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Downwind Quickstops

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Old 2nd Feb 2007, 23:22
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A few factors could combine in a downwind quickstop to set up the relative airflow into the disc so that it would be coming in from underneath, perhaps leading to the conditions for VRS, I think.
As gedney said, the components of flow relative to the disc would be the important thing, wouldn't they?
Using Nick's figures of needing somewhere between 800 and 2000 fpm coming into the disc from 85 degrees 'below', I wonder if you could get that in a downwind quickstop?
Just crunching a couple of numbers in a scenario, say you were carrying out a quickstop into a pad with 10 kts downwind, got a bit steep (as you probably would) and allowed a rate of descent to develop, how about this - slowing down with about 20 kts groundspeed, subtract the 10 kt downwind leaving you with 10 kts through the air horizontally = 1000 fpm, approx. Add the vector of your descent, say 600 fpm, which gives a relative airflow from about 30 degrees below the horizontal. Also, you're flaring, maybe 40 degrees nose up (?) giving you about 1160 fpm of relative airflow coming in at 70 degrees from below the disc. Slowing down would continue to increase that angle, if you kept the rate of descent on.
As you pulled in power to try and save a very messy situation, you'd then have all the conditions for VRS, wouldn't you? Just a thought.

Last edited by Arm out the window; 2nd Feb 2007 at 23:59.
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Old 3rd Feb 2007, 00:41
  #22 (permalink)  
 
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All i know is that the last checkride i did with a very experienced pilot, we went up to 3000 ft twice slowed down to zero , got the rate of descent up , pulled power .......and she started going up again !! Both times she did this so we got bored and did some other tricks. I think it is quite a difficult condition to bring on and more often the accident is too little too late ending up with over pitching.
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Old 3rd Feb 2007, 03:38
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works better with a tail wind if you can find one. I've also noticed a difference in older Robbies vs. newer ones...
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Old 3rd Feb 2007, 04:17
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how does the disk know its going backwards
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Old 3rd Feb 2007, 04:28
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I am a crusty ole long line pilot here in Canada and have been looking straight down out of all kinds of different machines over the last 10,000 hrs or so.

Since production longlining is pretty much all I do in all kinds of terrain I am often dancing on the edge of conditions conducive to vortex ring or just simply mushing due to the aircraft simply not having enough power to do what I have asked of it.

To me the defintion of vortex ring is when I pull collective and my sink rate INCREASES. Doesn't matter much what my vertical speed is because its more about relative airflow. If I pull power and my ass gets LIGHTER in the seat its time for immediate corrective action. Some may call this "incipient vortex ring" vrs full blown VR. Labels dont seem to matter much when it happens at a few hundred feet.


If I pull power and my ass gets slightly heavier in the seat, but I am still decending faster or more than I want too, then to me that is settling with power. This could of course get ugly and turn into overpitching if you keep pulling collective. It could also turn into VR if your sink rate increases.

DMNH
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Old 3rd Feb 2007, 06:36
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woccer woccer

"how does the disk know its going backwards"

it would be upside down in your case...
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Old 3rd Feb 2007, 07:40
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Dump the Pole. Most other posters seem to have become embroiled in a favourite Rotorheads topic of Vortex Ring.

Just to re-iterate what a couple have said: a downwind quickstop does not end with you hovering downwind. Imagine it as the helicopter equivalent of a handbrake turn in a car. You end up pointing in the direction that you have come from, ie into wind.

There are two types: flare and turn, and turn and flare. Heights and speeds will vary according to type. For a flare and turn, I would be flying downwind at 90kts and 50'. Initiate with flare, maintaing height and direction, and then start the turn into wind to end up pointing into wind with about 30-40kts still at 50'. Come to the hover, then forward and down.

For the turn and flare, same height and speed, but initiate with a turn and then flare off the speed during the turn still looking to be 30-40kts and 50'.

The difference between the two is the flare and turn gives you a (comparatively) long narrow flight path, whereas the turn and falre gives a short wide flightpath.

