ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Keith Sketchley, P.Eng.
Include:
Enterprise:
- Led team of 22, responsible for modification & repair engineering, publications, and advice to other departments.
- Managed technical factors for acquisition & disposal of transport aircraft, including evaluation of new aircraft designs and used aircraft for own missions.
- Evaluated costs, benefits, payback of changes to aircraft and procedures.
- Worked on regulatory change team that achieved consensus to solidify and improve rules for self-management of airline technical operations.
- Achieved a substantial improvement in quality of installation work and certification re-use by coaching and prodding an established product group who lacked knowledge of aircraft and certification.
- Participated in evaluation of product development tools, wrote generic requirements for network analysis tools, and advised team on certification factors.
- Organized, chaired and reported on meetings, emphasizing efficiency, inclusiveness, and decisions.
Management factors included budgetting, hiring, firing, efficiency improvement, product/service strategy based on market, technical factors, & costs, and problem-solving.
Project Management:
- Coordinated installation and testing of early Heads-Up landing display system, including detail installation design.
- Developed checklists for more consistent and complete evaluation of appropriateness of incorporating modifications into aircraft, including economic and technical factors.
- Studied feasibility of aircraft performance improvements and advanced navigation capability.
- Evaluated, negotiated and coordinated technical aspects of a pioneering seasonal lease with an overseas airline (a partnership based on shared values).
- Prepared proposals for aircraft configuration & modification (including interior, flight deck, avionics) and consulting work
- Completed and certified a helicopter ambulance conversion, using a temporary team that performed detail design, testing and compliance work. The result was a Canadian STA and an FAA STC (obtained through the bilateral process) for an installation still in use 20 years later.
- Guided a small team to installation and certification of a datalink system in a customer aircraft, including onsite testing with documentation for re-use. Developed documents including flight manuals, approved test results and witnessed flight tests as DER to obtain STC for new hardware and crew interface.
- Developed requirements for various products including:
> addition of a data collection function to an FMS, with recording onto external drive. (Required extensive coordination with overseas customer, and testing in lab.)
> high-level requirements for commercial transport integrated avionics system, starting from basics of economics & user factors.
> software functionality to control major electro-hydraulic/mechanical system on a large aircraft, considering user needs to control and maintain, safety, and efficiency
> addition of high-integrity flight path data, received by radio, to the GPS navigation function embedded in an existing FMS system
- Participated in lab testing of complex products with several actual aircraft systems; learning those flight display and sensor systems, identifying problems, providing information to developers to help correct the software, and providing tips to help other testers and improve the lab. Interfaces ranged from analog to Ethernet-based transmission.
- Directed ground and flight testing of aircraft to ensure functionning of modification designs.
- Liased with project partners, suppliers, other enterprise departments, regulatory agencies, industry technical teams, and customers.
- Edited high school newspaper.
- Produced radio programs and commercials.
Product development factors included usability, testing, supplier selection, support and/or recipient of products and services from business technical to consumer, procedures, manuals, presentation to conferences & committees, failure modes & investigation, reliability, product integrity.
Technical:
- Analyzed pilot difficulty with a basic instrument in an airplane system context & performed initial feasibility study for design changes.
- Analyzed aircraft performance for diagnosis of fuel consumption, fleet planning, purchase decisions, and economic evaluation of performance improvements.
- Analyzed performance of tow tractors and steering of baggage carts.
- Located parts and resources for modification of air and ground vehicles, with selection criteria and use procedures.
- Performed extensive diagnosis and repair of cars and light truck. Modified heavy van into a camping vehicle. Inspected race cars.
- Designed avionics installations including cockpit panel layout, equipment installation, and antenna placement.
- Specified helicopter fuel tank, designed installation details and pilot interface and gaging system, performed testing and adaptation of fuel tank in remote location.
- Designed and certified a seating capacity increase on airliner, including oxygen and electrical aspects.
- Approved installations, documents & analyses, witnessed ground and flight tests, recommended flight manual supplements as DER. Obtained STAs and STCs directly and through bilateral agreements.
- Performed successfully as Transport Canada DAR and FAA DER (multi-authority).
- Member of team developing new landing system capability using emerging industry and vendor work adapted to suit architecture of established crew interface product. Represented company at industry standards meetings. Developed interface requirements.
- Participated in lab testing of a complex products with several actual aircraft systems, learning those flight display and sensor systems. Developed test strategies and wrote test plans. Identified problems, provided information to developers to help correct their design, and provided tips to help other testers and improve the lab.
- Saved money and time by analyzing test requirements for effectiveness and re-using data from other organizations.
- Developed requirements and tested addition of a data collection function to an FMS, with recording onto external drive. Required extensive coordination with overseas customer.
- Wrote general requirements for a new avionics system to ensure consideration of user economics and logistics factors, and top level certification/safety factors.
- Wrote specifications
- Wrote scenarios for human factors team testing of datalink equipment for communication with ATC.
- Reviewed battery replacement in heavy helicopter, obtaining information and analyzing impact of greater charging current and different voltage drop during start.
- Wrote user manuals including flight operations, maintenance, and business procedures.
- Toured remote operations to evaluate needs and advise crews.
Technologies & tasks included displays, lighting, user controls, layout of equipment and user stations, data & voice communications, navigation systems, recording, antennas, air data sensing, digital bus principles including Ethernet-based protocols, analog interfaces, wired & wireless paths of communication & control, EMI, sensors, electrical, batteries, structures, hardware & software design factors, alerting/warning, annunciation, user interface factors, instrument switching, instructions in various formats, diagnosis, hands-on repair & modification.
© Keith Sketchley, page version 2007.08.06(0748PDT)