SATSUMA - in majority of these accidents the pilot has not reacted or attempted to recover from the UA. When the pilot does react the outcome is usually favourable, like the recent S92 incident. The copilot will have passed his OPC and I am sure UAs would have been on the menu. Our Canadian brothers are as regulated and professional as anywhere else.
I can think of only one case where attempted recovery has subsequently and horribly failed. That was the AS365 in Morecombe Bay.
No this problem is far more complex and insidious and it may be related to how we train for these events.
At present we generally ask the Pilot Flying to close his eyes and then set up the UA, he opens his eyes and recovers. In doing it this way we are not actually training him to recognise the most important aspect which is the onset of the UA.
By not seeing the full progression of the UA we are not practising the intervention skills and/or policy nor are we allowing the crew to develop coping strategies and the necessary airmanship, CRM and MCC to optimise his chances of reacting early enough in the sequence of events.
In this class of helicopter, a fully developed low speed UA, especially coupled with a high ROD is a horrible prospect for even the most skilled pilot. I know because I have been there. Twice. Luck, timing and skill and by far luck plays the greater part. By this I mean the you're lucky if you get one at 500 feet, unlucky if you get presented with the the same prospect at 100 feet.
The chances of recovery at this stage depend on whether the pilot runs out of luck, skill or altitude before he can restablish a ROC.
We have to recognise, that despite the intimation from some posters on this thread that their skills have thus far saved them from ever getting there, and this may of course be absolutley true for them, some extremely well qualified, skilful and highly respected pilots have not been so fortunate.
In terms of skillsets, if we accept that luck and height play the greater part, by far the most impactful strategy must be to develop skills that prevent the initial flight path deterioration in the first place. This may be an automation skill or a manual flying skill, depending on the AC at its systems.
To do this we have to get better at recognising the onset of a UA. We have to start practising our airmanship, CRM, MCC and intervention so that hopefully we develop a skillset to deploy, other automation or manual, that will manage these risks better than we are doing now.
The latest EC products do exactly this. The DAFCS actually recognises the early symptoms of a UA, loss of airspeed, loss of height, excessive ROC/ROD and automatically intervenes to restore a safe flight path. These are backstop hidden protections.
Any ideas from TRIs in this respect. Are we actually training for the wrong event here. Instead of putting our faith, and therefore our training efforts solely into recovery, should we be doing much, much more to enable the pilot to recognise, manage and intervene during the early stages rather than simply asking him to open his eyes and recover!!!
These skills re after all, the core fundamental risk management of a stabilised approach.
DB
Last edited by DOUBLE BOGEY; 13th Sep 2013 at 22:56.