I'm sure others will have different techniques.
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Old 3rd Feb 2007, 13:12
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"There are two types: flare and turn, and turn and flare. Heights and speeds will vary according to type. For a flare and turn, I would be flying downwind at 90kts and 50'. Initiate with flare, maintaing height and direction, and then start the turn into wind to end up pointing into wind with about 30-40kts still at 50'. Come to the hover, then forward and down."



One word of warning, this is what most people might think that they are doing and come unstuck.

They start to flare, I.E. decrease airspeed, then sink, (as they wish to descend to the target) then pedal turn instead of cyclic turn, then they’re right where old mates DMNH and AOTW describes.

The only safe way to do it is turn with cyclic (steep co-ordinated turn) first half of the turn, and then second half of the turn as you are coming into wind commence the quick stop. Note how little power is reqd.

Now do it the other way that DtP first asked about (if you are stupid enough), note the power required, safety margins, and where oh where is that safe EOL picture?

AOTW describes the downwind VRS situation well and I suggest that there is no clear cut definition as Nick has isolated. That entry and many variants of it are just as good to get you sailing downawards and light on the seat. Why not look at a recent video of a seaking crash onto the back of a frigate or destroyer or some such. Note that he is sailing along in almost the same vortices configuration thanks to the ships superstructures, as AOTW describes, note the M/R coning flex abruptly two or three times as it unloads in incipient VRS.

As an analogy to the possible combinations reqd for LL VRS one might refer to a recent media report where some of the world best mathematicians finally gave up on trying to formulise the surf, breaking-wave actions.

I think that would be very simple compared to our rotor blades actions and reactions, not to mention the unseen winds vortices and currents afore you even got there.

At the end of the day when close to the ground, Downwind, Descending and Decreasing A/S, in the same handful is the same as Drinking, Driving and Destruction.

WW. No the disc has no idea which way it goes and it is also totally irrelevant as to which way the aircraft is pointing, the only relevance is the actual movement of the disc relative to the surrounding air and whether you might also be encountering or projecting vortices in front of it to then fly into.

There was a super good article in the Rotor and Wing Mag. (The Subtle Hazards of Light Winds) sometime in 1984, I use it as a bible and the numbers are nowhere near Nick’s, mind you it referred to light helicopters.

Nigelh, I agree at times esp. in the R22 in can be difficult to simulate and the running oneself out of puff and then overpitching, which is another story, is something that will get everyone sooner or later if they live close to the ground.
tet

Last edited by topendtorque; 4th Feb 2007 at 12:22.
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Old 4th Feb 2007, 08:01
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I'm sure I remember being told on a flying safety course that the UK Puma accident mentioned on the previous page was vortex-ring related - obviously there could be a number of explanations depending on how much information the crash investigators had to go on, but it sounded plausible.
As Mighty Gem points out, the quickstop manoeuvre we want to fly starts out downwind and finishes into it, but the story with those guys was apparently late identification of the pad, picking the wind direction wrong leading to a quickstop that terminated effectively downwind, winding up with them falling through and hitting the ground in a scenario fairly close to the conditions I went through above, ie relative airflow into the disc at the right angle and rate to set up VRS.
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Old 7th Feb 2007, 09:20
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Hi Dump the Pole... there is ample info here about Quick Stops but what I am amazed at is the primary factor that you have not been taught properly. I suggest that you bring this up with your instructor and if he/she has difficulty teaching quick stops in the correct manner and technique that you find an instructor that knows his/her trade. Really I'm appalled that the basic techniques are poorly taught.
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Old 7th Feb 2007, 11:02
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Downwind Quickstop. Hmmm.
Well of course, you can do the handbreak turn thing - all banked over at low level - lots of fun - but you can also deccelerate straight downwind. It all depends on why you're stopping, and if it really needs to be a quickstop - lots of people simple incorporate the maneuvre into a rushed landing (fast approach > airtaxi > quickstop > land) I think most if not all of us have done that - after all, these things cost money and flying a 10 degree textbook approach into wind after a full pattern takes time.
As far as the aerodynamics goes - the Helicopter has no idea if its going downwind, upwind, crabbing or not - it simply flies relative to the body of air.
The only difference is when and how much power needs to be applied:
When you do a Q stop upwind, you never really get to zero A/S, so all you have to do is lower, then raise as you slow down - obviously your G/S will be lower.
When you do a Q/S downwind, you have to flare all the way down to Zero A/S (requiring more power) THEN you have to start accelerating BACKWARDS to get to Zero G/S.
This is obviously harder because it requires higher power, and downwind your G/S will be quicker, so everything happens much faster.
The key to downwind operations is to fully understand how much power you need at each phase, and to know your that airspeed can already be zero - even though you're nose-up and hurtling towards the pad at 20 kts!
The reason most people 'fall through' and crash is that they flare all the way to zero, then don't recognise it - and keep flaring, nose up, power down, then BANG.
Same reasoning goes for downwind takeoffs - anticipate that your power requirement will go up first, before it goes down, and be smooth...

