Originally Posted by
SASless
Gordy makes an interesting point.....as probably it is far more likely to encounter this horrid life threatening aerodynamic situation during a landing approach of some kind where the descending column of air catches up to the helicopter and begins to move forward of it.
At which point the floor falls out from under you and down you go.
It can happen while hovering OGE as well.
How many ways is there to encounter it....count them best you can.
How about hovering IGE on a pinnacle and drift too close to the down wind side....might that be a way?
Mustering.....might also provide some opportunities for it to kick off.
I taught it much like Gordy....but put the aircraft into a known downwind situation at 3,000 feet AGL and then asked the Student to do as Gordy described except I asked for the victim to achieve a OGE hover as best possible on the desired heading (down wind) and indicated altitude.
Nature, the laws of aerodyamics and gravity took care of the rest.
Sorry....but no undies got soiled doing these maneuvers as sometimes it was very tame and others not so tame but the concern was more of realizing the controls did not have their full normal authority although they were still working in normal sense but not as one is used to them doing.
Exactly, when doing buckets on a 100’ line into the dip sites on cloudy days, you are on the edge of it all the way in the latter portions of the approach. I need pilots to recognize the incipient nature and make a cyclic adjustment without losing more than 20’ of altitude. It can be done, we sit right on the edge in training and go in and out of the start of it multiple times on one training event.