There is a general misconception in the helicopter manufacturing industry that their customers are the 'operators' which is unfortunate because many of us wish they recognised that in a major part of the marketplace their customers are in fact the companies that supply the 'self-loading cargo' and who have a duty of care to the same.
A while back I was a guest of one such (oil) company and took part in a video-conference and presentation with a Sikorsky team. Sikorsky were given the benefit of a presentation at the end of which it was suggested to Sikorsky (and other manufacturer's please note) that this particular (oil) company would be grateful if they took 10 kilos away from the disposable load and put 10 kilos of metal back into the structure of their helicopters.
Tell me if I am wrong but I think this particular customer was frustrated by the many years of living with structures and systems with sometimes extremely low damage-tolerance.
How does that old Nursery Rhyme go -
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
Sometimes I think the pressure on Weight Engineers exceeds their ability to understand the concept of damage-tolerance.
G.
