Need help with PMA info.

[Velius]

Hello all,

Recently, I've accepted a school assignment to write a paper discussing the human factors invloved with a Portable Maintenance Aid (PMA).

F-22 Support System (scroll down to "Portable Maintenance Aid" to get an general idea of it).

I'm trying to gather a couple of good sources about this but am not finding too much- just several small articles much like the one above with general info.

These two have been the most informative:
http://www.acq.osd.mil/log/mpp/senior_steering/portable/PMA Study Report.pdf
Portable maintenance aids--emerging concepts and programs | Logistics Spectrum | Find Articles at BNET

So my question- does anyone know any other sites similar to the above two about PMA systems? Has anyone here worked with them before? If so, what are your thoughts about them and what insight do you have about them regarding human factors (i.e. user friendliness, job reliability, etc.)

Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks 8)

 

[vikingBerserker]

Very interesting topic, Hope this is of some use to you: Advanced maintenance system for aircraft and military weapons - US Patent 5931877 Description

 

[Matt308]

Google "Portable Maintenance Access Terminal". It is ARINC 644 compliant equipment used in the civil airplane maintenance arena. I'm sure the parallels are exactly the same with respect to capabilities, ruggedizing and security.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I'm currently working with one. The USAFA operates 3 UV-18Bs (Twin otters). We have PT6-34 engines and have a trend monitoring system on each engine on all 3 aircraft. At the end of a fly day the trend data is downloaded into a computer and placed on a CD. Monthly we send that data to a company that does trend analysis for us. They look to see if there was any abnormal parameters during operation. We also have a flight data recorder that has a maintenance computer so we could check potentiometers when remove or adjust flight controls. We have other ones for the ELT and CVR as well.

These would be considered very elementary PMAs. I worked on 737-800s that have a trouble shooting computer that plugged into the nose wheel well. All kinds of system and troubleshooting data could be gathered from that system.

 

[Velius]

Good stuff. As I read more I found out that the state of the art PMAs, like the DataTrak for the F-22 or ENDA for the F-16, are quite expensive. Because of this, the government has been looking into comercial off the shelf computers (COTS) that are less capable than the expensive counterparts, but sufficient enough to do the job, not too mention a lot cheaper- the Panasonic "Toughbook" is an example of one. My readings tell me that COTS computers are in regular use with the C-5 and 117. Any thoughts or comments on this?