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Old 2nd Feb 2007, 09:32
  #7 (permalink)  
Arm out the window
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: North Queensland, Australia
Posts: 2,980
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Is this the same fella who was asking about the backwards autos?!

Just quickly, if you fly a quickstop into wind, you start at high speed, reduce the power and flare. With wind on the nose and a low power setting, you're not likely to be descending (I use the term referring to the relative airflow) into your own downwash, and therefore are unlikely to get vortex ring. When at the desired speed and approach angle, you pull power and lower the nose to smoothly join the normal approach profile, again not a vortex ring risk.

However, comma, if you decided to do this downwind, you may find that when pulling power in during the latter stages of the manoeuvre, the tailwind sets up a condition where you're effectively settling into your own downwash, and you're in vortex ring close to the ground and in a bad way. I believe this was cited as the cause of a UK military Puma crash where they picked the wind wrong and ended up quickstopping downwind with a resultant prang.
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