Well the truth is even better than that in reality. This new, modern facility at Jandakot Airport in Western Australia can manufacture just about anything mechanical you need on your aircraft. Be that a new cabin door for your corporate jet, a metal special mission cabinet to that small, difficult to purchase (Sometimes this reads “Impossible”) complex bracket in say that no longer supported component that your aircraft must have to fly.

I was visiting one of my other clients at Jandakot Airport a few days ago and I thought to myself, “Its about time you found out a bit more about this flash looking facility you keep driving past.”. So I dropped in for a chat and hopefully a sticky beak.

As luck would have it I found the Director Rob Stevenson in reception. I have known Rob for many years but did not realise this was his baby. There you go, that alone made it worth the visit.

Whilst Rob was obviously very busy he kindly gave me a quick tour of the  facility. Again the word “Busy” springs to mind. As well as “Interesting, amazing, expertise, unique, quality, professional” to name but a few. Don’t want to go too far, you might get the impression he is paying me for this review. On that point – I was so impressed with what I saw I offered Rob a posting and newsletter spot for free, no strings attached. Just my way of hopefully supporting local industry. He does after all employ a fairly large team of highly skilled tradesmen.

OK, lets get back to the facility. The aircraft jobs are all carried out in accordance with aeronautical design engineer drawings. I saw large complex pressurised doors being manufactured, very complex computer machined fittings in various stages of manufacture and unique fire dispersal devices and their consumables being readied for dispatch all over the world.

So lets just take one quite common challenge faced by the line engineer. A defective oleo. Need a new outer casting or inner piston? Get in touch with Rob, if he hasn’t done that particular part number before I am sure he can still get you a very cost effective solution. It will more than likely even be a better solution than the OEM’s both in terms of cost and lead times.

Thanks for the guided tour Rob.

Here are some key contact details:

Aerospace Fabrication

8 Compass Road

Jandakot Airport

WA 6164, Australia

Tel: 618 9417 8680

FAX: 618 9414 1822

Email: admin@aerospacefabrication.com.au  or rob@aerospacefabrication.com.au  

Do you need one of those flash fire bombing machines? You know the ones that start controlled burns.

Check out Robs “Raindance Systems”. This is part of the group. www.raindancesystems.com.au

P.S.: Need a special part for your much loved land vehicle? Call Rob because they don’t just fix aircraft parts.

Effective today my IoA has been revised so that I can now issue Certificates of Airworthiness to Weight Shift type Light Sport Aircraft. This change is as a direct request from a client to gain this coverage. It followed some one on one training in Redhead NSW at the Airborne Australia facory. A small but impressive facility.

Before you get the totally wrong impression I must admit to a life long admiration of the boys and girls that fly aircraft be they fixed or fling wing types. And yes it’s true I do not hold a pilots licence only those needed to maintain them. However I have over this same lifetime seen far too many instances where the selection of an aircraft has been left solely to the pilot fraternity with sometimes grave results.

To state the obvious there are several stages in this process:

• Determination of need/budget – regardless of whether this is for business or pleasure.

• Type/model selection – use a proven business tool.

• Individual aircraft selection – determine fair market value and always look at more than one aircraft IN DETAIL.

• Actual purchase – OK this one is more a legal/bank thing.

So why am I suggesting that this important task should have a high engineering focus? Well it must also have an extremely strong commercial aspect if it’s to be carried out correctly. Put plainly this is because I sincerely believe, when done correctly, the engineering/commercial aspects need to have the emotional bias taken out of them that all too often one sees pilots applying. 

If you are looking to purchase your first or another aircraft I would like to strongly suggest you consider the following.

If you have the time and enjoy the detail then by all means do these tasks yourself, but beware, without a strong aircraft maintenance background you may still miss some key and costly points.

Don’t just go to your local aircraft sales agency and get a biased opinion (Its normal surely – if I am selling product X then you wouldn’t expect me to tell you product Y is better), use the services of PlaneTorque Australia Pty Ltd. We will have no particular axe to grind and will work closely with you through each stage of this sometimes complex process.