Last edited by rudestuff; 7th Feb 2007 at 11:30.
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Old 7th Feb 2007, 12:24
  #32 (permalink)  
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Head Turner: I believe I was taught correctly (I don't do them !)

If you check my original question you'll see that I just wanted to understand WHY I shouldn't do a downwind quickstop.

Thank you everyone who has actually answered me and for the descriptions of correct technique and how to avoid having to do it !!

DtP
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Old 7th Feb 2007, 12:52
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The amazing thing about pprune is the wide difference between all the separate helicopter worlds. This thread illustrates it quite well.

For small pistons, underpowered and flown by new guys, downwind quick stops are to be flown carefully or avoided.

For scout/attack helicopters, maneuvering low to the ground among trees and obstacles with some disregard for the wind is actually safer. When flying helos with good power and good controls, pilots who know how to use them consider that the norm.

The Real Lesson:
Please don't take the admonishment of good instructors talking to Robbie pilots as "natural" helicopter limits! And please obey those instructors until a Black Hawk or Apache comes your way!
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Old 7th Feb 2007, 12:57
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DtP
Yours is a very valid q. and even though I refrained from talking about it before I also agree with everything that Rudestuff says. Except of course if the noise stops then lookout.

The following quote of his qualifies his story.

"The only difference is when and how much power needs to be applied"

May I attempt to explain that.

If you are doing a qs and slowing down in the downwind diretion you will get to the point where you are at zero A/S where you understand that you will need more power and further you are trying for a negative forward A/S, then that is where things go wrong for the unwary.

This is where the rudestuff quote comes in. Imagine the air that you are flying on as smooth above your rotor and very tubulent below it. Say that boundary between the two projects in a straight line in front of the disk. (If you are bloody lucky in the real world I say)

If you then apply enough power to stay above it you will be OK. Drop into it and you will be looking for all sorts of trouble, simple.

The limiting thing apart from all of the other eroded safety issues, is how much power do you have?

The same goes for doing pull ups into torque turns. When doing from the downwind direction to turn into wind it is real easy, as there is plenty of fresh air coming at your disk from behind you if you are stationary relative to the ground at the top of the turn.

When you do them the the other way from the into wind to the downwind recovery, always allow enough of a power margin to pull a bit of collective at the top so that the disk will be in fresh air. In other words plan to be travelling backwards a bit relative to the ground to give zero A/S.

It's can be kinda spooky if you don't. Remember what I said about being above eighty feet if you really stuff it up.

Doing anti-torque turns in the same manner becomes just a bit more complicated.
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Old 7th Feb 2007, 15:31
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Nick: I'd like to see those charts, especially for the R22 as thats what I'm instructing in. If your descrption is correct, (and I'm not doubting you) I guess I've never been in actual VRS. I have never allowed a demonstration of VRS/SWP to develop past a 500 fpm decent rate which would mean that I wasn't in VRS by your definitions.

I find that when I induce SWP with a tailwind and I attempt to make it worse by pulling in power the helicopter (R22) has a reduction of the climb rate and an eventual climb. Certainly not true VRS if an increase in power is supposed to result in an increase in rate of decent.

So what am I really in? SWP but not VRS? I certainly am settling, have not reached a 800fpm decent rate, have power, and am yawing and shuddering until I recover.

