Three months ago, DC Aviation put a new wheel shop into operation at its maintenance centre at Stuttgart airport in Germany. The new shop offers customers a more comprehensive range of services for the repair and maintenance of main and nose landing gear wheels. From now on maintenance services can also be performed on wheels of larger business jets.

Since 2017, DC has held C14 approval for the repair and maintenance of main and nose landing gear wheels. Services in this area are currently being performed for the Cessna Citation XLS+, Bombardier Challenger 300/604/605/850, Bombardier Global series and Gulfstream G650 models. Due to demand, work is already under way to further expand the wheel shop. For example, in the future DC Aviation would like to offer work on Cessna CJ series wheels and service the wheels of Gulfstream G500, G600 and G700 jets.

For this purpose, the company has significantly expanded the space capacity of its previous wheel shop and has invested in state-of-the-art equipment. The floor of the new 77 sqm area has been sealed with high-gloss epoxy resin. The modern equipment includes two bead breakers for loosening the tyres on smaller and larger wheels, a hydraulic lift for ergonomic and effective work on wheels, a rim washing machine, along with a sandblasting cabin to prepare wheels for crack testing.

DC Aviation can now reflect on the first few weeks of the new wheel shop. After completing training, employees were able to use the newly acquired equipment and service new customers. DC is pleased that it has been able to expand its service portfolio and is encouraged by the positive reaction of customers and the increased demand created by this new opportunity for maintenance work.

VP of maintenance and CAMO Jürgen Sehne says: “The expansion of the wheel shop is an ideal addition to our portfolio of maintenance services. By carrying out repair and maintenance work on wheels in-house, idle times can be optimised for customers and costs can be saved.”

Aircraft wheels require considerable maintenance, due to their heavy load and their importance in the safety of flight operations. In the DC Aviation wheel shop, each wheel goes through numerous stations until, after a thorough check in the final inspection, it is released and re-certified with an EASA Form 1.