Turkish Technic modified A320 sharklet for the first time for a European Airline
As the sole maintenance provider of Turkish Airlines, Turkish Technic recently provided sharklet modification for Turkish Airlines A321 aircraft. By this modification Turkish Airlines has become the first European airline operating A320 family with the production-retrofitted sharklets and eight more A321 aircraft in Turkish Airlines fleet will be modifed by Turkish Technic until May 2014. The company is also being prepared for in-service retrofit at A319 and A320s (for the aircrafts without sharklet provision) for which the retrofit solution will be available in 2015.
Within the scope of three routes (linefit, production retrofit and in-service retrofit) of installation, sharklets have been introduced by Airbus to Airlines and MROs since these new devices are hoped to provide fuel burn reduction, operating cost saving, increased payload / range capability, imroved take off performance, higher optimum altitude and design service goal extension.
Following two days’ work (sharklets and flight computer functionality retrofitted in service) in Istanbul, Turkish Tecnic completed the first sharklet production retrofit which was effective to certain number of Turkish Airlines A321 type aircraft delivered with modified center wing box and wing structure. The production retrofit done was mainly based on structural works and was consist of four major steps as given hereunder;
• Wing tip fence removal
• Wing and sharklet (Rib 27 and Rib 27A) connection with tension bolts and barrel nuts, multi-lugs and pins.
• Avionics systems update
• Flight operation manuals update
