The heads of several US Navy and Marine Corps helicopter and tilt
rotor programmes see an opportunity to use data for better preventative
maintenance.
However, the USMC and USN are currently limited in
their ability to monitor and predict part failures within its fleet of aircraft
by a variety of issues, including lack of funding, limited aircraft sensors and
insufficient computing power, the programme managers said at AHS
International's Annual Forum & Technology Display conference in Phoenix,
Arizona on 16 May.
“Absolutely there is an interest,” said US Navy Capt
Craig Grubb, who manages the MH-60 helicopter programme. “The likelihood of
funding of putting something more in the aircraft then what we have today is
unlikely.”
He also noted that there are limited opportunities
to do prognostic, conditions based maintenance on the MH-60 fleet today due to
the current placement of sensors on the aircraft.
Other programmes are not limited by sensors, but by
the inability to make sense of the trove of data available to them.
“Our problem is, at least on the H-1 side, we’ve got
all kinds of data; we’ve got tons of data. Our budget hasn’t supported the
reduction of that data into [a] useful tool,” said David Walsh, programme
manager for the UH-1. “Until we can bridge that gap or industry can help us
through an automated AI system or something like that we are going to be
limited in what we can do.”
The Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey programme said it faces
similar problems.
These issues are front and center as the Marine
Corps adds its input to the Future Vertical Lift programme, said Walsh.
“That’s going to be one of our core tenants: How do
we take advantage of a HUMS (Health and Use Monitoring System) or HUMS-like
system?” he said, explaining the value in a hypothetical scenario: “That
bearing is going to be dead in 30h, so at 25h the bearing is going to be on
your doorstep. You can install it [and] you’ll be good to go.”
(Evangle Luo of TTFLY shared with you)
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