Originally Posted by
Rotorbee
Where is a really smoking engine when you need one. To see the airflow around that ship would have been fascinating.
How to get VRS without descending? Something I really like to try. But let's think about it. In a very light ship, one should be capable to pull more and more power to stay in place, but the tip vortices could in this condition grow and have the desired effect. After all, there is never no lift. Could that be what happened here?
I would not try to do this purposely today. In fact I would actively discourage it.
Some of the stuff formerly normally done in daze of yore are now seen as, reckless negligence, dangerous and foolhardy especially by Lawyers, their evil spawn, ilk, minions and sycophants
It would never occur if you maintained even a very slow rate of climb once the customer had you in sight, some guys always did that .Sometimes the customer asked you to hover or even descend “on the dot”. It would not happen in a steady state hover if there was any wind to speak of. In the case I speak of I recall the following conditions were present. 0 wind, hover maintained for at least a minute with probability increasing the longer you sat there, very steady air mass with no or very little thermal activity either upwards or downwards. You would sit there happily pulling perhaps a steady 80 to 85 torque. once you got that “little flicker” on the VSI application of power only accelerated the process. When it entered VRS, which was not violent in any way but very abrupt with the VSI going to -1000+FPM in seconds. if you didn’t do anything except pull more torque the aircraft would just fall faster in the exhilarating vertical descent. You had to initiate horizontal movement to fly out of the vortex. Having at least your former hover power applied as you exited the vortex certainly helped stop the rate of descent ASAP as you flew back into good clean air.
I am told that they don’t even demonstrate fully developed VRS anymore in training. Much as they only demonstrate incipient spins in fixed wing. One had to be signed off in olden daze for full spins in order to get a private fixed wing licence and would be required to demonstrate competency during your check-ride.
NB Remember that VRS is not Settling with Power and can occur at very low gross weight.
. ( Now referred to as Mass for reasons known onto Gawd. I would have liked to be a fly on the wall at the long series of committee meetings where that earth shattering decision was made. “Gentleman, we must appear to be doing important things while in actuality not doing anything. We’ve beaten both the constant ‘Rad Alt Setting Changes’ and ‘change the font on the checklists to improve efficiency’ to death so it’s time change something else. Last year’s forbidding use of “Roger, Wilco, Over, Standby-One, CAVU, WOXOFF ” and other clear, concise but archaic terms was brilliant. Changing ZULU time to GMT and then immediately to Co-ordinated Universal Time was a stroke of pure genius. Any new useful but useless suggestions?”)