Helicopter IFR reference material

[rotorcaptain]

Can anyone suggest some materials or books that pertain specifically to helicopter ifr procedures rather than fixed-wing with helicopter references. Anything would be appreciated.

[rotorboy]

Section 10 of the AIM helicopter specific, tons of IFR helicopter information.

RB

[rotorcaptain]

Thanks... I'm familiar with that section but what I'm looking for would be a little more technique and operationally oriented. I may be being vague but operating spifr is in my future and anything will help.

[paco]

As far as I know there isn't one, probably because the market is so small and there isn't much difference once you get around the different controls - instruments are instruments. Here's my take on it:

"This is much the same as for fixed wing, but there are a couple of differences. Firstly, thrust and lift come from the same source, the main rotors, so you can have different attitudes than expected when climbing, descending, or in level flight. Thus, you learn particular power settings for particular stages of flight. These, of course, are controlled by the collective and displayed on the torquemeter or MP gauge. The AI indicates fuselage and not disc attitude, so it does not always tell you what the aircraft is actually doing - if you don't compensate for the nose-up tendency when you increase power, for example, you could rapidly find yourself with no airspeed. On the other hand, you could be nose-up and descending at 60 kts, so more cross-checking with other instruments is required.

Also, the ability to fly at low speed, say, below 60 kts, means that the pitot-static instruments become less reliable. You also get reduced stability, which is why there is a minimum IMC control speed (VMINI), below which you shouldn't go into cloud, as well as minimum speeds with an engine out, should you have two.

Having said all that, the attitude + power = performance equation is still valid"

See what I mean? I have IRs on both, and have really not found a lot of difference at all.

The only other minor thing is that preflight instrument checks are done in a higher hover than normal

Phil

[rotorspeed]

Paco makes important point ref attitude. Whilst left/right bank is pretty intuitive, pitch attitude on the AI takes a lot more interpreting and can only be done with integration with a good power/ASI/VSI scan, esp at lower speeds and on instigating climb/descent. Must say that when VFR flying I had not fully appreciated just what the AI picture looks like with the pitch change during these transition phases. Interesting and worth becoming familiar with.