Originally Posted by
SimonK
Was given a demo of incipient Vortex Ring in a Puma by 'Parts' when I was on 230. Unfortunately it was actually an extremely successful demonstration of fully developed and almost unrecoverable Vortex Ring. I've met no end of people who have since told me that you can't get a Puma into VR and it's really easy to get out. Bolleaux.
We entered incipient Vortex Ring, 6500' at night with the town of Coleraine on our right...as advertised the aircraft got all wallowy, but as Parts started to recover the ROD went through 800' and then instantly pegged fully down at 2500'.....I'm not sure exactly how much nose down we got to, but it felt like 90 degrees. All I know is we pitched instantly and massively fully forward and I was reading the bottom of the AH. I seem to remember just gripping the seat like a vice and thinking that I was dead. As we hit nose down the aircraft also rolled fully 180 degrees. Some other stuff happened and eventually parts got it out.....we came out at 1800', with 30 knots ias, still about 700' rod and the world all skewiff. Coleraine was also on our left hand side now. It was the last demo of incipient VR in the aircraft
I'm not sure why it was being demo'd in the first place, because it certainly wasn't in any formal training syllabus for the Puma that I recall (in three Puma tours, two of them as an OCU QHI and one as OC Puma sim). Having said that, I concur totally that the aircraft will go into fully developed VR and very alarmingly so. The one occasion I experienced it was a similar story to yours, but over Forkhill, inadvertent and not me flying.