Coast Guard MH-60 Fleet To Be Equipped With Company's Vibration Monitoring System

The U.S. Coast Guard has awarded a $4.8 million contract to Honeywell for the installation of health and usage monitoring systems (HUMS) aboard its entire fleet of MH-60T helicopters. For the U.S. Coast Guard, the installation and use of HUMS is critically important and paramount to the success of its missions. Unscheduled maintenance events can cause mission aborts that are unacceptable in the life-or-death situations that the MH-60T is often called to support. The installation of Honeywell's Zing HUMS 1239 greatly increases the U.S. Coast Guard's ability to complete its mission and has the added benefit of helping reduce maintenance costs.

HUMS is a sensor-based monitoring system that enables preventative maintenance by measuring the health and performance of mission-critical components. By continuously monitoring vibration at numerous points throughout the drivetrain and pinpointing mechanical faults before they become catastrophic failures, HUMS provides actionable information that allows the Coast Guard to anticipate mechanical failures and make anticipatory maintenance decisions. Honeywell's HUMS products can be installed onboard or used as a portable system for rotor or fixed-wing platforms.

"U.S. Coast Guard MH-60T operators will now have key insight and information about potential mechanical issues before they happen, which will help them keep the MH-60T platform running and available when needed," said Brian Sill, vice president of Defense Americas Aftermarket, Defense & Space, Honeywell Aerospace.

The Coast Guard will use 42 Zing HUMS 1239 aircraft kits and 24 ground support kits, all of which will be delivered before the end of 2012, to monitor critical drivetrain components such as the helicopters' rotor shafts, making sure that the aircraft is ready to fly at all times. The data collected by the system is easily downloadable into a user-friendly ground station that allows operators to quickly see the status of all selected components instantly, without the costs associated with traditional contractor support.

(Image provided by the U.S. Coast Guard)

FMI: www.uscg.mil