Originally Posted by
Devil 49
It ain't that clear and easy when you're working the line...
An important point has been made here by Devil - in longline work when things don’t go to plan there’s just no time to consider if your in VRS, SWP, over pitching, or any other plethora of situations which ruin our day. You just need to react, listen to what the aircraft is telling you through your backside/eyes/ears & fix it. You need to be aware of this BEFORE the condition develops, almost subconsciously, firstly to avoid it but also to ensure you take the correct action should you fail in the avoiding part.
I think I’ve been in a VRS situation once, I say “think” deliberately as I didn’t hear a change in aircraft power train noise & couldn’t tell you what the gauges were saying (didn’t look!) as within a few seconds I had to fix it or hit the ground therefore my eyes were outside the cockpit & apparently my hands & feet were busy fixing this problem I had created. I’m happy to report I fixed it. There won’t be a second time.
There has been many comments on this thread re “here we go again” & I get that, but personally I enjoy reading all of these opinions & using the information to cross check & confirm that what I thought I knew still makes sense to me so that when my hands & feet need to react there’s no delay. Keep the discussion alive, it shouldn’t matter what our instructor said, once we have the licence it’s up to us to continue to learn, challenge what we were taught & verify, verify, verify. Theology can be debated, but physics & aerodynamics in 2017 are pretty well understood - VRS is VRS, SWP is SWP, over pitching is overpitching.
Misinformation is widespread though; despite Transport Canada differentiating between VRS & SWP I noticed yesterday that the Saskatchewan & Alberta National Aerial Pesticide Application Manuals both state that rotary pilots should pay particular attention to “vortex ring state(settling with power)”. Here we go again.