Engineers who maintain Merlin helicopters have saved £12m with what they call ‘a simple fix’.
The Royal Navy say here that by replacing just one part – not an entire complex piece of machinery – they will save time and money across more than 50 front-line helicopters, vital to Royal Navy operations around the globe.
“One variant of the Merlin is the mainstay of submarine-hunting and airborne early-warning operations, operating from the decks all major Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships, especially Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers. The other is crucial to supporting Royal Marines in the field, transporting commandos, equipment and casualties on the battlefield. According to the original maintenance guidance for the helicopters, written more than 20 years ago, the Merlins’ nose landing gear should be replaced when the aircraft undergoes maintenance after 3,500 hours in the skies.
The experienced team at RNAS Culdrose, home of the submarine-hunting and airborne surveillance model of the Merlin, the Mk2, questioned the need to replace the entire section: an expensive and demanding job. Each front set costs £230,000 in parts alone – but the engineers reckoned only one single pinion actually needed swapping.”
Captain Stuart Finn, Culdrose’s Commanding Officer, was quoted as saying:
“This is a first-rate example of how diligence, exceptional expertise and common sense have made a direct positive impact. They are to be commended for their innovative thinking. This ethos of empowerment, of taking responsibility and constructively challenging norms, is a cornerstone of what makes the Royal Navy global, modern and ready.”
What’s the chance the team get 10% of the savings as a Christmas bonus?
I’ll get mi coat!
That quote with all of the buzz words of the day…
Wanna bet Leonardo will be informed that their manual is out of date and replacing the nose gear only if the nose gear is severely damaged
Yep like taking your car to a car dealers for annual service and having everything replaced as per manual when in fact the cars been sat in garage due to covid for 2 years. (Farther in law). MUG….
It how the capitalist world works.
How many other millions are being wasted on other vehicles? So in life service contracts that’s say parts need to be replaced at huge cost and loss of vehicle readiness when in this case it’s just the retaining pin needs replacing? I’d be looking at every vehicle maintenance cost and asking the boys in the garage is this right? Can’t imagine this is an isolated case. It must also be the same for the rear landing gear aswell I’d presume. Yes inspection and testing befor replacing items is a must. So £12 million for the front alone the rear ones? Another £24 million for the rear? wonder what toy for £36millon a year saving the navy could by hmmmm a shiny new merlin helo with pilots. One for each of the 26/31s and a then some for the marines?
Many systems in the surface fleet where looked at as part of the introduction of RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) Much of the change it just in case work was binned saving millions. The actual failure rates of equipment is way lower than the manufacturers advertised numbers.
Things are a little different in the Air world where preventative maintenance is still king for obvious reasons…if something fails you crash and probably burn.
Yep totally agree but doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be questioning replacement of parts just because they are told to do so by a handbook when said part is found not to be defective. Has this new culture been rolled out across the other services?
And also a new wildcat then every 2 years with the £12million savings.
They don’t. Within the UK’s military aviation world on an aircraft, you have items that are classified as critical components, i.e. if something goes wrong with it, there is a risk to life, e.g. helicopter main rotor blades etc. These would have been given a finite life by the manufacturer say 5000 flying hours. However, in between this the item is given a service life interval, where it is inspected say every 250 flying hours, then at 1000 flying hours undergoes non-destructive testing such as X-raying. After every inspection the paperwork is analysed by a team of analysts, who will be looking for trends, such as cracks appearing in the same location, damage to the structure due to low level flying or excess loads etc. These will be presented to the manufacturer, who then has to justify the blade finite life. A lot of time the item will exceed the finite life, as the cost of a new blade is significantly higher than it is for the manufacturer giving it another 1500 hours.
However, it can also go the other way. Normally a helicopter does not have a finite/fatigue life, as it does not pull the same amount of G as a fixed wing aircraft. However, trials have shown that when the aircraft (helicopter) is performing fighter evasion drills or aerobatic manoeuvres for airshows, they can exceed 4.5g. This may not sound a lot, especially when compared with the Typhoon. However, the manufacturer did not include these G levels in their stress calculations. Which means the aircraft and its components will be penalised, necessitating the removal of flying hours from the component’s life to compensate for the increased stress, something called factored life.
There has always been a culture in the military to try and do things better. Procedures for equipment replacement are generally written by the manufacturer, who probably does not have first hand experience with living with an item of kit 24/7. People do get rewarded for showing that an alteration to a procedure can not only save time but also money. They are also rewarded for inventing a new widget that helps speed up maintenance or prolong the maintenance intervals. However the property rights will belong to the MoD and it also has to be agreed by the OEM, who if foreign will claim exclusive rights to the design.
Herbert Lott Book token for 25 quid if you are lucky.
I proposed an Alteration and Addition (A&A) to the Fwd Mezz deck on LPDs. It was implemented and improved the movement of ammo from the Mags to the LCUs and removed a lot of maintenance intensive equipment that was never used.
25 quid book token!
The quy who invented the ski ramp only got a pittance for the idea considering the number of nations who use the things nowadays.
I am reassured that we are still a nation of engineers not just bankers or politicians.
Hats off to them! I think they should be getting a good bonus, this is the type of excellence we want to foster. Passing them a % of the savings is a good incentive for follow on ideas.
Things like Ajax have been embarrassing and the MOD has to take some proportion of the blame. As I understand the trials were never without issue, it was optimistic at best to envisaged all those hulls being assembled would turn out okay.
Aircraft maintainer reveals the no.1 weird trick that aerospace manufacturers don’t want you to know!
Just think how much more money would be saved across the Military, If this kind of thing was ‘rewarded’ and kept ‘in house’, away from the swindling private sector, and the swindling ineptitude of government ministers on procurement committee’s!
The local Pompey Rag illuminates the above story with something of a different light:
As an engineer who flies, I would hope that the manufacturer has thoroughly tested their products and takes the best data available to determine their service life. Continuous improvement requires more data which only the operating maintenance organisation can routinely provide. So it follows that providing a major asset must include the full maintenance, repair and operations systems and processes with data provided back to the manufacturer. Thus the data shared and lessons learned should benefit all operators and the people who maintain, repair or operate. Commercial organisations have to manage risk both engineering and financial but with a rational process should be willing to work toward continuous improvement for the full lifecycle. That’s what being a trusted supplier means.
Slightly off-topic but interesting nonetheless.
“France has ordered 169 H-160M helicopters to equip all three branches of the country’s armed forces.”
https://www.janes.com/defence-news/defence/latest/france-orders-h160m-helos-for-armed-forces
And so is this! Didn’t we sell the tech/company to the USA in the first place?
US approves EMALS, AAG, sale to France
https://www.janes.com/defence-news/naval-weapons/latest/us-approves-emals-aag-sale-to-france
Someone’s been reading Portsmouth evening n News paper head line someone somewhere thought is a good idea too change the whole front landing nose wheel assembly at a cost instead of just the pinion pin Culdrose must have had the most expensive tyre tip going FAA crew kept doing this until 2 ex FAA boys noticed the the Airframe parts renewal ( flying hours) had been used for all parts of the Fwd Nose landing gear instead of the pin .What other little miscalculations can be found around maintenance of Fleet equipment ?
Been happing for 20 years someone has made a lot of Money and won’t be happy now.
I hope they told the RCAF too.