Originally Posted by
DOUBLE BOGEY
On your second point...as always you find the sticky nugget at the bottom of the sweety jar. True, FSTDs generally will "Crash" if the NR exceeds a nominal number. In the real world, where the helicopter has already let you down, would it matter if the NR is oversped during the Auto or indeed the EOL? Answers on a postcard please.
On your second aspect, NR is vital at the Flare point I think we all agree on this. Too much.....I am not sure of this matters. Too little, well we can all understand that.
What I recommend is that the NR is at least 100% at the flare point. However, in my last FSTD sabbatical, carrying too much NR into the Flare, caused the FSTD to crash as the flare effect took the NR beyond the FSTD Crash limit. Negative Training???? Maybe. Briefing this out helps but its a feature of the last FSTD I worked on.
I asked for the crash NR limit to be removed for EOLs but was told "there has to be a limit" We learned to training successfully and live with it.
I would be interested on your thoughts on this though.
Crab;
A question I have asked many times, but no-one has ever come up with an answer that I have found acceptable. If the maths can prove its' a bad thing I'd really like to see the sums. I've long believed that an overspeed early in the manouvre has little relevance, lets face it when the aircraft is eventually down, it will already be carrying the damage that caused the auto in the first place, very few (real) autos leave the aircraft without the need for some serious buffing out and the ground recovery usually does some damage as well. Every FSTD I've ever been in crashes at an Nr overspeed figure built in by the engineers and I suspect that most pilots when first faced with the problem in the sim react the same way, lever down smartly, flare to best speed and on come the lights, red arcs and nasty warning bells and the screens go black. The sims all seem to like a drop on the lever, flare while containing Nr and then turn into wind.
The pilot in the Clutha situation was probably faced with the nightmare of rapidly dropping Nr, no speed to help get it back, night, startle, lots of ambient light and a dark patch and not enough altitude. I've attempted autos from the hover in the 135 (only in the sim) and it takes a very positive reaction when you know it's coming, let alone at night busy with plod taking a look around.
SND