Originally Posted by
60FltMech
I think arguments made about safety regarding NH-90 by politicians are an attempt to cover up the more relevant issues of reliability apparently faced by the ADF, which may be part because of the ADF maintenance system. From what I’ve seen, in US Army systems at least, serviceability issues are more often supply shortages and maintenance enterprise systems than the airframe or its components.
In other words, if you have no parts in your system(supply) or you do, but can’t order them (enterprise) that’s a problem.
Accident rates can only tell part of the story for particular airframes. Has anyone tried breaking down the accident rate by pilot error vs mechanical failure?
If that were to happen for UH-60 I think you would find a period where mechanical failure played more of a role than pilot error but I think that was a relatively short period, recent history shows pilot error being far more frequent. V-22 currently seems to show a design defect (Hard Clutch Engagement) that has caused fatalities, but other accidents historically were pilot error.
And just for clarity in this discussion, by mechanical failure I mean defective in design, which is really what is being argued regarding the NH-90(which seems to lack evidence), not accidents related to improper maintenance action, which is it’s own human factors issue.
As I said, I don’t know much of anything about NH-90 and have only spoken to one person directly that had operational experience with it in ADF service. He was a senior Loadmaster here stateside doing crew member training for UH-60M and when I asked him what he thought about NH-90 he said “I reckon I love it, it’s a good aircraft.”
FltMech
Flt Mech, good post. The “problems” with both the ARH and MRH within the Australian Army, speak more about the organization than the aircraft.
I wonder what excuses they will roll out when their serviceability for 60M and 64E fails to meet the promises?