Aviation
I started my working life in aircraft maintenance in 1970 when I joined the RAF, and continued in civil aviation until I set up Bowdawn Ltd in 1990.
This 20-year experience included:
- Maintenance of military fast jets.
- Military helicopters.
- Airline maintenance.
- Life extension.
- Search and Rescue and firefighting.
- Work in desert surroundings, jungle and “interesting” places.
- Assisted escape.
In 1990 I set up Bowdawn to provide maintenance documentation for the aerospace industry, nuclear and other industries (mentioned elsewhere on this site). I’ve worked in design offices, prototyping establishments and have been nose to nose with big bits of internal structure for life extension programmes.
As a part of this, I achieved CAA licenses as an Aircraft Maintenance Engineer on gas-turbine powered helicopters and pressurised metal aircraft. I can’t say I’ve “seen it all and done it all” but I can say I’ve seen a bit and done a bit.
I understand what information the maintainer needs when time is tight and you’d better just not get it wrong. I also understand the value of a management system that allows the maintainer to fulfil a highly responsible and highly regulated role. I can help there too.
I believe in getting the qualifications and accreditations to back up what I’m saying, as shown by the achievement of the CAA Licenses (65% failure rate in my year). That’s something you’ll see throughout this website – a drive to get academic and professional status to be able to help customers from a position of knowledge. Of course, the reverse is true – if I don’t know enough to help I’ll say so.
I won’t bore you with an acronym list of software, but I have used SGML, various publishing systems and a lot of style guides and doctrines.
Most of this thinking is common to many maintenance and operational scenarios. I’ve used the experience and expertise gained over 20 years as an aviation professional and 25 years as a technical author to successfully move into other highly regulated industries and roles. Chief among these is the nuclear industry – but more about that elsewhere on the site.
I’ve worked with some of the biggest companies in the world on some of the highest profile projects, from validating the safety of legacy structures to the very latest systems.
All of these huge activities rely on back-office activity. Information has to flow, decisions have to have the right information to back them up. Departments have to interface. All this needs processes and procedures. I’ve done that too – from multi-national defence projects to inter-departmental service agreements.
If you have a project and you think I might be able to offer something, get in touch.
