hi gang,
just called our chief flight instructor:
POH published power-off VNe is 100 kts for the R-44, same as doors off limit.
R-22 VNe general 102 kts ,no published power off VNe, so it is the same as power-on.
As metioned it is hard to press it a lot past 75Kts (R-22)
Vorticey: If you have to go down fast for any reason, like a cloud of birds (like a couple of thousand/cloud and then there are a couple of clouds on after the other...) - in eg a migratory area, the fastes way is at low or no power (speak - auto) and high forward speed. This is pretty safe as long as you keep rotor rpm in check.
The other way or a combination of both is a steep-turn(45-60 degree bank)-spiral, the faster, the bigger the radius, the easier the recovery (or should I say the less difficult...?). You have to be careful when you roll out and pull out of the dive - donīt over pull the cyclic - round it out nicely!! DONīT try either one the first time by yourself!!! Get the best CFI you can get hold off (the more hours the better!)!
You also can slow down and autorotate at 20-30 kts and recover early, but that means you have to wait some precious seconds to bleed off speed and enter an auto.
With the above you just lower the collective until Rrpm takes off and then roll off some throttle (donīt forget the carb heat...), so you can clearly control Rrpm and keep the collective at the lowest possible, meanwhile push the cyclic to accelerate to max speed possible before hitting VNe. You get a pretty good decent rate!
3top