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University researching copter safety upgrades

COLUMBIA, S.C. — University of South Carolina professors and students are trying to make military helicopters safer to fly and cheaper to maintain.

Since 1999, the school has received about $5 million in military contracts for research on a computer system that measures the vibrations of helicopters rotating parts. A vibration could indicate a part needs to be replaced or repaired before it fails in flight.

Chief Warrant Officer Eric Puette, a maintenance test pilot with the state’s Army National Guard, said the system makes his job much easier and faster. It ensures maintenance is done where it is needed, instead of a rigid schedule which may replace some parts too soon and others not soon enough.

“They can change only what component is actually sick,” university professor Abdel Bayoumi said Thursday, when the school officially opened the Condition-Based Maintenance Research Center, where testing began earlier this year.

The monitoring systems involve about 20 accelerometers mounted on each helicopter, which transmit vibration information to a computer. Installation began in 1999. In the first year, the Army saved $1.7 million in aircraft parts and 650 flight hours on 18 Apache and three Blackhawk helicopters in South Carolina, said Chief Warrant Officer Lem Grant of the South Carolina Guard.

More than 250 helicopters are now equipped with the systems, including 75 in Iraq, Grant said.

The University of South Carolina center is one of only two such Army testing centers in the nation. The other is at the University of Alabama at Huntsville.

The hope is that research at USC will further improve maintenance monitoring systems, but how much the school will receive in future military contracts is unknown, said Brig. Gen. Lester Eisner, assistant adjutant general of the South Carolina Army National Guard.