Originally Posted by
Torquetalk
aa777888, I was simply talking about cost. The Robinsons are what they are and perfectly capable aircraft if flown properly.
Thank you.
The R22 is very light and there is very little energy in the main rotor and little authority margin in the tail rotor.
I disagree with the latter half of that statement. There is plenty of tail rotor authority in the 22, and the same for the 44 and 66. They all will work fine in a 30KN breeze. I'm told by other pilots they work fine in a 40KN breeze but that much wind is beyond my personal limits right now. Obviously one must fly carefully in such conditions.
The R44 is as different as it is similar. There is much more energy in the main rotor. R44s accidents are often performance related, with pilots clearly flying into situations which are just accidents waiting to happen. Many will have done a lot of autorotation training, but generally neglected the skills and knowledge needed to fly in performance limited situations. Exactly the kind of situations they are likely to find themselves in because it is a four seat helicopter, whilst training is generally done with 2 on board...
A very good point. Similar to
that being discussed in the other R44 crash thread. All that performance margin helps you survive training. Helps you right up until that very first flight with your newly minted pilot certificate and all the seats filled. I am very happy that the school I used intentionally included lessons at max. gross weight. The extra pressure and cat calls from the other students in the rear are also good training. Made another student airsick once as when it was my turn in the front the instructor had me performing "enhanced training in autorotation procedures", as SFAR 73 puts it. That was pretty funny!
I have also flown an R22 in high winds, but I think you need to be very careful about when and where and why you would do this. Also had LTE through sheer niavety in an R22. Might have happened in other light types, but I reached and passed a limit very quickly in that case.
What were the conditions when you had your "LTE" experience? Not to create a major thread drift, but a paper presented at the EASA Rotorcraft & VTOL Symposium 2019 entitled "The Myth of Losing Tail Rotor Effectiveness" makes some compelling arguments that there is no such thing as LTE and it is hard to refute the research. I have attached it to this post.
One of our fellow ppruners was killed ferrying an R22 back from Spain some years ago, encoutering CAT on the lee side of the Pyrenees in high winds causing the aircraft to break up mid-air. They clearly didn’t see that coming.
But Robinsons are not reasponsible for bad decsions to fly. At least one of the pilots involved was quite experienced in that case, but clearly failed to anticipate the danger. A counter example would be the Gazelle accident in NE England on a high wind day some years ago. In that case, it also involved a pilot flying in the lee of hills on a high wind day and completely lacking the skills and experience to be in or cope with the situation he put himself in. Nothing to do with the aircraft, he was just too cocky. Sadly not around to learn the lesson.
Thanks for another excellent post!