Robbiee and Rotorbee I would suggest that both of you take this quote and have a good look in a mirror; the first line applies to you in your dogmatic abuse of [email protected] for his reasoned explanations.

There are a number of experienced and seasoned helicopter pilots here who have succinctly pointed out that the FAA is not always the font of all knowledge!

​​​​​​Maybe you shouldn't get so hung up on other people's conversations.

Cheerio, you can read from the sidelines for a week.

Rotrbee - when a condition is given an acronym - VRS, LTE etc, it is usually because it has caused enough accidents for the authorities to need to investigate and highlight a hazardous condition.

That is how the term SWP should have been used - without confusing it with VRS - so that pilots clearly understood how easy it is to run out of power in the OGE environment.

It is a dangerous condition, especially to low time pilots - hence me banging on about it - I try to take the promotion and promulgation of Flight Safety issues seriously since it was part of my job when I was flying professionally and I had a duty of care to my Squadron pilots.

Hey Crab, you have my support I am sure your posts have helped many people think about what they do / dont do. Certainly helped me pass on information to my students. I may have 33 years and 9000 hours under my belt but that doesnt mean I stop learning ( hint to some on here ). Perhaps some should stopping arguing about terminology and wind their neck in.

Hughes500 - :ok: agreed , the day you stop learning is the day you should stop flying

Crab, I totally agree with you and SWP should have been used correctly, no argument there. I do understand you banging out about it and your commitment to flight safety. I never doubted that and I applaud you for it. And thanks in part to you, I do understand the difference of the terms. I was aware of the different flight conditions since being a student pilot, but the confusion in terms, only came to my attention, when I came back to Europe.
But I want to make two points for the general discussion.
One: The question is, what do we do now, since the "SWP" is now a contaminated acronym/term. Because it does matter, what overpitching/SWEP is called in the future, not to create another confusion.
For many European pilots, SWP is an US-term that the guys over the pond got wrong. Whenever I had this discussion, SWP was not used correctly, only that it is what we in Europe call VRS. Nothing to do with overpitching or running out of power. Therefore introducing SWP would be a new term for many pilots here and since many think that the FAA is a bunch of amateurs, it would dead from the start.

Two: The FAA is not a bunch of morons or amateurs (that is absolutely not against you, Crab, but I heard it too often and it annoys me quite a bit and I do understand Robbie, why he gets so fired up). In Europe many think, that in the US you get cheap training, therefore it is bad. Nothing could be further from the truth. That the cost of flight training is lower, has nothing to do with less work you have to do to become a proficient pilot. It is in part economics of scale, the way the US finances their system and the training philosophy. Whenever I had to deal with the FAA, I found them extremely helpful and they would do anything possible to solve my problem. One of them even called me in Europe to help me to get my CFI renewed, so I did not have to fly to the next FSDO (that was in the last century). He did not have to do it. I don't think, I would ever gotten that kind of commitment from any CAA in Europe I know of. I have only the highest regard for the FAA and their people and I think many European pilots, who have been trained under the FAA system, agree with me. You may think I exaggerate, but a Swiss pilot mocked US pilots in a newspaper recently for their training, since he/she was flying in the Alps and for US-pilots in Arizona(!) the highest elevation would be the pebbles on the edge of the runway. This opinion comes from FI's, mind you. No, I don't think I exaggerate, the general European pilot population does think, they are better than the US.
Not two weeks ago, I found an article (an lost it, if I find it again I will post it, I promise) that talked about the difference in helicopter accidents between Europe and the US. They asked, what can Europe do, to get to the level of safety of the US. Which means, our system isn't really better than the US-system. Something to think about.

