Operational Loads Monitoring System (OLMS)

The U.S. Forest Service is contemplating the issuance of a Request for Proposal (RFP) in the near future for the purchase of Operational Loads Monitoring System (OLMS) equipment and installation on aircraft involved in aerial firefighting for the purpose of determining aerodynamic operational loads experienced within the low level fire suppression environment. The purpose of this interest announcement is to obtain market research on interested vendors and the business size standards of the interested vendors. During firefighting operations the workload for both the air and ground crew is quite intense. Therefore, the recording system installed on these aircraft must rely on minimal intervention by the flight and/or ground crews for data acquisition, supplemental data collection and merging, and finally the data transfer to the Forest Service contracted server on which the Library Database resides. Operational Loads Monitoring System (OLMS) Requirements. An OLMS is comprised of all equipment required for recording to acquire, record and transmit required parameters experienced by a firefighting aircraft during flight operations; a basic "heavy" system would have the capability to monitor a minimum of 66 Parameters that are identified in Table 1. A "light" system would have the additional capability of monitoring 40 parameters as identified under Table 2. A camera OLMS shall be able to meet or exceed the parameters listed under Table 3. - All material and components shall meet or exceed appropriate aircraft specifications and be installed by appropriately rated Federal Aviation Administration entities. - Sample data shall be furnished to ensure compatibility with data requirements in the Forest Service operational loads Library Database software solution supplied by nCode International under contract to the US Forest Service. - The OLMS Recorder shall have the capability of recording up to 100 flight hours of data to removable memory media, i.e. SD card, and store up to 200 hours internally. - Desirable System Attributes o Crashworthy data storage. Period of Performance will be a base year with four (4) option year renewals. Interested vendors wishing to participate in this market research are requested to provide the following information in response to this announcement: COMPANY NAME COMPANY ADDRESS COMPANY POINT OF CONTACT BUSINESS TELEPHONE NUMBER BUSINESS FAX NUMBER SIZE STANDARD OF COMPANY TYPE OF BUSINESS NOTE: DO NOT send proprietary or pricing information in response to this announcement ? Provide the requested information in writing, by 3:30 PM April 25, 2014 to the following address: National Interagency Fire Center U.S. Forest Service Contracting, Suite 1100 Attn: Mr. Robert Hoffman 3833 South Development Avenue Boise, Idaho 83705-5354 The submission of this information does not obligate the Government to make a purchase as the market research information will be used for planning purposes only.