Just a quick note.. everybody talking about engines, and cheap monitoring systems, anybody heard of a cheap monitoring system for a TRANSMISSION SYSTEM???? Do these cheap systems tell us much about what the aircraft was doing at the time of fault detection, like height, attitude, heading, Airspeed etc?? Granted all of the above are "nice to have" but...
HUMS can detect certain faults, I see it daily, and yes it generates false alerts too, its a learning process. Learn thresholds by aircraft type, learn from mistakes or missed faults new ways of detecting said faults. I admit its reactive at the moment, but isn't reactive better than inactive???
We are all quick (And sometimes justified) to put the boot into HUMS, but there are a few people out there trying to make it better, Nick and Chuck, you guys know that perfectly well.
HUMS is something which ought to be brought into the affordability range of anyone who wants it, and if through operator and manufacturer feedback we can make these systems what they should be, then maybe everybody would want them. Then again, affordable and reliable.. do I ask too much
