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Old 4th Oct 2005, 13:32
  #429 (permalink)  
Flingwing207
 
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Denver, CO and the GOM
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Would it be better to explain the "overpitch vs LTE" in this fashion?

It takes a fixed amount of horsepower to keep a helicopter hovering. For any horsepower, as RRPM goes down, torque (as expressed about the rotor mast) goes up. This demands more thrust from the tail rotor to maintain heading.

At the same time, the tail rotor RPM drops, therefore demanding a greater AOA just to maintain thrust. So you have two factors demanding left pedal, and there's only so much left pedal...

However, for most helicopters, the tail rotor is able to effectively counter any torque the engine/main rotor can develop as long as you keep the RPM in the green (and under most flight conditions). So for most helicopters, "LTE" can only happen if you overpitch, and droop the RPM while pulling a lot of power.

A few helicopters (B206, H269A) can, with RRPM in the (normal) green, regularly produce more torque about the rotor mast than the tail rotor can counter. So even if you are doing nothing "wrong", at high power settings you can find yourself running out of left pedal because the tail rotor is incapable of sufficient thrust even when operating at full RPM.
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