Aviation Hydraulics: Skydrol, Safety, and Destructive Testing

Aviation Hydraulic Systems operate under specialized testing and safety requirements, including fluid compatibility, sealing, and procedures that may differ from ordinary mobile or industrial equipment. This article examines a pump used for destructive landing-gear testing and discusses Skydrol, EPR seals, and precautions when working with aviation hydraulics.

Tomas: With the landing gear testing pump (not sure if there is a more accurate name), you briefly discussed "destructive testing", can you think of any other industries where hydraulics are used for this purpose?

Fraser: All of aerospace is testing, testing, testing. SpaceX is another customer of ours, so outer space would be the other industry!

Tomas: What makes hydraulics so good at this type of destructive testing?

Fraser: The components that they are testing are hydraulic. Landing gear for instance are hydraulic.

Tomas: We talked about Skydrol for aviation applications, would SpaceX hydraulics need a different type of fluid to work with the constraints of space? I imagine gravity (or lacktherof) and extreme temperatures would also impact hydraulic systems?

Fraser: Space fluids?! Im sure that is a whole nother world. I don't know much about it but I'm sure we could go down a rabbit hole on the web. I found this paper published by NASA about lubrication in space. Which is different than fluid power, but still very interesting:  Liquid Lubrication For Space Aviation

Tomas: Back to aviation, besides the things we discussed in the video (skydrol, extra safety precautions, EPR seals) are there any other things different about aviation-hydraulics than other sectors/applications?

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Fraser: It is important to know that we do not supply components that are going into the planes or spacecraft. We only supply equipment to help test on the ground.

Tomas: Are there any other sectors/applications (that Lifco works in) that require this much attention to detail and time for testing? (Cleanup/ separate test stand, etc.)

Fraser: Military applications have extensive testing requirements. Our average test is just a few minutes once everything is running, while a military testing procedure could be an hour or two. Another sector that has high reliability requirements are marine steering systems. Here are most of the industries that use Hydraulics: Aerospace, Truck (vocational Truck), Forestry, Marine/Navy, Mobile (off-highway), Energy (Oil & Gas, offshore), Industrial (ie manufacturing), agriculture.

Tomas: Do you or any of the mechanics have a "favorite" or most "rewarding" industry to work with? I remember our "tractor-pump" video being quite entertaining and rewarding.

Fraser: The forestry and Navy are my favourite. https://www.tigercat.com/video-tv/