Wingover

[Trevor KC]

Could somebody explain what a wingover is in a helicopter and how it's executed. Also the difference between a 180' and 270 wingover?

Thanks a lot

[Thomas coupling]

A wingover also known as a 'return to target' manouevre is the quickest way to do a 180 whilst still maintaining significant fwd speed.

Whilst in fwd speed (suggest >80-100+kts) initiate a pull up to around 20 ish nose up, let the speed slide back to a min of around 60+ kts, roll right or left 30+ AOB [The more you roll the more exciting it feels/looks]. Roll out 180 degrees from inbound heading and return to level flight at the height you entered. Balance in turn.

There is a 'tighter' manouevre called a torque turn but thats lesson 2!

[MK10]

worth bearing in mind you should start this with
the wind behind, so,s when you come out of it
wind is on the nose.
way to easy to overcook it if you get it the other way round.
mk10

[the coyote]

MK10 I disagree. The wind as you say is more important for a torque turn, as you will have zero airspeed and be in a nose down attitude when you terminate the turn, so you don't want to be downwind and close to the ground like this.

You do a wingover because you want to turn around as quickly as possible, whilst maintaining translational lift. Your in an ag machine for example well above any HOGE performance weight so you need to keep airspeed.

A wingover tightens the radius (& the time) of the turn by reducing speed, and there is no huge time benefit in reducing speed below translational lift or even 20-30KT in my opinion.

Convert your excess speed to height and then as you progress through the turn convert that height back to speed. The more you reduce your speed, the tighter the turn radius will be.

If you don't slow below 20-30KT, then it doesn't matter so much where the wind is.

[Arm out the window]

Also bear in mind that a wingover should be a positive g manoueuvre all the way; or to coin a phrase,

'A wingover is a positive g pitching and rolling manoueuvre used to convert speed to height, height to speed or to position the aircraft.'

The practical upshot of that is if you have the nose up high, roll on bank and let the nose drop below the horizon so you can complete the manoueuvre with a rolling of 'wings' level and pitching back up to the attitude you want to finish at.
Avoid bunting, not good, especially for teetering heads.

[MK10]

Sorry i was speaking about lesson2
followong on from TC,s final sentence.
ie Torque turns.
I agree wing overs used all the time in Ag
work, but as you say keeping airspeed above
translational lift.
mk10

[peachpilot]

and don't forget to not eat something too wishy-washy before you go out and do it for the first time......:yuk:

[CyclicRick]

Shouldn't it be called a blade or disc over for our benefit?;)

[FlyAnotherDay]

TC, you tease us with talk of the next exciting instalment... Just what is a torque turn?

[C4]

Coyote, you are incorrect about the wind. Many a pilot (I personally know of three) who have attempted said manouever starting into wind and exiting downwind who have had spectacular crashes. Start downwind and end up into wind...

[[email protected]]

I agree that for basic instruction a wingover should be started downwind to end up into wind - but this is only to highlight that in a strong wind you must be aware of your airspeed if you roll out downwind; most cock-ups occur because the pilot thinks his high groundspeed is a good indication of airspeed and mushes towards the ground, then pulls back on the cyclic which washes more airspeed off and he crashes.

For 180 wingovers a good check is that by the time you get to the apex, you should be at least halfway round the turn (horizontally speaking). Another killer is not to achieve this 'gate' and try to achieve the roll out heading by overbanking and pulling harder - this fills the windscreen with green and is often terminal.

Trevor - a 180 and 270 wingover start the same but with a 270 you go 90 degrees further round (horizontally) before rolling out and the same safety tips apply.

A torque turn is usually done by pulling to the vertical (lowering the lever if possible once you are there) and, as the speed drops towards zero, pull power without compensating with power pedal so the torque reaction yaws the aircraft through 180 degrees in the vertical plane - then just fly out.
Doing it the other way round using power pedal (called a pedal turn) to yaw is often more comfortable as you use non-power pedal to stop the turn when you are pointing at the ground and thus avoid torque spikes.

[the coyote]

C4

I disagree with you. I am sorry to hear about the three crashes, but I would put that down to poor piloting, and losing too much airspeed, than doing a wingover that terminates downwind.

If you don't fall below 20-30 knots of AIRSPEED, you should still have plenty of performance out of the aircraft regardless of which way the wind is coming from.

By your logic, what is an Ag pilot supposed to do at the end of a run into wind? Maintain his current airspeed throughout the entire turn?

I have tought wingovers to many students in low level training, and still advocate that if you will terminate downwind or you don't know where the wind is from, do a wingover not a torque turn.

[MightyGem]

I was taught wingovers, while in the AAC, at 300ft, "just incase thing go wrong" so you have the height to recover. But, no mention IIRC of how to recover, "if things go wrong".

On a subsequent exchange to Australia, I was taught wingovers at 50ft, and, more importantly, shown how to recover by rolling wings level, instead of trying to pull through with cyclic, if things started to go pearshaped.

[thecontroller]

well, i dont know about anyone else but all these manoeuvers sound terrifying to me (as an r22 pilot). i have enough stress just getting students to do a quickstop/auto correctly.....

[float test]

i believe the torque turn was used in the military to exercise a fast turn around after letting off the rockets etc. I did lots of these on my instructor course and thats what my instructor told me anyway.

fairly easy to do until my examiner on an LPC told me he didn't like them, something to do with a double couple what did he mean?

