Originally Posted by
Hot and Hi
Every pilot who does aggressive manoeuvres or quick power changes (e.g., as part of game management work) knows this and readily and easily overrides the governor as required. Again, it's a non-event. It is covered in the POM too and really easy to handle once you have experienced it.
Nothing wrong with flying the machine within the limits of its design as far as
RPMs go,
and loads. Is doing impromptu airshows a part of game management as well?
In AUS, the mustering raised the question of loads, and that was at the time put to bed, although the TR pitch link failures would suggest there is more to learn there. The reason the analysis of loads was done at that time was from
concerns that the unusual and relatively aggressive manoeuvers of mustering were quite different to those required to be covered under the certification.
If the game/mustering is routinely resulting in winding up the rpm over the limits then it might be time to put a recorder on the machines that are doing that, I used a South African designed and built system 12 years ago, a simple addition.
Originally Posted by
Hot and Hi
The real problem is that at least in my experience this is not taught during any flight training for PPL or leading up to commercial, as all flight training focuses on flying safe and conservative, staying away from the limits of the aircraft as far as possible. Many a R44 pilot would have been caught out unprepared the first time they experience it.
RHC's training syllabus includes flight without a governor as is appropriate. That demonstrates the effect of the yaw demand on the total engine power demand. That's the same as flying a H269, EN28, B47 in their normal "poverty pack" design, which is great for training too. An indication of good training is the ability to manage RPM without excursions.
Originally Posted by
Hot and Hi
In my view that is wrong and dangerous. You need to know how the handle the a/c at the limit so that you are trained, and current, on what to do if the unexpected happens (e.g., windshear on landing, turbulence, etc.).
Don't think that many people will argue against proper training, that is why RHC runs their safety courses. Flopping about the veldt miles away from RFF, around obstacles, over 3rd parties heads at a low level, where successful autorotations are complicated if not compromised seems to be a lousy place to do "training". Hot dogging may be fun, but potentially putting the next user of the helicopter at risk, putting bystanders at risk, seems to be questionable. The audio of this tape is able to determine whether in this case the engine, rotor, transmission etc were kept within limits. Someone with an interest in those questions from a safety oversight or liability view will probably resolve that.
But,
being "TIA",
maybe.....
The CP or owner's comments on the video would be interesting. If the pilot was the CP or owner, that also would be interesting.
The link to the local news headline has some other articles of interest about local aviation.
1. What happened at George in January? The 3 fatalities there, were they insursty or regulatory, curious on the experience levels quoted.
2. What was the 20 Y/O accident event with the C185 triple fatality, and what was the helicopter involvement in that case? That sounds odd.
The first flopping about that happens here on the far side of the pond is about 125' from the camera. Sound takes 0.11sec roughly to go across the area in between, roughly, its not standard atmosphere... its the bush at some altitude.
In the first of the turns, the RPM drops from almost exactly 102% to a shade under 99% (98.3%) and then a few seconds later get recovered to about 102%, still in the left turn. At that time there is not much doppler shift going on for the MR, in 6 seconds it shifts 9' closer to the camera. that's a +0.9% doppler shift from translation to the observer. The main frequency line is the exhaust harmonic to the main rotor blade rate (expected the TR line, but that comes later and is not the highest signal, and being a higher freq tends to fade quickly), and during that time the chopper is rotating relative to the observer and the exhaust signature shows that rotation. at the lowest and the highest RPM point, the exhaust is doppler high to the source, the rotor RPM is 98.3%, so the guvn'r is being defeated by the boot. using the same corrections the peak RPM reached is 104.9%..
So, in this case, it's the under-speed that was out of sorts, and the engine didn't quite beat the limit for the POH of 105%, except for the *** note on the engine, that intentional operation above max continuous is prohibited. (102%) So, the power on rotor limit is either 101 to 102^ but is almost certainly using the 99-102% normal range. Both the modest under and over-speed were either intentional, and breached the limitations, or were unintentional, and arguably didn't breach the limitations, just incompetence instead. Either way, it's not impressive.
Being kind, that is a modest excess twist of the throttle, it's not the governor's response... its doing a great job in spite of the klutz at the wheel (there was an excellent article on the governor response done some years ago, and the response is really neat. Was related to taking the RHC gov and putting it on an experimental helicopter, it's darn near dead beat in response to an error signal. The circuitry acts like a PID controller but does it in a curious way, 10 years since I read it last, so... anyway)
'IMHO"