A New Approach to Helicopter Maintenance Development

Maintenance is one of the major expendiures in helicopter operations, so anything the OEM's can do to minimise these costs becomes important. Using Reliability Centered Maintenace (RCM) techniques on the Bell 429 has enabled Bell Helicopter to develop a maintenance programme, approved by the regulatory authorities, that is efficient and cost effective, while still maintaining the inherent safety of the aircraft. This philosphy has now been accepted by the rotorcraft OEM's as the way forward in the development of their maintenance programme on their new and future models.