Sat, Dec 01, 2007
Bell Helicopter and the
US Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AATD) have signed
an agreement to develop and mature state-of-the-art Condition Based
Maintenance (CBM) Technologies. Bell's winning proposal for this
three year program includes risk sharing partners Honeywell
International and Goodrich Corporation, in addition to a variety of
internationally recognized universities, small businesses, and
consultants.
The purpose of this 50/50 cost sharing agreement is to develop
and demonstrate an integrated set of diagnostic, prognostic and
system health assessment technologies to support Army Operations
Support and Sustainment Technology (OSST) objectives and enable
transition to a CBM based philosophy, "Bell understands Army
Aviation's desire to move towards a predictive and proactive
maintenance environment and is committed to getting these
technologies to the Warfighter as quickly as possible," states Mike
Blake, Bell's Executive Vice President of Customer Solutions, "The
infusion of these technologies will reduce the cost of operation
while making the aircraft safer for our soldiers."
Currently, aviation maintenance is generally performed on time
schedules based on operating hours or a set number of days. The
maintenance may or may not be necessary, which can result in
unnecessary replacement of parts and expenditure of man-hours. The
overarching goal of CBM is to set in place maintenance processes
and capabilities that improve operational availability and reduce
the overall maintenance burden.
One of the underlying objectives of Technology Investment
Agreements (TIAs) is to harness emerging, commercially available
technologies and transition them on to DoD weapons systems in a
rapid fashion,
"It is a privilege for Bell to be partnered with AATD on this
program" commented Elaine Vaught, Bell's Senior Vice President of
Engineering.
"Our objective is to work with AATD to develop robust
technologies that will not only be embedded in future aircraft
designs, but will also be retrofittable to the Army's fielded fleet
wherever possible."
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