Epidemiology of Helicopter Battle Damage

The US Army has over 400 aircraft deployed in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom (OIF/OEF). That includes an array of fixed and rotary wing aircraft that spans the mission areas of attack, reconnaissance, utility, MEDEVAC, intelligence gathering, cargo and troop transport. This fleet of aircraft is employed and maintained in the fight through a combination of unit rotations with equipment and a select Stay Behind Equipment (SBE) with new units rolling in on existing equipment. The lifecycle maintenance and repair of aircraft includes all echelons of maintenance operations including unit level, intermediate, RESET operation back at home station and depot. This lecture series explores the maintenance practices, procedures organization structures and special maintenance programs that have evolved to maintain a large aviation fleet in combat overseas and effectively deal with battle damaged aircraft. There is no definitive single source of data that exists in the Army that integrates all sources of damage repair information across all elements of the Army. The presentations will also look at the equipment and TTP's that have been employed to mitigate causal factors contributing to aircraft damage. A measure of battle damage and the impact on Army Aviation fleet is the statistics for the aircraft Crash Damage Repair program at Corpus Christi Army Depot. Through the Crash Damage Repair program, aircraft are rebuilt from the fuselage up. There are many causes of battle damage to aircraft and those causal factors are dynamic with time. This paper categorizes damage types and causal factors for aircraft battle damage and investigate the mitigating factors for each of the factors. Battle damage has been assessed in terms of numbers of occurrence, rate of occurrence and causal factors. The effects of current operations in OIF and OEF have been discussed and the mitigating factors employed to date and potential new technologies have been discussed. See also ADA564486, Battle Damage Repair Techniques and Procedures on Air Vehicles - Lessons Learned and Prospects, a Lecture Series under the sponsorship of the Applied Vehicle Technology Panel (AVT), RTO-EN-AVT-156. The original document contains color images.