Building on its Global Health and Usage Monitoring Systems (HUMS) best practice guidance, HeliOffshore has released type-specific guidance to support operators of the Sikorsky S92 aircraft. The annex has been developed by HeliOffshore’s System Reliability & Resilience workstream in support of the new software released by Sikorsky in January 2017.

The new tool provides multiple safety barriers to guard against anomalies in the Tail Rotor Pitch Change Shaft (TRPCS) bearing going undetected, as has occurred in a number of incidents involving the aircraft.

The new best practice guidance shows operators how to use the Sikorsky Ground-based Application Tail Gearbox Bearing Energy Analysis Tool as the primary HUMS software for monitoring the TRPCS Bearing. In normal circumstances, the tool captures data from the TRPCS Bearing every eight minutes when the aircraft is operating at level attitude, over 60 Knots Indicated Air Speed (KIAS) and when the torque of engines 1 and 2 is greater than 45%.

Developed in close cooperation with Sikorsky, the HeliOffshore HUMS team (led by Malcolm Garrington), has developed the new annex which institutes multiple levels of safety barriers that improve the ability of operators’ maintenance teams to identify potential anomalies in a more thorough and timely way.