From Health and Usage Monitoring to Integrated Fleet Management - Evolving Directions for Rotorcraft

Historically, rotorcraft health monitoring has been concerned with the collection of caution and warning information along with rotor and drivetrain vibration information. This data is used to monitor vehicle health and support more efficient rotor system maintenance. Though such systems provide useful monitoring, they did not enable significant improvements in vehicle sustainability and readiness. Many systems have not allowed maintenance credits to be established, nor have they demonstrated improved vehicle readiness and availability. If modern rotorcraft health and usage monitoring systems are compared to modern airplane health management systems, it is can be seen that they have not had system architectures that allow dramatically improved sustainability goals to be achieved. This trend is now changing, as modern, integrated rotorcraft health management systems are providing significant platform sustainability improvements and mechanisms to provide comprehensive management of rotorcraft fleets. It can be seen that the progression of rotorcraft health management systems design towards those used by modern fixed-wing applications enables effective and useful fleet management. This includes the introduction of improved diagnostics and integrated information systems which efficiently automate not only vehicle maintenance needs, but also fleet management needs