I think, that the FAA did a good job, to kill the term SWP. That this does not solve the problem with the many more accidents overpitching produces and the FAA or the NTSB do not have a special term for it (or I don't know it).
That the FAA is not always right is also obvious (neither is any other national CAA). I don't understand, why they would introduce the Vuichard thing into the training hand book, without a proper investigation and flight tests. That is beyond me. But the hand book was always a very controversial subject. I talked about it with Shawn Coyle once and I agreed with him, it should be rewritten from the start. But are the EASA books better? I just stumbled over a German safety paper about, among other subjects, well you guessed it, VRS. Absolutely confusing and they use terms, which in German are associated with stall. There you have it. It isn't any better here.

PS: @Senior Pilot: I did not intend to abuse Crab, I just wanted to lighten the mood a bit, to get Robbie to tone it down, because I could see the consequences coming. Apparently I failed and I apologise for it. Now we have probably lost Robbie forever, which is bad. Over the course of this discussion, one could see, how he changed his opinion on the subject and that is, after all, the whole purpose of a discussion. Get more insight.

Rotorbee - :ok: however I have no doubt he will be back - he does offer a different perspective which is a good thing in any discussion.

Well thanks Crab. But I think Robbie is gone for good.
Anyway, as promised:
Translated by Google. From a speech of the EASA director Patrick Ky at a Swiss Helicopter Association Convention in 2018. Note the "same operation". The FAA must do something right.
Ky also said, that the trend in Europe has not been going down for the last 10 years in Europe and 15% of all accident happen during training. That is bad.
The good thing is, that there will be new EASA regulations with more flexibility for the helicopter industry (well, just not for the Brits). The whole paper is quite interesting.
And since the Swiss FOCA and REGA are part of the group for the new regulation, we can hope, that Vuichard's thing will not be part of the new regs. He is so annoyed with REGA, that he doesn't event want to be rescued by them (From a recent article, why the Swiss FOCA and REGA do not promote his thing after REGA had an accident with VRS. That close to the ground the pilot would have rolled the ship touching down sideways).

An interesting comparison of the accident stats - I wonder how much can be attributed to weather - not that Europe has more or less weather, just that it changes so quickly and catches people out.

the problem with facts and figures is the interpretation, just ask an accountant. When looking across at other countries lets make sure we are comparing apples to apples !

Rotorbee,

Yours was a long post that raised many issues and addressed them in a professional manner. I agree with most every thing you said as based upon my many Years of flying helicopters in quite a few different countries and for sure just about every kind of terrain and climate.

As a result I have had the pleasure of dealing with several different authorities to include the FAA and CAA....along with some lesser know nations's aviation authorities.

​​​​​​​As humans in order for us to have effective communication we must have commonality of definition. Without that there is no way for us to understand what the other person is saying. Same goes for technical speak such as we use in Aviation.

I would like to respond to a few things you brought up in your post.




Rely less upon buzzwords and acronyms....be specific when you discuss those concepts. Accurately describe with clear language what you are trying to communicate.


So who was wrong there? Those who used SWP to differentiate from VRS or those who were not describing two different situations?


None are amateurs....all are paid government employees....but some are in fact Morons....or Jobsworths as Crab would know them.

The truth about the FAA is Airplane people tend to move up in management faster than do Helicopter people, all FAR's have evolved from an Airplane Only environment, and the FAA does not have the best technical or engineering cadre compared to the aviation industry at large.

Yes...there are some very good people doing the Inspector jobs....but we have seen gross incompetence in some as well just as one should expect from a large government bureaucracy.

I had three CAA folks treat me very well and used their discretion to mend problems....yet we find many here that care not for the CAA.

Lord....if I had a Tuppence for every time I have heard my fellow American Pilots bashed by another naitionality.....I would be living in Monaco on a fine yacht todayl

Arrogance can be found anywhere.

Just because it is in the newspaper does not make it true.


In the past there was some here suggesting the vaunted CAA system of training and standards provided a better safety record than did the FAA system.

Alas, we found there to be no real clear difference....except for the cost of doing business with the CAA as compared to the FAA

That is the real difference between the two...one is User supported and the other is supported by the General Population with a much wider population to pay the bill.


That is a very true statement but the question that should be asked is what are the problems are and why they exist.


