Aircraft Allocation

You can allocate aircraft to flight records on the Flight Schedules tab of the Flight Log Book application or in the Flight Schedules application. You can also change an allocation at any time before the flight. When you allocate an aircraft, you can review whether the dates of planned maintenance events for the aircraft overlap with the dates and times of the scheduled flights.

Allocating and deallocating aircraft

You allocate or deallocate aircraft to flights in the Flight Log Book application or in the Flight Schedules application. You can change an allocation by first deallocating the aircraft and then allocating a new aircraft. To change an allocation, the date and time of the flight must not be in the past, and the status of the flight schedule must be ACTIVE.

Overlap with maintenance events

The Maintenance Overlap check box on the Allocate/Deallocate Aircraft dialog box indicates whether the allocated aircraft is due for maintenance at a time that overlaps with a flight. An overlap occurs when any of the following events coincide with the time period between the date and time of the flight departure and arrival:
  • The target start and end date of a work order that is associated with the allocated aircraft.
  • The forecast dates for a task card that is associated with the allocated aircraft.
  • The date in the Estimated Due Date field on a task card that is associated with the allocated aircraft. For a meter-based task, the estimated due date depends on the calculation method that is specified for the average meter. Each of the four possible calculation methods might produce a different estimated due date so that some of the methods cause overlaps with scheduled flights, while others do not.

Your system administrator can control whether overlapping maintenance events are highlighted when you allocate an aircraft to a flight. In the Organizations application, select the System Settings action, then in the CM Options section, select the appropriate Include in Flight Schedule check box. Selecting the Include in Flight Schedule check box ensures that when a master task card, task card, or work order overlaps with a flight, the Maintenance Overlap check box is set to true on the Allocate/Deallocate Aircraft dialog box.

You can overwrite the selection in the Organizations application in an individual record. For example, if you do not want a daily check to be considered as an overlap, and this check is specified on a task card, you can clear the Include in Flight Schedule check box on that task card record.

You can specify which users are notified by email when a maintenance overlap occurs. In the Roles application, open the PLUSMFLTMI role record, select Email address as the type, and in the Value field, list the email addresses of the users, separated by a comma.

Aircraft role changes

You can change the role of an aircraft to meet the requirements of a flight schedule. For example, you might change an aircraft from a medical role to a freight role. In the Aircraft Roles and Capabilities application, you can view a list of possible role changes and review the work, resources, and time that is required for each role change.