When the fire alarm system protecting one of the world’s largest commercial aviation maintenance bases reaches the end of its life, replacing it isn’t just a facilities project — it’s a mission-critical undertaking. For our client, that meant finding a partner with the expertise, patience, and local knowledge to modernize a complex, campus-wide system without interrupting the round-the-clock operations that keep a major airline running.
About the Client
The client is a major U.S. airline, operating nearly 1,000 mainline aircraft across an extensive global network. With over 3 million square feet of hangar and shop space and thousands of team members working around the clock, the facility is widely recognized as one of the largest commercial aviation maintenance bases in the world.
The Challenge
The maintenance facility had been running on a Spectronics fire alarm system installed in the 1980s. It was cutting-edge for its time, but after four decades of continuous use, the system had aged out. When the manufacturer went out of business, sourcing replacement parts for repairs became increasingly difficult. It was time for a modern replacement.
But upgrading the fire alarm system at a facility this size is anything but straightforward. The installation partner would need to navigate a uniquely demanding set of conditions:
- 24/7 operations: The facility never shuts down. Every aspect of the installation had to work around active maintenance operations without interrupting them.
- Multiple layers of safety compliance: The project had to satisfy local fire codes, Summit’s safety protocols, and the airline’s own stringent internal safety standards.
- Sheer scale: The project demanded a team capable of managing a complex, multi-year project across a sprawling, continuously active facility.
The airline also had a clear directive: reuse as much existing wiring as possible. Pulling new wire through a massive facility that never shuts down would have meant significantly more time on-site, more conflict with active maintenance operations, and greater overall disruption to the facility.
The Solution
Summit brought deep local experience to the table — and patience. Before a single device was installed, Summit spent two years working closely with the airline to price and configure the new system, evaluating different approaches until the right solution at the right cost was agreed upon. To inform the process, Summit even brought on the engineer who had originally installed the Spectronics system back in the 1980s as a consultant — an extraordinary resource who understood the facility’s existing infrastructure from the ground up. Once the project was awarded, Summit collaborated with a local engineering firm to confirm device placement throughout the campus, then conducted full system design in-house, determining panel configurations, power supply requirements, and wiring layouts based on the engineers’ specifications.
Critically, Summit built circuit investigation time directly into the project scope — a dedicated effort to identify and qualify as much existing wiring as possible for reuse, reducing time on-site and minimizing disruption to active maintenance operations.
Executing a multi-year installation in a facility that never sleeps required more than good planning — it required the right people. Summit’s highly trained technicians worked safely, efficiently, and flexibly within the airline’s demanding operational constraints, keeping the project on track even when bay access was lost without warning and schedules shifted overnight. That kind of disciplined, responsive project management — sustained over three years of daily on-site work — is what allowed a project of this scale and complexity to get done.
The Results
The maintenance facility now has a fire alarm system that delivers a suite of modern capabilities that make the facility safer, smarter, and easier to manage:
- Notifier Inspire Series Panel — A fully addressable fire alarm platform capable of controlling chemical and fire suppression systems. Every device on the network has a unique identity, so when something triggers, the system knows exactly where.
- Self-Testing Smoke Detector Heads — One of the standout features of the Inspire platform, self-testing detector heads are a significant operational upgrade over the old method, which required technicians to physically visit every single detector head and manually spray it with a can of smoke — a tedious, time-consuming process across a facility with hundreds of devices spread across millions of square feet. Now, the entire test can be initiated from a platform, saving considerable time and labor on every annual inspection.
- Graphic Workstations — Three workstations installed at security and maintenance locations across the campus display facility blueprints with color-coded alerts, pinpointing the exact location of any alarm, trouble, or supervisory event in real time. In a massive facility where different departments sometimes use different names for the same spaces, that shared visual clarity is invaluable for the fire department, maintenance teams, and security personnel alike.
- LIOS Fiber-Optic Heat Detection — Unlike traditional point detectors that monitor a single spot, the LIOS system runs a continuous fiber-optic cable across the ceiling of every bay, sensing temperature changes along its entire length. Any rise in heat — anywhere along that cable — is detected and mapped to an exact location. In hangars large enough to house multiple wide-body aircraft, that kind of coverage and precision is a fundamental upgrade over what came before.
What began as a complex, multi-year effort to replace an aging system in one of the world’s most demanding facilities has resulted in a modern, fully integrated fire alarm infrastructure that will serve the airline for decades to come.
Do you have a fire protection or life safety project that requires deep local expertise and extensive experience navigating the ever-changing regulatory landscape? Summit can help you bring your facility’s aging fire protection systems up to date, no matter how complex. Find a Summit Fire & Security team near you.