Nick Lappos:
thanks for relaying how Bell would explain this, but I am not buying it. That explanation is interesting for two reasons:
1) If the aircraft spins around and the pilot is not using full pedal, we call that "pilot error" because that is why we put the controls in the aircraft. To call it a type of LTE is silly, because you must use the controls for them to work, at least until we invent FBH (Fly By Hope, where the pilot's Hopes are turned into control inputs.)
You know, Nick, for a guy who disparages one particular helicopter model so much, you obviously have very little if any time in a 206. (Then again, I've never had cancer, but I know it's bad.) When a 206 pilot encounters what I call "classic" LTE, no amount of pedal-jabbing will immediately stop the yaw. It literally spins like a t/r failure until that prop in the back can get a "bite" again. If you wish to call this "pilot error" that is, of course your choice.
Conversely, if the pilot has his left pedal depressed all the way and persists in whatever he's trying to accomplish, he should be rapped soundly on the wrists and be made aware that he is now being paid as a test pilot. If he then allows the nose to yaw
without an immediate reduction in torque, and further allows the yaw to wind up into a spin, then that is indeed pilot error.
Yes, the early 206 tail rotors were probably not as powerful as they "should" have been. But it's that dang fin- extending both above and below the t/r hub. It just blocks too much of the inflow, I guess, especially when the t/r needs it the most. Not surprising, is it, that Agusta drastically reduced the size of their fin and even Sikorsky "trimmed" the fin on the vaunted S-76B? Or was it because Big S decided that the '76 really didn't need all the "extra," superfluous, more-than-necessary yaw stability provided by that big, fat fin?