R44 Down on Melbourne Beach

[InducedDrag]

R44 LTE Video thread?

I remember a while back there was a thread of a R44 news chopper where the pilot ended up setting down on a beach after encountering what she thought was LTE. There was a video of incident from the onboard camera.

I have searched high and low and I cant find it. Has anyone seen it?

Thanks

[VeeAny]

Would it be this one ?

[InducedDrag]

SUPER BIG THANKS!!!!...... I spent over an hour trying to find it.

Thanks again!!!

[manfromuncle]

Is this really LTE? Is that the lo-rpm horn on?

[Bravo73]

Here's the youtube link to the vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2qPA_gniL8


And the original thread:

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=210877

[scooter boy]

General conclusion at the time by the pundits was vortex ring, which looks possible.
Lo rotor horn blaring away in the background too, perhaps the collective was being gripped very tightly by a panicky hand and the governor overridden? (only know that cos I've done it myself)

Seemed to wear off pretty quick thankfully.

SB

[Spunk]

Well, I guess it`s time to drop my trousers.

Being a young and unexperienced pilot right out of school I was sent out on a photo flight in a H300. The photographer, to say it in plain English, was an arrogant a*******, trying to push me beyond the limits at all time ("The last pilot I flew with, was able to do it.")
Not having enough guts to simply say "NO" I started to hover out of ground effect with a tail wind component. When realizing that I was about to run out of pedal I figured that it was about time to gain some forward speed and reduce some power. Thinking of that it was already too late. The aircraft started to spin to the right like hell. As the initial brain signals for more speed and less power were already on their way I instantly found myself in a nose down attitude with flat pitch. It took me 2 x 360° revolutions and @500 ft to regain positive control over the aircraft. Those trees were awfully close. It's nothing that I'm proud of in the first place but I've learnt my lesson.

I personally think that something similar to the above story is what happened to this fellow female aviator.
For some reason she lost tail rotor effectiveness/authority, realized that something went wrong, dropped the pitch (isn't that what most of us instinctly do when something goes wrong?) resulting in a loss of altitude, nosed the aircraft over to gain some forward speed (thus drop in RRPM) and luckily regained control.

[Westerntribal]

Here is the link to the ATSB report..
http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/...200600738.aspx

[rotorrookie]

Spunk! Is possible that you had a drop in engine rpm and that triggerd the hole thing?
at least my experince with the 300 is that it has good tailrotor authority and as long as you keep the rpm on top of the green arc you are ok, and it will start to sink before you are out of left pedal.

[Spunk]

Hi RR,

well, it's been 10 years now but in gerneral I've always been very concerned about my RRPM but who knows... being ignorant and having a total time of @200 hours

[NickLappos]

It is amazing how the TR loses effectiveness when the main rotor rpm is down at the pilot's ankles. Note that all the excitement happens after that pesky horn sounds.

For all those who need to pull out the LTE stamp, including those accident investigators from the national agencies (who in 21 pages of mistaken analysis could not mention low rotor rpm):

It is a pretty good conclusion that when the rotor rpm is pulled down by the pilot in a classic "overpitching" situation that many items on the helo will lose effectiveness, not just the tail rotor.

Calling this LTE is like calling CFIT "loss of altitude effectiveness"

[EN48]

LTE question

Perhaps a dumb question, but while having decades of plank experience, I have only recently completed a PPL rating in an Enstrom 480B. I have a new 480B on order, and, in part, my purchase decison was influenced by the excellent safety record of the 480 in particular and Enstroms in general. The POH for the 480B states that the helicopter has been demonstrated to be easily controllable in winds to 40 kts. My research could find no accident reports for Enstroms for which LTE was a stated factor. A very high time commercial Enstrom pilot (and insurance accident investigator) friend states that he is unaware of any Enstrom LTE events, ever, due to the high tail rotor authority of the Enstrom design. He recently demonstrated to me running Nr down to 80% in wind conditions of 12G23 and maintained control easily while hovering downwind. While I know better than to assume that it could never happen, is the Enstrom design as immune to LTE as my current information would indicate?

