Please Allow Us to Introduce Ourselves
At our fall Helicopter Association International (HAI) Technical Committee meeting hosted by Bristow Academy in Titusville, FL, there was discussion of a survey to see how you, our HAI members, thought we were doing and to identify significant items that you would like to see us work on. After some discussion as to the best and most effective way in which to accomplish this task, we realized that many of you might not know that we even exist. For those that do, how many actually understand what it is that we are trying to accomplish?
The committee decided that we would use this opportunity to introduce ourselves and tell you what our purpose, achievements and future goals are before we ask how effective you feel we are.
As described on rotor.com (the HAI Web site), the Technical Committee actively supports technical areas of the helicopter industry. The committee facilitates dealings with government agencies and serves as HAI’s technical task force for reviewing relevant regulations and responding to proposed changes. The committee sponsors the manufacturers’ technical briefings at Heli-Expo and continues to encourage use of the maintenance malfunction information report (MMIR).
The Technical Committee meets a minimum of three times each year: the day prior to Heli-Expo at the convention, the last Monday in June at HAI headquarters in Arlington, VA, and at a committee member meeting in late October. In addition to these three meetings, various teleconferences or working group meetings might take place throughout the year. The committee also receives the support of a number of special advisors and subject-matter experts for specific initiatives that might be in the works.
In accordance with the HAI-prescribed terms of reference, the HAI Technical Committee encourages the development of maintenance standards, technical standards and administrative standards for the improvement of safety and efficiency within the helicopter industry.
Some of HAI’s notable accomplishments include producing awareness videos to highlight our industry as a career choice for young people, initiating and facilitating FAA inspection authorization recurrent training sessions at the annual Heli-Expo, and establishing and awarding the annual Bill Sanderson aviation maintenance technician scholarships which awards numerous OEM factory maintenance courses to junior aviation maintenance technicians and AMP engineers.
Some of the current initiatives being worked by the Technical Committee include evaluation of condition-based maintenance (CBM) in commercial helicopter operations, review of standardization of health and usage monitoring systems (HUMS) processes and nomenclature, and the development of a structured FAA A&P apprenticeship program standard for HAI membership organizations.
We hope that this introduction and description of our role as a committee is helpful to you. We look forward to receiving your feedback on how we are doing, as well as your ideas on items that we could work on and that would be of value to HAI membership. We are currently evaluating a variety of survey methods to identify the most appropriate venue and we plan to have a finalized process in place in the near future.
We look forward to continuing to serve you on behalf of the HAI.
For more information about the HAI Technical Committee, visit www.rotor.com/AboutHAI/Committees/Technical.aspx