DB
Only just caught up. Appreciate your extensive reply and certainly food for thought. My world is SP in light IFR twins and I've never flown anything like a 12t heli.
Certainly have to respect your experience and judgement in this area and can see that as you say, the sheer inertia of 12t could make recovery from UA a very different deal from a 3t heli. But what happened in the days of presumably pretty simple old S61s? Were they equally hard to sort out from UA?
The Sumburgh and this Cougar incident, and pprune posts from them, have certainly had me thinking. I've already modified my IFR let down profiles to allow more time to stabilise and refine upper mode use. And today I experimented with engaging GA at too low a Tq and see what's involved in taking over by hand once the VS and AS were plummeting. Got to say, even though I knew it was coming, I was surprised how slushy it was and how long it took to regain attitude and a sensible profile. Maybe I was verging on VRS, even though Tq low. I was certainly relieved I was experimenting at a reasonable altitude.
Moral being, don't let it get there in the first place. Which, in IMC, is back to the importance of being right on top of monitoring all key parameters and immediately addressing any deviations.
Last edited by rotorspeed; 13th Sep 2013 at 22:17.