Crab, I totally agree with you and SWP should have been used correctly, no argument there. I do understand you banging out about it and your commitment to flight safety. I never doubted that and I applaud you for it. And thanks in part to you, I do understand the difference of the terms. I was aware of the different flight conditions since being a student pilot, but the confusion in terms, only came to my attention, when I came back to Europe.
But I want to make two points for the general discussion.
One: The question is, what do we do now, since the "SWP" is now a contaminated acronym/term. Because it does matter, what overpitching/SWEP is called in the future, not to create another confusion.
For many European pilots, SWP is an US-term that the guys over the pond got wrong. Whenever I had this discussion, SWP was not used correctly, only that it is what we in Europe call VRS. Nothing to do with overpitching or running out of power. Therefore introducing SWP would be a new term for many pilots here and since many think that the FAA is a bunch of amateurs, it would dead from the start.
Two: The FAA is not a bunch of morons or amateurs (that is absolutely not against you, Crab, but I heard it too often and it annoys me quite a bit and I do understand Robbie, why he gets so fired up). In Europe many think, that in the US you get cheap training, therefore it is bad. Nothing could be further from the truth. That the cost of flight training is lower, has nothing to do with less work you have to do to become a proficient pilot. It is in part economics of scale, the way the US finances their system and the training philosophy. Whenever I had to deal with the FAA, I found them extremely helpful and they would do anything possible to solve my problem. One of them even called me in Europe to help me to get my CFI renewed, so I did not have to fly to the next FSDO (that was in the last century). He did not have to do it. I don't think, I would ever gotten that kind of commitment from any CAA in Europe I know of. I have only the highest regard for the FAA and their people and I think many European pilots, who have been trained under the FAA system, agree with me. You may think I exaggerate, but a Swiss pilot mocked US pilots in a newspaper recently for their training, since he/she was flying in the Alps and for US-pilots in Arizona(!) the highest elevation would be the pebbles on the edge of the runway. This opinion comes from FI's, mind you. No, I don't think I exaggerate, the general European pilot population does think, they are better than the US.
Not two weeks ago, I found an article (an lost it, if I find it again I will post it, I promise) that talked about the difference in helicopter accidents between Europe and the US. They asked, what can Europe do, to get to the level of safety of the US. Which means, our system isn't really better than the US-system. Something to think about.
I think, that the FAA did a good job, to kill the term SWP. That this does not solve the problem with the many more accidents overpitching produces and the FAA or the NTSB do not have a special term for it (or I don't know it).
That the FAA is not always right is also obvious (neither is any other national CAA). I don't understand, why they would introduce the Vuichard thing into the training hand book, without a proper investigation and flight tests. That is beyond me. But the hand book was always a very controversial subject. I talked about it with Shawn Coyle once and I agreed with him, it should be rewritten from the start. But are the EASA books better? I just stumbled over a German safety paper about, among other subjects, well you guessed it, VRS. Absolutely confusing and they use terms, which in German are associated with stall. There you have it. It isn't any better here.
PS: @Senior Pilot: I did not intend to abuse Crab, I just wanted to lighten the mood a bit, to get Robbie to tone it down, because I could see the consequences coming. Apparently I failed and I apologise for it. Now we have probably lost Robbie forever, which is bad. Over the course of this discussion, one could see, how he changed his opinion on the subject and that is, after all, the whole purpose of a discussion. Get more insight.