Originally Posted by
Rotorbee
In the days, I had situations in the R22 where it started to spin with full opposite pedal, because the customer wanted me to fly very slowly with a (light) tail wind (Notice to self: learn to say NO when you are still young and alive). A bit of forward speed and everything was fine again.
Weird. S-300C AFM states something like hovering with wind from
all directions has been demonstrated for up to 17 kts.
Being the curious guy that I am I tested that on a 10-15 kts day, right on the apron, 20 ft below the tower and 25 yards from emerg. vehicles garage.
After all the LTE stories and wind azimut caveats I was very very cautious. Of course the smack at the fuselage when wind direction swung past 180° is impressive, but it was clearly hoverable in a controlled fashion.
Up to now I not sure what is wrong with tail wind or wind from 5 or 7 'o clock below say ~12 kts when hover taxiing.
I admit that looong ago I reversed for ~ half a mile from the training square to the gas station when nasty wind picked up to 20ish kts.
Felt stupid and looked inept for sure, but we didn't want to do a full circuit on low fuel.