Bell Helicopter and AATD Advancing the State of Condition Based Maintenance

Released on Monday, April 07, 2008

FORT WORTH, TEXAS (April 7, 2008) -- Bell Helicopter, a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT), and the U.S. Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AATD) are advancing the state-of-the-art for Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) Technologies. The Bell team for this 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 advanced technology program is to 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.

"The first step of successful Condition Based Maintenance is collecting relevant aircraft data. The objective of this cost share program is to mature emerging sensor technologies and fuse them into an integrated CBM solution," stated Mike Blake, Bell's executive vice president of Customer Solutions. "This will greatly reduce the maintenance burden on our soldiers while enhancing safety throughout the fleet."

The overarching goal of CBM is to set in place maintenance processes, technologies, and capabilities that improve operational availability and reduce the overall maintenance burden. Some examples of the technologies Bell and AATD are developing are in the area of corrosion detection, electrical component prognostics, fatigue damage detection, and various rotor system prognostics.

"One of the most significant challenges of CBM is determining what data is really needed and how often," said Steven Woolston, Bell's director of Customer Support Technology. "The beauty of this program is that we will learn how to integrate and fuse this data to deliver a more efficient CBM system to our customers."

Bell will begin testing various elements of this system later this year with the program targeted to complete in 2010.