DESIGN FEATURES OF HELICOPTER HANDLING SYSTEM TO MEET THE OPERATIONAL AND SURVIVABILITY REQUIREMENT OF THE ITALIAN HORIZON FRIGATE

摘要

The embarked helicopter onboard the Italian Horizon frigate is one of its essential assets for meeting the critical missions of such an advanced ship. The capability to launch and recover the helicopter under all ship operational conditions is an important key in defining the helicopter handling system requirement. The requirement is also established based on the necessary safety level for personnel and helicopter during all phases of onboard operation. In this paper, the top level operational and survivability requirements of the Italian Horizon frigate are presented. The process to flow down the requirement to the subsystem level is discussed and applied to the helicopter handling system. The ship motion, manpower and cycle time are considered among others to be the main factors affecting the design of the handling system. These factors are analysed and show how they influenced the system design. Samples of the severe ship motion and the associated helicopter securing loads and their dependency on ship heading and speed are presented. System layout and location of equipment and operator are addressed. Examples of the equipment unique design features are shown and discussed.