On that spanish video, it would be interesting to say that on most Bell light helicopters in order to droop the RPM you REALLY have to exceed limits, for example on the 206 Jet Ranger, you have to probably reach at least 120% Torque before the RPM start to droop.
We had a pilot who hit a wire and had a "fight" with the wire that eventually broke and they flew away. The L model 206 had an Intellistart system that records all filght parameters when "events" take place, this guy had reached 130% torque and held it there for a while until the wire broke, if you look a the Intellistart graphs you can see that the NR had only drooped down to about 96 percent at first then started to recover to 100% even when he was appying almost 125% torque.
That guy in the video must have surely been at the redline or above when he began to transition to forward flight, it would have been wise to stop there and put it back down, he elected to continue and of course when he pushed the cyclic the helicopter tended to "dish out" and having the edge of the building in front of him he must have felt the urge to pull even more power with the known consequences. Believe it or not there are a lot of idiot pilots out there that make intentional use of the non-intentional torque limits during their day to day operations.
But of course maybe he just had a bad governor send one of his engines to idle or contaminated fuel or an air leak or a slipping freewheel, or . . . . . So many things could have happened.
One thing is for sure, on the video taken from the inside you can clearly hear the RPM start to droop as he transitions forward and towards the edge of the building, AND HE CONTINUES FORWARD, in my case if I have heard such a disconcerting noise at that point my inmediate reaction would have been to begin a silght backwards movement and make a right pedal turn back to the dirt, just from listening to the thing it was clear that he wasn't going to go far!
peachpilot,
Recovery technique? I think he just fought it all the way down, he made so many turns that I am sure that I am sure he didn't do what he should have done from the beginning, lower collective and push the nose down. I have flown the very same helicopter that spun, and I have had that nasty tail rotor bite me on several occasions, but when I knew that this could happen I was prepared, I mean that if I knew that I was heavy and this could happen, I would watch my wind and fly smoothly, then if I had to do anything that could cause LTE I didn't with plenty of room beneath me, but let me tell you, when the TR bites it does so quickly and you have to be ready to react in the correct sequence of movements with out delay, in this helicopter after the TR reaches its capability, you feel a quick jerk to the right which if you react properly by lowering collective and giving the cyclic a slight push should never go past 15 degrees, sure cameramen don't like it and get upset, but I don't even bother telling them what they just missed.
Last edited by BlenderPilot; 15th Dec 2005 at 17:44.