Anyone ever got LTE in a R-22 before?
I ask, because I got into it a couple of weeks ago taking some photo's with my friend. Just above ETL, but then let it get into ETL, wind blowing at my 8 O'clock. I kindly introduced it to my R-22!
I yawed to the right, 780 degrees in about 2 seconds! Stomped on that left pedal, pulled a bit a pitch, got the low rpm horn, lowered the collective now, and nosed it over to fly out of it, took 2 tries to nose it over, all the time yawing back and forth. Once I got to about 20+KTS, nose started to swing left, and then checked my trousers! The whole thing took about 15 seconds, but it felt like 3 min.!
I now am more aware of where the winds are, and I was able to get out of it, with small control movements. I think had I made some careless control inputs, I would have had to put it down on the beach, but I didn't. But I made the careless movement, of introducing LTE to the R-22! You definately learn something every flight, I did that day.