I still teach that downwind quickstops are dangerous, maybe I'll just be changing the explanation of why from the danger of VRS and other factors to just the other factors. Simply put I wouldn't want any of my students making a downwind quickstop, regardless of VRS or not due to the other dangers already mentioned.
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Old 7th Feb 2007, 16:58
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aclark79, I very much doubt you've actually been in VRS. What you seem to be describing is incipient stage, which is about as much as you need to demonstrate to a student. What you need them to appreciate are the dangers and symptoms. 500'min isn't much. Take it a bit further to see it develop. 2000'/min+! UK and USA call it two different things but it pretty means the same thing VRS or SWP.
Anyway, can someone answer this question:- Why do a downwind quickstop or any quickstop for that matter?
I always thought it was purely a dual co-ordination exercise whilst training.
As for those people who seem to blame every R22 crash on VRS, I say to them, it's probably because they don't understand many of the other possible causes of crashes close to the ground, but it's easy to just say 'oh yeh it was VRS'.
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Old 7th Feb 2007, 19:33
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aclark79 said...
I have never allowed a demonstration of VRS/SWP to develop past a 500 fpm decent rate which would mean that I wasn't in VRS by your definitions.
Out of curiosity when 500 fpm was indicated how long were you stabilized? If your rate of descent was increasing rapidly, and you initiated a go-around at 500 fpm indicated your actual ROD was higher because of the lag in the VSI (unless you have an IVSI).


and now...

Nick swears that VRS can't be established as easily as most of us were taught, and I'm not going to argue with Nick, because he's almost certainly right, and I'm just repeating what I learned from books/instructors which could have been misinformed. It seems that there is an intermediate phenomenon which most of us call VRS or SWP, but some call incipient VRS which exibits the signs and symptoms taught to me as VRS, but without the actual vortex ring. Some have called this overpitching, but I was taught that term referred to a condition where the high pitch / AOA was creating more drag than the engine could overcome leading to a decrease in Nr etc...

Is it possible that while descending at very low, or no airspeed, the fact that we are descending into our own downwash causes such a reduction in angle of attack that we loose a significant amount of lift, even without the development of a vortex ring? (I mean more than just the loss of ETL, but an additional loss of AOA due to descending into air already accelerated by the rotor.) Additionally, in this state, would the addition of some pitch not give us the increase in AOA/lift that we expect, and therefore our rate of descent keeps increasing, and we feel that we are "settling with power"?

I ask because there is definitely a phenomenon when descending at at airspeed less than ETL whereby increased collective pitch seems to have no "bite", no increased lift... and it's quite disconcerting when near the ground.
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Old 7th Feb 2007, 22:07
  #38 (permalink)  

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Helimutt, Downwind quickstops (flare and turn / flare and turn as req'd) are taught to military pilots as a good method of arriving in a high threat area to a landing from a low level transit.
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Old 7th Feb 2007, 22:15
  #39 (permalink)  

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Yeah but no but yeah but no but ... Is there really a need for quickstops to be taught as part of the PPL syllabus, other than being bloody good fun!! One appreciates it is because the syllabub was derived from that used in military training but can't see it being much use unless I want to impress the blokes!

Cheers

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Old 7th Feb 2007, 22:57
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Whirlygig, you don't need to do quickstops to impress the blokes.

But I agree. Military may use it yes, but not many ppl (h) holders find themselves in a position which requires use of said quickstop. Never arrived into a hot LZ in a robbo myself. Although anywhere near Liverpool could be called that.

Hiro Protagonist, The term 'incipient' means 'beginning to exist or appear'. This means you are demonstrating the symptoms just as it starts but not letting it fully develop. That would be bad. Show a student what to expect and how not to be there in the first place. I guess after the incipient stage, there is only Vortex Ring State (Settling with power). It's not as easy to get into as you may think. But fully developed?

I feel this is being done to death and there will always be people on the fence about it. A lot of instructors maybe just don't understand what they're teaching and make too big a deal out of it all??

I agree with Nick though.
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