Need to monitor the health of your engine? Jet-Care (Booth No. 6641) provides on-condition performance trend monitoring programs with worldwide exclusivity for Honeywell TFE731, ALF502, LF507 and HTF7000 turbofan engines. The company also offers monitoring programs for the GE CF34, Williams FJ44 and Pratt & Whitney series engines.

Jet-Care, through its sister company Spectro, also provides analysis services for oil, oil filter, debris, fuel and hydraulic fluid. Spectro laboratories in the U.S., UK and Switzerland provide round-the-clock availability to meet any AOG requirement. Spectro and Jet-Care, based in Cedar Knolls, N.J., team to monitor the health of more than 40,000 engines in more than 80 countries.

David Glass, Jet-Care founder and CEO, said that adding Pratt & Whitney and Williams International to its Honeywell and General Electric performance trend monitoring program portfolio was “…a direct response to requests from our GE CF34 and Honeywell TFE731 and HTF7000 customers. These operators now have the option to enjoy Jet-Care service across their fleets, with a one-stop shop providing continuity of report type and layout with a familiar engineer ready to help on the other end of the phone.” Spectro oil analysis and Jet-Care performance trend tracking programs use common reporting formats and procedures to alert operators of deviation from normal conditions.

Glass explained that, like oil analysis, engine performance, health and condition monitoring and reporting is more than a data collection exercise. Each engine is compared to a parameter set created for every engine of the same model in an operator’s fleet. That model is based upon a “standard day” much in the same way NBAA aircraft performance data are derived. Jet-Care collects not only raw engine operating numbers but also air-data computer outputs to establish the standard-day baseline.

Peter Smith, head of technical services for Jet-Care, told NBAA Convention News that until the customer understands it, the report is of little value. “Therefore, we provide a free ECHO or Engine Condition Health Online report, which the operator can download to see the trends exactly as we see them” in the form of easily understood graphs. He said fleet operators have found Jet-Care’s ECHO software particularly useful for long-range planning of overhaul, maintenance and parts procurement. “We don’t just produce a report,” Smith said. “It’s what we do with the data over time that is significant. We can compare one engine to the rest of the world, or all engines operating in one area to the rest of the world.”

Trend Analysis
As an alternative or supplement to the ECHO report, Jet-Care can create a PDF file containing a summary of a customer’s fleet, with comments on individual aircraft and possible issues with individual engines. “We offer a combination of PDF and ECHO files, with the ECHO containing the trends and the PDF a narrative fleet summary and comments,” Smith said. The comments highlight individual deviations from the normalized model to pinpoint engines requiring attention. These are highlighted as being “In Alert” status. An “In Alert” triggers an e-mail, and then shortly afterward a telephone call from a Jet-Care technician.

Glass noted that Jet-Care maintains a personal relationship with each of its more than 2,000 performance trend monitoring clients who operate in excess of 10,000 turbofan engines. Jet-Care technicians are available to operators 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Company policy ensures that during normal working hours every call is answered by a person.

Jet-Care recently launched a fault-code reporting service for the TFE731’s DEEC (digital electronic engine control), an addition to Jet-Care’s existing engine performance trend monitoring program. “Customers will receive an e-mailed report from Jet-Care for each individual DEEC download they send in,” Smith said. “This will detail all the fault codes as they are extracted from the DEEC and operators will be advised of any critically important faults by an urgent phone call from a Jet-Care program manager.”

Packages of raw engine and atmospheric data pass through onboard cabling to a laptop, from which they are e-mailed to Jet-Care and processed into usable formats. DEEC operator clients download “snapshots” of engine speeds, pressures, temps and fuel flows at intervals convenient to them. Data is captured, analyzed and reported after every download, irrespective of where or by whom the DEEC is downloaded.
The unique code in the DEEC and the engine serial number ensure that the operator receives a PDF file by e-mail or can access the information on the Internet, Smith said. All DEEC downloads to Jet-Care are archived and available for review by customers.