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Old 25th Jul 2001, 23:09
  #16 (permalink)  
Lu Zuckerman

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To: BIT

What you say is true. I did work on the EH 101 a long time ago but it was when the FMEA was being prepared. In almost every program I have ever worked on when the findings of the FMEA were included in the Safety hazards Analysis the whole thing is accepted and cast in concrete never to be changed. It should be noted that when I was on the program a Safety Hazards Analysis was not a requirement for the military end of the contract. Agusta I believe at that time was, as a part of the work sharing agreement would produce the civil variants. Per certification requirements for civil aircraft they had to prepare a Hazards Analysis and this was most likely done after I left the program if in fact it was done because the initial certification was done under RAI rules.

The purpose of the Hazards Analysis is to not only verify that the safety of the design meets the certification requirements it also Identifies single point failures that can cause death, Injury or, loss of the aircraft. This part of the analysis is keyed to the findings of the FMEA. If no single point failures are identified they will not appear in the Hazards Analysis.

If you read one of my previous posts I mentioned that a transmission lockup could cause loss of the aircraft and that with proper stress analysis of the loads on the dampers they could eliminate the problem. I mentioned this to the Agusta Dynamics department and they stated that they were going to demonstrate this malfunction using an A 109 transmission and rotor system. That was about a year prior to my leaving Agusta and the test had not been performed. I don’t know if it was ever performed.

After leaving Agusta I worked in the same capacity with the builder and designers of the hydraulic system for the EH 101 including the dampers. I told them about the problems with the dampers not being able to meet the stress levels imparted on the dampers during a lock up.
I suggested they contact Agusta and tell them. They adamantly refused saying that the last time they brought up a problem relating to an Agusta design the Machismo level at Agusta went up several orders of magnitude and Agusta ended up chewing out their collective butts. Agusta eventually made the change.

Nobody talked between departments and if an individual wanted to discuss a problem with an engineer in another department he had to be introduced by his department manager to the other department manager before he could get to the person he wanted to talk to. The entire program at least at Agusta was operated as if each department was a fiefdom within its’ self and it was unrelated to any other department even though there was a distinct relationship between the systems on the aircraft.

It was because of the above stated problems I suggested that the Royal Navy gain access to the FMEA and if possible the Safety Hazards Analysis.

[ 25 July 2001: Message edited by: Lu Zuckerman ]
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