Achieving HUMS Program Financial Benefits - 12 years of day to day HUMS operations on the CH-146 Griffon fleet

Over the years, the cost/benefit balance of Health & Usage Monitoring Systems (HUMS) available for rotorcraft have generated much debate, especially at the procurement phase of new aircraft. Currently, there is consensus within and outside the HUMS community regarding the safety benefits of having a HUMS system installed. The Royal Canadian Air Force worked in conjunction with the HUMS support team from Bell Helicopter Canada to establish the direct quantitative cost savings of running the HUMS program on their fleet of 85 CH-146 (Bell 412CF) Griffon helicopters. Accepting the safety benefits, the objective was to determine whether the cost savings generated by the program would offset the annual investment required. Using the HUMS database and the various military tracking systems, the number of events for which HUMS provided sufficient data to deviate from either a maintenance action or from a conditional inspection was compiled for a 5 year period from the beginning of 2008 to the end 2012. The total saving was conservatively estimated at $2.1M per year which definitively surpasses the annual investment required to keep the program running.