Originally Posted by
Rotorbee
Geez Robbie, good question. You'r in deep sh*** there. How high are you over the roof top? Can you avoid crashing on the rooftop by using Vuichard by going sideways? Rather crash on the roof top and not falling of it?
Do you have power left or is the RPM already decaying? Why are you downwind anyway? Obstacles? Probably you shouldn't have tried that approach in the first place. That would be the right solution. Planning and avoiding.
No really, can't say I would know.
Its from video footage of an R44 accident they show at the Robinson Course. They were downwind to get the best angle for a photo shoot (they were the ones being videoed making an approach to the roof of a new hotel).
They hit the roof hard, slid across into dynamic rollover and fell off the other side. Everyone died. Its assumed the pilot didn't realize he was in vortex ring, plus this was long before Vuchard was a thing in the Robby world.
They attributed it to the vortex ring state (as at one point you can clearly see the rate of decent increase significantly) yet they still appear to have forward momentum.
We always practice the recovery from a HOGE into a vertical decent, so it got me wondering if this new sideways hop would still work if you had some forward momentum?