Thanks for any informed opinions.

RB

[K48]

re R44 LTE video

For those of us who have never got ourselves in this mess this video is very educational.. I have a question. It's clear she was ticking all the boxes to induce this event... low AIS, wind from left, high hover at >1000kgAUW ( and gossiping ) But can someone tell me on initial occurence of the spin, had she put in the correct reactions what would be the recovery altitude /space required? 100-200ft? - if she had pushed forward and lowered collective immediately..?
Watching the video and noting the direction of the skids in the final dive for recovery it seems that the real recovery is initiated at circa 300ft. Prior to that there is a lot of up/down of collective (horn tells us that). It almost seems the initial reaction of the pilot was to pull up on the collective once the spin started which may have even accelerated the spin.... Surely a quick push forward and down with collective would have made a much quicker recovery possible?
And in what vertical distance?

[johned0]

Nick,

I am not in any position to know what happened or to question your analysis of the situation but the heli clearly starts to spin a long time before the pesky horn sounds - as can be seen by the skid moving past the camera. I am assuming that the camera is gyro stabilized so lags the spinning of the platform.

Does this alter the analysis ?

Cheers,

John

[NickLappos]

johno,

I believe the camera is rotating of its own, independent of the helo's rotation, otherwise the skids could not be seen translating across the screen. Note that the horn sounds as the helo starts to whip around, and when the horn stops, so does the helo.

[tyl3r]

Can we hear the MR

thwup-thwup-thwup-thwup-thwup--thwup---thwup-----thwup------thwupp--------thwuppp---------thwuppp*---...

running quite nicely in sync with the horn? If so, it's very lucky that they didn't clap goodbye at around 24s and 28s, imo.

[*Apologies if this is not spelt correctly.]

[johned0]

Sorry, Nick, I am pretty sure the horn goes off as the camera goes round, not the helo - i.e. the gyro on the camera can't keep up with the spinning of the helo. My reading is as follows (in this order) :

1/ Something starts to make the helo spin
2/ The camera continues to point in the same direction because it is stabilized
3/ The skid passed through the camera view
4/ After a second or so the horn goes off

John

[NickLappos]

johhnedo,
I agree with you, the yaw started about 3 seconds prior to the horn. The real question then is what was he asking of the machine? With his entry into a high OGE hover, with wind, he might very well have exceeded the flight envelope by quite a bit. There also seems to be some incipient VRS, or at least a falling through with too little power for OGE. Not a classic LTE, in any case.

Thanks!

[topendtorque]

what was he asking of the machine?

Nick,
I think that you are right on the button and I am sure plenty agree with you.

I know that you are an alert dude, and I have no problem with stepping forward with a couple of explanations.
So it’s with pleasure and some panache that I will point out to you that you missed the sibilant “S” in the above script!

That’s Ok we all run a bit of a root sometimes.

But I really enjoyed how you surmised that the RRPM may have been down at the pilots ankles, maybe that was not all that was down at the pilot’s “pesky” ankles??

As per my post on the previous thread, K48 is also right on the button, If in doubt push it out. To wit:- cyclic forward, collective down (and for rotors rotating in the direction that R44’s do) then right pedal in. It will take nary a second and fresh-beautiful-clean air will prevail over the whole rotor system. - Do with that what you wish – or were damn well trained for, it at all.

And for the record, NO, I do not believe that it was VRS.
tet

[TiPwEiGhT]

Could the Low RPM horn have come on as a result of having full left boot in to stop the rotation. Am I right in thinking the machine was rotating to the right?

(and for rotors rotating in the direction that R44’s do) then right pedal in

Is it the case that if it rotated to the left then the aircraft was wind vaning itself and just got a bit over enthusiastic?
I am very interested in this case as most of my time in the R44 is spent in HOGE.