The purpose of this standard is to provide a method of evaluating helicopter fuel economy which accounts for the significant technical variables in helicopter and powerplant design.
Rationale: AS1516 was issued in 1978 and reaffirmed in 1998.
Two terms for fuel economy based on payload v. fuel consumption are defined: Best Range Fuel Economy (BRFU) and Maximum Endurance Fuel Economy (MEFE). They rely on the flight manual complementary performance charts of maximum range and maximum endurance.
Section 1.1 (Purpose) should include additional wording that relate fuel economy to payload as a metric to compare different helicopters. While the full explanation is provided in section 3.2 (Quality Assessment) a lead-in statement of that purpose, before the definitions of BRFU and MEFE, will improve the information flow.
The engineering units (English and SI) are not defined for the defining parameters of speed and fuel flow, but only for the values of BRFU and MEFE. Their SI units (Newton-meters, Newton-hours) are incorrect.
