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Aviation engineers improve flight safety and helicopter availability
29 October 2024
Engineering experts believed they have improved the safety of naval airpower – and cut repair times for front-line helicopters.
The team at 1710 Naval Air Squadron, located in Portsmouth Naval Base, perform a unique service for the UK armed forces, providing specialist engineering support to helicopters operated not just by the Fleet Air Arm, but also RAF and Army Air Corps.
Their latest two initiatives will benefit naval aviators and ground crew especially, starting with an app which should improve safety across the board.
Led by Chief Petty Officer David Shears and developed by Leading Hand Eathan Dart, 1710 have introduced the app to help process the hundreds of reports submitted following incidents during flights or found during maintenance on the ground.
Squadrons currently file a Defence Air Safety Occurrence Report to the Royal Navy Flight Safety Centre outlining how the unit feels flight safety was or could have been degraded during a particular incident.
The reports cover anything from human error to mechanical failures, maintenance, weather conditions or other external factors which may have impacted on the safety of the crew/aircraft during a particular sortie.
Reports come in from more than two dozen squadrons and units, spanning not just major front-line formations such as the Merlin Mk2s of 814 and 820 NAS or the Yeovilton-based Wildcat squadrons, but also air traffic control towers, the dedicated drone unit 700X NAS, even the vintage aircraft of Navy Wings such as the Swordfish and Wasp.
The centre receives well over 1,000 reports a year, each of which has to be sifted through and assessed before recommendations are made to the correct authority and guidance given to help prevent repeats.
Thanks to the app – known as POFU, or Post-Occurrence Follow-Up – reports can be analysed/processed electronically, speeding the process up, freeing up safety centre personnel for other duties and, above all, enhancing flight safety.
The app also empowers individual units to generate bespoke reports which highlight their specific issues, providing a tailored approach to addressing and resolving safety concerns.
Meanwhile the squadron’s repair department's I-Beams project, led by CPO Tom Hone, has cut the repair time to critical I-Beams on Wildcat helicopters operated by 815 and 825 Naval Air Squadrons from 16 to just eight to ten weeks.
I-Beams support the main gearbox, serving as a primary load-bearing component that transmits essential flight loads into the helicopter’s structure.
Given the demands placed on this structure, any damage requires a precise and durable repair to maintain the helicopter's flight safety and structural integrity.
Hitherto it’s required extensive off-site servicing, but thanks to advances in repair processes and protocols, that’s been cut – and with support from the Portsmouth-squadron, engineers at Yeovilton have been trained to conduct the complex task.
The result has been upskilling for the Wildcat engineers and a drastic impact on helicopter availability.