Originally Posted by
Rotorbee
Good (please insert your preferred deity here) H500. Do you really want to trigger that discussion again?
...EASA has initiated a research program to find out what it is all about.
VRS (Helicopter Vortex Ring State Experimental Research)
Now we can lean back and wait for the results.
I have noticed topics of VRS and LTE seem to get some PPRUNEr's really worked up. I haven't yet read the old threads where these topics have apparently been done to death so perhaps not yet jaded by the topics.
I did read the link to the EASA VRS experimental study. It mentions "shall include an experimental flight test activity on at least two different helicopter types having different kinds of main rotor systems". It occurs to me that with all the fantastic scale model helicopters now available, complete with scale rotorheads and small gas turbines, experimental program could be conducted at model scale where risks to people are negligible (unless a model tumbled on their head in full VRS). Model mass dynamics as well as control system and engine responses 'just' need to be properly scaled. That should be possible as I have worked in a similar field of scale model testing, not aviation. A model test program (at least initially) should also permit a wider spread of helicopter types and load states (eg: rotor disk loadings) at a much lower cost. This doesn't stop subsequent (careful) verification of findings at full scale on a more limited number of cases.