Although the course is fairly intensive, Dr Safarian is extremely supportive and delivers the course with a great deal of enthusiasm and consideration for students, especially those who are relatively new to Damage Tolerance. The course was of a high technical standard, however although much effort was made to cover the required work during long 10-hour days, ideally this course should be a 2-week course. The course environment is interactive with Dr Safarian using his wealth of experience to teach the course, intermixing varied industry examples from the military, civil and general aviation fields. The course uses conservative factors and assumptions together with a significant amount of data (supplied) and references needed to support reverse engineering techniques used to conduct Damage Tolerance evaluations of the fuselage pressure boundary. We would recommend students have an a appreciation of NASGRO or other DT software prior to taking the course. The course has helped us in our discussions with other organisations regarding repairs and STC’s in addition to enhancing our in-house DT capabilities. We would recommend the course to other airlines.
– Phil Ashwell- British Airways
I have taken many short courses and generally I was disappointed – the instruction in week long short courses usually are so high level that you have to wonder if the instructor is a subject matter expert or not. These courses often gloss over the details and leave you with little practical experience and do not develop the student to an extent that justifies the cost. In Dr. Safarian’s Fatigue and Damage Tolerance class, this is definitely not the case. Dr. Safarian challenges his students and knows how to keep the students involved and interested. His use of in class discussions and home work and thorough (not to mention intense) lectures makes this by far the most useful, helpful, instructional, worthwhile class I have ever taken. If you are dealing with fatigue and damage tolerance of aircraft structure, this is a must take class. You and your company will find the expense and time to be well worth the investment!
– Mark Ofsthun, Structures DER- Associate Technical Fellow Fatigue and Damage Tolerance Focal Spirit AeroSystems
Dr. Safarian is an outstanding instructor. He communicates very well and provides the information in an atmosphere that is conducive to learning. He keeps everyone involved making certain that the information is understood. He encourages discussion. As a result, he is providing real-life stuff that needs to be used in the analyses to comply with part 26. Damage Tolerance DERs make presentations about how they do their work, including a brief lecture on NASGRO.
– Gary Park, FAA, Aircraft Certification Office, Small Airplane Directorate, Wichita, KS
Patrick Safarian is a great teacher who taught the course with passion flavored with good experience accumulated over many years. I will send more engineers from Jamco to future seminars.
– Atuo Sato, Jamco America, Kirkland, WA
Before taking this course my knowledge of damage tolerance (DT) analysis was superficial at best. Being part of an airline that operates in FAR 121 environment, the need for knowledge of this subject, especially with the recent aging aircraft safety rule is huge. This week long course was very intense and demanding, however it provided me much needed hands on knowledge and tools that DT no longer intimidates me! As an airline engineer now I am able to accomplish basic DT analysis, and for more complex problems I feel comfortable to work with a mentor to develop inspections using my new acquired skills. Additionally, my ability in evaluating or hire DT firms who can accomplish DT analysis for repairs or alterations has improved greatly. Just after taking this course, I reviewed the DT analysis for a third party STC my airline wanted to purchase. Because of what I’ve learned in this course I understood all the details of the analysis, and was able to determine which input assumptions were conservative or accurate, whether the crack growth analysis was appropriate, and most importantly, if the output of the analysis was garbage or good data and worthy of purchasing (the old adage of garbage in = garbage out applies here). In conclusion, I like to state that as a result of this class I am much better able to manage compliance to the recent 14 CFR 26 and 121 rulemaking for my airline. Students won’t want to miss a word of the knowledge that Dr. Safarian and his guest speakers will provide.
– Gregg Pattison – Delta Air Lines – Sr. Principal Structures Engineer
I am happy that I have taken this course. I have worked in the aviation industry for several year and as Structures DER, with major repairs and modification delegation, since 1992. I have also performed and collaborated on DT analysis on a few projects. But, this course has nevertheless given me fresh perspective on Fatigue and DT issues and new light on structural safety. It really helped and reinforced my knowledge and what to expect when reviewing structures data. I enjoyed your style of teaching. I think the class is very rich in material and your enthusiastic presentation get the point across. You are an energetic speaker and have the ability to take “cut and dry” material and make it lively. You made us feel relaxed (un-intimidated), because you answer our questions with equal vigor, whether it is something simple and obvious or complicated. This is a rare talent, because knowledgeable “expert” usually don’t have the patience to answer seeming “trivial” questions. But, that is how we learn. Last but not least, from my experience, the best way to teach people and have them retain a lasting impression is by giving real-life example and “practical” exercise. You have given the right mix of examples and exercises in this course that reinforced the course fundamental and exercised practical technique, not some exercise that is impossible or tedious to perform (which is the biggest attention turn-off in learning). Your course material is well organized and the text book by Schijve is quite a good choice. It is a very appropriate, readable, practical and primer textbook for the course. The course material and the reference materials you passed out in this course alone is worth the course fee! Imagine the amount of research time it would have taken us to compile all that and the access to the info. I highly recommend anyone in aviation industry to take this course. If they’re looking to receive a balance of academic, practical application and acceptable to regulatory agency course in fatigue and damage tolerance, this is the course.
– Everrett Chow, Structure DER