer our operators new tools and new processes to further improve our response time and increase our efficiency,” said Jacques Chauvet, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Customer Service.