"First of all, I just copied that from another bulletin board - it wasn't me (read the post)."
Sorry about that. I thought you were re-posting something you had already posted.
"Secondly, it is a typical situation in the mountains, POH notwithstanding, and a 90 degree snap to the right is not what you want right then. It shouldn't be what you get at *any* time."
I'm not sure what mountains you fly in but where I fly the "V" limitations are exactly that. Anyone near gross weight that puts the pitch down, rolls the nose over and approaches an airspeed limitation, in anything but the smoothest air is asking for exactly what happened."
"When senior test engineers or pilots admit that it was a bigger factor than originally catered for, I would suggest it is something that ought to be fixed, n'est-ce pas?"
Who are these senior people that have all this Astar experience? Lu probably has never even riden in one. Lu knows lot about why helicopters fly but he knows little about how a helicopter flies. And Nick has already stated he does not have that much experience with the AS350/355 series. What I've been reading is that the pilots with considerable Astar experience are saying there is nothing wrong.
I haven't been fortunate enough to fly one of the new generation attack helicopters but every helicopter I have flown will exhibit "Jack Stall" if pushed past it's published limits. Which model do you consider immune?