Design For The Army Operational Environment

The Army operational environment has taken a significant toll on Army aircraft in Southeast Asia. Failures occurring on our aircraft are causing excessive costs for maintenance, spare parts, and logistics, and are resulting in low aircraft availability. The reason for excessive component failures is largely due to inadequate environmental design and test criteria used during the development phase of our aircraft. Component failure trends indicate that vibration, sand and dust, and the maintenance environment are the elements of the Army operational environment which are taking the heaviest toll. There is an immediate need for the aircraft designer to have available an accurate, quantified definition of the Army operational environment, not only for Southeast Asia but worldwide. The US Army Aviation Materiel Laboratories (USAAVLABS) has an approach to solving this very serious problem under the Reliability and Maintainability Program. Use of this approach will provide a better understanding of the Army operational environment for use during design and testing of future Army aircraft systems. This approach will also provide a basis for correction of some deficiencies existing on current-inventory aircraft.