[Staticdroop]

As with all things start wing-overs at a good height to allow time to recover if it goes wrong. If you like, and your machine has enough speed, then try 45 degrees nose up with a ninety degree roll, that will liven your day. Again lots of height first.

[krobar]

The way I was taught, the turn is initiated 40Kts.
Reason: The last thing you want, is to start sliding towards the ground while turning.
And of course, because it looks so neat to do it low, a lot of mishaps happen when the ground is a bit closer than you thought it might be.
Check this to see what I mean.
http://www.verticalreference.com/Videos/CrazyJetrangerPilot.wmv

[[email protected]]

Krobar - I assume you are talking about pedal/torque turns when you say 40kts - entering at that speed puts a lot of strain on the tailboom - would you try to fly sideways at 40kts normally? The proper technique is to anticipate the top of the climb and start the yaw just before the horizon (viewed to the side) stops moving relative to the window - that way you initiate the yaw at almost zero speed and get at least halfway round before the descent starts.

As for overstressing the aircraft, the most likely time is during the initial pull-up, whether for a wingover or a torque/pedal turn - that is where the inexperienced tend to be ham-fisted and pull too hard.

[delta3]

When having nose up you will have little visual clues to estimate airspeed. So you need to rely on IAS.

When using torque/pedal turn, you do not want to do this too early nor too late as crab points out.

One caution : especially if descelerating towards 20-30 knts, IAS will be lagging, so (probably depending on hardware), you will need to start a little earlier.

As pointed out before, start with lesson one first (ie using lateral cyclic/roll) because you can have higher speed, giving greater margins, before using pedals or torque.

One other advise : do not make 180 at first, but something less say 160-170, this will avoid flying through your own downwash.

d3

[Arm out the window]

d3, I'd have to take task with the 'rely on IAS' comment - a lot of machines use ASIs that have notes saying they are unreliable below 40 KIAS, and will probably read zero below about 20 kt, so you can't put too much faith in them.
It may be a big call, but I'd say you have to use a good scan (horizon, out to the sides, peripheral vision) plus instrument trends, and the good old seat of the pants to keep the awareness alive.

[delta3]

Fully agree, this is what I tried to state with anticipation: you can not read 20 knts, but you may have an indication of that when seeing the IAS drop.

d3

[Thomas coupling]

Both these manouevres should be 100% visual ones, not looking in at airspeed/bank/balance etc :=

Don't forget: BALANCE which differentiates between the smooth slick end result and a very sloppy ragged one.

[delta3]

Agree, but -maybe wrongly- I first did this at high altitudes more than 1000 feet (before starting), and I felt that the visual clues were a little vage. Is perhaps an argument not to go too high.

Relying on pure external visual clues also links in with the arguments in this discussion about wind direction.

Maybe a related question that I wandered about: in refinement of the lesson 1 and 2 segmentation, what is the best progressive way to learn this maneuver ?. Especially in theetering rotors (cfr earlier remark of R22 pilot), you may want to avoid unusual attitudes.

Added : 1. Start on a windless day.
2. ....

d3

[[email protected]]

D3 - to start wingovers use 20 -30 degrees nose up and 45 - 60 degrees AoB - that will give a nice gentle wingover and help sort out the coordination of controls (generally leave the collective alone during the wingover and fly it on cyclic) especially, as TC highlights, balance. Once happy then 45 nose up and 90 AoB are good figures to aim for. Wingovers in an R22 aren't a problem providing you don't chicken out and shove the nose forward (bunt) to recover from the nose up attitude.

To start pedal turns or torque turns use about 45 degrees nose up and once you are comfortable with the manoeuvre, gradually increase the amount of nose up until you chicken out or get to 90 degrees. Be warned, the cyclic inputs required as you yaw at the top of the manoeuvre may seem a little odd but you are compensating for the secondary effect of yaw which is roll and an element of flapback. Once you get as far as 90 degrees nose up for the manoeuvre, consider lowering the lever as that will help you track vertically.

Always best to fly with someone who can do these manoeuvres properly to learn them rather than try it out for yourself.

[Thomas coupling]

Strongly concur with crabs last para. DO NOT attempt a torque turn unless very experienced in general AND on type. Make sure your first Torque turn is demonstrated by an experienced instructor:oh:

If you cock up that 90 degree nose up, you could end up - upside down or even side slipping backwards:\

Proper torque turns are borderline aerobatics - be warned.:suspect:

[FLI]

Wing-overs are easy to fly. The danger is during the recovery.

The manoeuvre is generally taught at 300 ft agl. The height gained during the pull up could be 200 ft depending on pitch up angle.

The danger occurs during the recovery as the helicopter is accelerating downwards at the same rate as it was decelerated upwards. If the pilot does not level out at the entry height, ie 300 ft, but attempts to go much lower, he then has a much greater acceleration towards the ground, both vertically and horizontally. If he then attempts to recover with too much aft cyclic, he effectively “stalls” a large proportion of the rotor disc and the helicopter continues to descend. If he now pulls collective he increases the amount of “stall” and hits the ground! The only recovery is to reduce the aft cyclic input (difficult when you are approaching the ground fast).

This is a gotcha for even experienced pilots.

[skitzs]

Edited.



(Skitsz posted to say he's not impressed. He didn't say why.)

Heliport

[[email protected]]

I think Skitz was criticising FLIs post regarding retreating blade stall during high speed recovery from a wingover/torque turn. FLI forgets how much you have to push forward cyclic just to overcome flapback so excess speed is a result of excess forward cyclic - not somthing that comes naturally to most pilots.