Originally Posted by
Bell_ringer
It is obvious that trying to simulate a complete loss of a tail rotor would have limited value.
This accident has nothing to do with tail rotor loss, it was operational, from a drive perspective, control was impaired.
That is something that can be worked in a simulator, after all we can do that that in an actual aircraft to varying degrees, so I wouldn't write off time spent working on that scenario.
FWIW, fixed-pitch tail rotor situations are not necessarily easier to model. It is hard to determine fuselage and appendage aerodynamics, especially at varying airspeeds with increased yaw and roll angles. Data recording flights are generally limited to just the basics. And the interplay of factors (stability augmentation systems anyone?) makes any abnormal/un-measured situation a guess. Again, my experience showed that when pure engineering physics were applied, the situations didn't always work the way the manual read. Most fixed-pitch scenarios I worked on included varying degrees of tweaking in order to produce acceptable results.
All of this is exacerbated by something you may not be considering. The process of fine-tuning the flight model further distorts reality. Slightly tweaking one thing here, can have huge undesirable effects on something else. It could even result in unknown effects: things I lose sleep over.
For example, one aircraft I worked on didn't seem to have the yaw stability exhibited by the actual aircraft (or any aircraft for that matter). It would swap ends in cruise flight with insignificant amounts of pedal application. It was obvious some component(s) of the model were wrong. But how is the fix accomplished? Do you reduce the power of the tail rotor, fudge with the vertical fin contribution or fuselage influence, amplify the airspeed impact, or just increase the overall yaw stability factor? Et cetera. One avenue we toyed with resulted in a helicopter that no matter the amount of pedal applied it was incapable of turning in a hover. All of this contributes to the realism of the whole simulation.
Helicopter simulators might be closer to a unicorn than the real animal.