By Ann Roosevelt

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.–Intelligent Automation Corporation (IAC) said its advanced Health and Usage Monitoring Systems (HUMS) installed on Army AH-64 Apache helicopters is credited with accurately detecting and diagnosing impending tail rotor swashplate bearing faults in five Apaches.

Tear down analysis, conducted on the tail rotor swashplate assembly, confirmed that the extent of damage made it highly unlikely the swashplate assembly would have continued to operate without failing, Bill Lawler, IAC vice president of sales and marketing and company co-founder, told Defense Daily at the Army Aviation Association of America annual conference here this week.

In fact, the story was part of a senior leader presentation at the conference, relating how the HUMS pointed to a problem, which was found before a problem occurred.

This led to the Army Apache Condition Based Maintenance team configuring IAC’s advanced diagnostic algorithms to detect this subtle and difficult-to-find bearing fault. Then, using raw data from these bearing faults, new diagnostic algorithms to specifically target this fault were developed and deployed to protect the entire IAC HUMS-equipped Apache fleet.

Additionally, all existing Apache HUMS data, stored on the IAC Web Server, was reprocessed against the new tail rotor bearing diagnostic algorithms. This revealed four more Apaches had similar fault characteristics.

Tail rotor swashplates from these four aircraft were swiftly removed from service, inspected, and the faults were verified by tear down analysis.

The legacy AH-64 aircraft does not have sensors that monitor the tail rotor swashplate unless equipped with the IAC HUMS–known as VMEP or MSPU within in the Army.

“It is an honor and privilege to support the Apache program’s vision and commitment to provide our soldiers with the safest and most reliable aircraft in the world, IAC CEO Jeffrey Goodrich said. “This is another example of the collaboration between the Army and IAC that continues to provide our warfighters with demonstrated readiness, safety improvements, and workload reduction.”

In February, IAC’s advanced HUMS was chosen by Singapore’s Air Force for its AH-64D Apache fleet (Defense Daily, Feb. 25).

With over 500 operational systems, IAC diagnostic systems have been selected on nearly 1,500 military and commercial aircraft including all Army aircraft: Apache, the Sikorsky [UTX] Black Hawk, Boeing CH-47 Chinook, Bell Helicopter Textron [TXT] OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, the MD Helicopter MH-6 Little Bird and AAI Corp.‘s [TXT] unmanned RQ-7 Shadow.

IAC HUMS also are found on commercial helicopters from Bell, Eurocopter, Agusta and others.