Listen Per, I wasn't referring to you specifically in my post...but if the shoe fits...
I've had guys tell me about what a terrible, weak, defective tail rotor the 206 has. To which I usually chuckle and ask, "Got much time in the 206, do you?" And then they usually shuffle their feet and admit that, well, no they do not. But they've read plenty!
Yeaaaah.
I see your 7,000 hours of combined f/w and r/w flight time, Per, that's very nice. 7,000 hours is a lot of flight time. Oh yeah, I've got 7,000 hours IN THE 206. I'm starting to get a feel for the aircraft.
Look, we know that helicopters don't always fly forward, right? Even though the fuselage may be stationary, it and the rotor may be "flying" backwards due to a strong tailwind. It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to think of how that wind will interact with the various control surfaces back there - control surfaces that are designed to *usually* see wind from the front.
If you're in a heavy 206 at an OGE hover with the wind off your five o'clock, you're not just asking for trouble, you're BEGGING for it. If you don't notice that your left leg is sticking pretty much straight out, then you'll probably be surprised when the dang thing snaps around.
But the tail rotor does not "stall" like an airplane wing - it's always producing thrust. And if the dumb pilot doesn't neutralize the pedals (crazily, some do!), he has a fair chance of stopping the rotation before it winds up. But like Gomer says, momentum is everything. You must, must, must hold the left pedal at FULL and reduce a bit of torque until the rotation stops, which it should/might as the nose comes around into the wind (then get the torque back in). Don't let it just keep going around and around as if you've had a tail rotor failure. Do not accept that you're just going to crash because your tail rotor is now in irrevocable "sideways" VRS or some crap. The tail rotor is still working.
But think about this silly "sideways" VRS thing. *IF* that were even possible, AS SOON AS the fuselage started to rotate around the mast the tail rotor disk would be at a different angle to the relative wind. Voila! Within a couple of degrees of yaw you are now *out* of "sideways VRS." That "sideways VRS" crap is the most ridiculous excuse for crashing a helicopter I've ever heard.
And yes, a wind from the left front can blow the MR vortices into the tail rotor in a 206. Yes, your feet will be "busy" as the TR thrust fluctuates a bit. But the left wind will help with the anti-torque, so you won't have as much left pedal in as if the wind were off your right-front, right? Win-win!
Any pilot who crashes a 206 with a wind from the left-front and blames it on the dreaded VRS is just making an excuse for his poor planning, performance, and decision-making.
Again Per, sorry if some of these fingers point at you. It's not intended that way. But some of you young guys who have these preconceived notions about the horrible 206 tail rotor ought to listen to guys like me and Gomer and others on this board who actually have flown the things enough to know the truth.