Contributed by Dan Fuoco, Hawker Airframe Service Sales Rep.
Hawker roll-around nose landing gear (NLG) and main landing gear (MLG) used to keep aircraft moving through maintenance.
I’ve worked with Hawker maintenance events for a long time, and I make it my business to make sure everything is in place for an aircraft to deliver on time (if not ahead of schedule). It’s common knowledge that combining Hawker landing gear overhauls with scheduled maintenance and paint saves downtime. What isn’t commonly known is a simple piece of equipment can reduce that downtime by another few weeks.
That piece of equipment is called a roll-around landing gear, which serves as a temporary stand-in for the original gear when it goes in for overhaul during a combined maintenance event.
Roll-Around Landing Gear
Typically, a maintenance event will finish weeks ahead of a landing gear overhaul. Since an aircraft can’t be painted without a landing gear, operators typically have two options: let the aircraft sit for two weeks while the original gear is overhauled, or exchange the gear for another unit. A roll-around landing gear presents a third, more efficient option.
When an aircraft arrives for maintenance, the original landing gear can be immediately replaced with the roll-around gear. This allows the aircraft to be moved through all phases of maintenance, including paint, while the original gear is overhauled. When the aircraft paint process is finished, the original landing gear is usually ready for reinstallation.
2 Weeks of Downtime Savings
I strongly recommend that operators choose a Hawker service center that has roll-around landing gear, especially when planning for a combined maintenance event. Operators will probably save about two weeks of downtime if they work with a service center that has roll-around landing gear available.
Roll-around landing gear are available at Duncan Aviation for all series of Hawker aircraft; Challenger 600s, 601s and 604s; and Falcon 50s, 900s and 2000s. Duncan Aviation has a Hawker Authorized Service Center, and a Hawker-authorized accessory shop for landing gear overhauls in Lincoln, NE (LNK). Please contact me, Dan Fuoco, or a member of Duncan Aviation’s Hawker team for more information.
Dan Fuoco serves as a Airframe Service Sales Rep. at Duncan Aviation’s full-service facility in Lincoln, NE (LNK), specializing in Citation and Hawker aircraft. He started his aviation career in 1974.
