Moonshot
Greetings Deltahot, I remember you well from my days as a student.
Pat V was my instructor and although a hard taskmaster he instilled in me disciplines that lasted all through my career. As a 19 year old student there wasn't a sight more unsettling than to see Pat, in his lightweight green Australian flying suit and big "stomping" boots, striding towards the silent Whirlwind as I sat there surrounded by a litter of spent cartridges.
I was greatly saddened to hear of his death in Vietnam.
I shared your dislike of the height climb or "Moonshot", always shown on the flying programme as D18 with an arrow pointing upward.
When I returned as a QHI in 1968 I had all my "idiot cards" from CFS describing the various dual exercises, except of course for D18. So I copied all the salient points from the Instructors Manual.
I set off with my first ever student on D18 and during the climb managed to cover all the points: Temperature lapse rate, full throttle height, diminishing effect of controls, reducing volume on the throat mic etc. On reaching 10,000 ft any rate of climb we had remaining was probably more to do with the curvature of the earth rather than aircraft performance and Vmin and Vmax seemed to have coincided at about 40 knots.
Havings completed most of the exercises I came to the last two. Retreating Blade Stall and Vortex Ring State. I briefed Bloggs, took a deep breath and gently increased speed to 60 knots, initiated a right turn and pulled a little collective. The Whirlie immediately snapped left and I had to lower the collective immediately to recover a level attitude. I now had Blogg's full attention.
Trying to appear unshaken I gave Bloggs control and told him to set up a descent to a field we could see 10,000 feet below. As the sight picture inevitably steepened I told him to reduce airspeed to recover a normal "picture" The rate of descent started to increase rapidly so I told him to increase power. The dear old Whirlie started to roll, pitch and yaw and would not respond to cyclic input. I took control, lowered the lever and shut the throttle to contain the Rrpm. After a few seconds the pitch attitude responded to the cyclic and we regained airspeed and control. We were now at about 6700 ft.
"That's Vortex Ring" I said. Blogg's eyes like saucers.
With me desperately trying to appear unshaken, Bloggs flew us back to Culdrose where I left him to complete the shutdown while I stormed into the Instructors station. The Senior Pilot, Ted M-W was on duty.
Me: That D18 is bl***y dangerous.
Him: What's the problem?
Me: Retreating Blade Stall and Vortex Ring.
Him: You didn't demonstrate it did you?
Me: I did exactly what it said in the Instructors Manual.
He reached for a handbook from the shelf, opened it at the relevant page, placed it in front of me and jabbed his finger at the appropriate paragraph.
After all the other air exercises it said,
"DISCUSS Retreating Blade Stall and Vortex Ring."