Borescope Use in The Aviation Industry

Borescope Use in The Aviation Industry

Aircraft are complex machines that require many moving parts in order to function. However, what happens when a part malfunctions deep inside one of the engines and, even worse, the problem isn’t found until the pilots are already up in the air.

This is the worst-case scenario for any aircraft technician and one that can easily be avoided by having the right tools at your disposal when servicing aircraft - regardless of its purpose. One of these essential tools is a borescope which plays a crucial role in aviation maintenance and inspection. It allows the technician to take a look deep inside the aircraft to find even the most minute problems before they wreak havoc on the rest of the aircraft.

There are many types of borescopes one can use, all with the same purpose but each one is more sophisticated than the next with added features and enhanced abilities like video, for instance, allowing one to get a clear picture of what they are seeing, in real-time. If you need to do a borescope inspection in the aviation industry, consider the following important points.

The Role of Borescopes in Aviation

The standard of quality assurance has become iconic in the aviation industry with an emphasis on routine, frequent inspections on aircraft to ensure that they are functioning properly and are capable of withstanding wear and tear. Borescopes play a vital role in ensuring that aircraft engineers have the ability to perform these inspections on different components of the aircraft including:

  • Combustion chambers
  • Wings & Foils
  • Turbines & Engines
  • High/low pressure compressors
  • Cells

In recent years, there have been measures taken to ensure that preventative maintenance is completed on aircraft. This on-condition maintenance allows engineers to detect failures within aircraft components before they occur. Borescopes are essential to this process as they are required in order to detect these sometimes hard-to-find failures.

By using borescopes, aircraft technicians can determine whether a part in reaching the end of its lifespan and take measures to ensure that the problem doesn’t become severe which would warrant problematic downtime for longer than normal aircraft maintenance. Such solutions that can be utilized should they find any fault in a system would be prevention, delay, or replacement of the part.

Thankfully, many modern helicopters and aircraft are already fitted with endoscope bores, allowing for the insertion of borescope tubes by aircraft technicians so that they can quickly inspect areas of the aircraft and catch faults as quickly as possible. By utilizing these features, decreases the amount of downtime for aircraft maintenance and prevents the severity of faults if they are allowed to fester over time.

Final Thoughts

Possessing a quality borescope for aviation purposes can allow engineers to detect problems with engines and other aspects of aircraft before major problems occur. There are a few types of borescopes that can be used which range in their sophistication and usefulness. test

Determining which one is right for you will depend on the specific needs of the maintenance that you will be conducting, your company’s budget, and what works best in completing the required inspections.