Powers family on vacation in Rocky Mountain National Park GPMS HUMS
He left his Airbus sales career in May 2022 to come to his current position as VP of sales at GPMS. Why move away from a secure OEM career to GPMS? Powers answers with several reasons:
“For years, I had been telling anyone who would listen that health and usage monitoring (HUMS) was going to be the future of aircraft maintenance. Instead of taking an aircraft out of service and taking it completely apart to inspect because a maintenance manual written back in the 1970s said it was time to, we were going to come to the day when the aircraft itself told us it was getting sick. That day is here with GPMS’ Foresight MX technology. We can now thoroughly inspect an aircraft 24/7/365 without taking a bolt off. It’s as if the aircraft is getting a colonoscopy every day.”
His enthusiasm for the GPMS product line is further fueled by his pilot experience. “I’ve got almost 10,000 flight hours in my career and I never had the detailed analytics that HUMS provides. I just blocked thoughts out of my mind and trusted that the aircraft was airworthy based on mechanics and manuals.
“I didn’t have real-time data on the aircraft I was flying that we can now provide to pilots and mechanics.”
He also believes HUMS technology will improve communication between
those
pilots and mechanics. “Usually, there’s a language barrier between pilots and mechanics. The average pilot tosses the keys to the mechanic and says something general like, ‘It’s vibrating.’ HUMS helps bridge that barrier by giving mechanics the information they need,” he says.
Finally, Powers says aviation has been good to his family that includes three college-age and older daughters (the youngest just graduated high school). He enjoys playing the golf course he lives by. He wants to see the helicopter industry stay economically viable for future generations, and he’s concerned the current business model is breaking. “I also came to GPMS because I think our current system of sending aircraft back for $700,000 to $800,000 overhauls is not economically sustainable. The cost and revenue are going to start intersecting. That’s going to happen in the tour industry in approximately 2028 and the HAA operators are probably close to that point now, whether or not they admit it. You can’t sustain an operation when your costs exceed revenue, and there comes a point when you cannot pass increasing costs to your customers.”
He concludes
You’ve Got a Friend his
reasons for
coming
to GPMS with a more personal reason. “Coming to GPMS has given me a great opportunity to visit all my old friends from my Airbus days and talk about something new. Now,
I can even go see the people
at Boeing in Seattle without wearing my Airbus shirt; that makes it easier to build a relationship,” he quips. “GPMS has given me the opportunity to make a whole new group of friends.”
The Powers enjoy an aerial tour of the Grand Canyon with Maverick Helicopters
16 May/June 2023
The industry he once spurned has found a friend in Todd Powers.
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