The Key Facts of Establishing NH90 NFH Shipboard Operational Limitations

摘要

In general, the helicopter industry delivers a helicopter that has undergone elaborate test campaigns performedrnto demonstrate safe flight and to establish operational limitations. However, establishing the operationalrnpotential and limitations for safe shipboard helicopter operations is still considered national responsibility. Forrnsome reason, there are no regulations or standard procedures to establish the required ship helicopterrnoperational limitations and consequently it strongly differs between countries the kind of interpretation arerngiven. As it is assumed that each country aims for maximum operational flexibility of a particular helicoptershiprncombination, with minimum expenses and without any concessions in flight safety, this paper attempts tornsummarize the key facts of helicopter-ship qualification testing. This paper is specifically aimed at pilots andrnengineers who are involved in flight trials of helicopter-ship combinations as part of a complex flight testrnprogramme for which they are required to plan, conduct and report on ship helicopter operational limitationsrnwhich have not previously been cleared. So far, tremendous savings in time and expenses of helicopter-shiprnqualification test campaigns have been achieved in the Netherlands. The discussed helicopter-shiprnqualification testing methodology is aided by a predictive software tool, named “SHOL-X”, which eliminatesrnsubjective elements as much as possible to determine unambiguous operational envelopes used for in-servicernconditions in a world-wide theatre for many years to come.