Perhaps that might rub off on a lot of people....and we just accept that the one thing that is certainly true....it is different there....as compared to here (no matter where here and there are).

Final thought....if everyone agrees....usually someone is not thinking. A concern for consensus rather than fact is not a good thing.

Well SASless, thank you for your suggestions. I will try to keep that in mind. As you all have realised, English is not my first language (please add a horrible and embarrassing German accent at your leisure while you read any of my posts), but I try my best.
To clarify a few things:
Very good question. Since the Europeans did not use SWP correctly, they also thought it describes VRS after all, but thought it was the wrong term, and me being young and stubborn. How about everybody?
... and that is the reason, why we should get rid of the term SWP. I think.

It was an interview. In a paper from a kind of non profit organisation. Very big. Hundreds of thousands of readers. I stop here, because it would be very easy to figure out, who it was, if I say more. It wasn't some random pilot. I just think, that when you are in the position that person is, one should have a certain courtesy.

Crab, the weather argument always comes up. Personally, I don't think it makes much of a difference. From my own experience, I haven't seen (with my own eyes, completely biased here) a microburst in Europe, but I have seen a few in Alaska. And weather changes in the US as fast as in Europe. But I rather quote what Ky said:
And
(Again, blame Google)
If the weather was to blame for the difference, I think he would have said so. And he singled out the training environment.


Hughes500
Since I know a few things about accounting, the numbers they present are very clear. The interpretation is more often than not done by the ones who try to find something that isn't there. Having said that, no offence, but let's give the director of the EASA some credit, that he and EASA did their homework and took everything in account that was possible. You can argue about 10%, but 50%?
I think we should take that very seriously.

Data and Statistics are always fraught with confusion.

It begins with how the Data is compiled...definitiions, tabulating, and calculating....all can result in Apples and Oranges comparisons.

Look to the American Helicopter EMS studies one time....usually running years behind time and filled with some real ambiguities.

As to language....Rotorbee does better in his second language than I do with my second.....my first being "Down South" and the second being American English.

Rotorbee

Is the training the same ? Is the environment the same ? Etc etc I do not know . But I do know from my experience as an examiner converting US pilots to EASA /UK licences there were a lot of differences, here are a few
None of the US guys had done an engine off landing to the ground ( engine held at idle the whole way down ) , very few had done limited power landings where one did a run on landing to the grass. None had done IGE tail rotor failures, didnt have a clue about closing the throttle to stop the spin. Here is the rub with Europe we expect very very inexperienced instructors , sub 500 hours and in some cases under 300 hours to teach the new guys, they dont have the depth of knowledge or experience. Why does this happen £££££££££££££££££££££

I refer you to the FAA Practical Test Standards for Check Flights for a Private Pilots Certification (License in CAA lingo).

Look at the Required portions per the PTS Check List of required maneuvers.

This is just for the PPL level.....not the Commercial or ATPL.

I find it hard to accept your comments as being indicative of the true nature of FAA based Training in the United States.

Perhaps some current FAA Licensed CFI's and/or DE's could provide the most recent FAA standards.

Things might have changed since I retired....but I would find it surprising.

The one exception might be Touch Down Autorotations as a lot of aircraft got bent doing practice EOL Touchdowns and at one point the discussion was to limit those to Power Recoveries as it was felt if everything was fine to that point....then the touchdowns in an emergency would turn out well enough.

The added expense of repairs and insurance premiums was a driving reason behind that.

During my training courtesy of the US Army we did hundreds of Touchdowns both during dual training and solo.

As a Factory Sim Instructor at two places....it was amazing how many Pilots did not fully understand the effect of flight controls particularly re torque and torque control by means of throttle and collective.

That translated into some having difficulties with coping with Tail Rotor malfunctions.

That cut across all Nationalities not just any one particular one.
​​​​​​​

@ Hughes500: Hey, don't shoot the messenger, I just delivered an information from EASA. If you don't like it, that's up to you. But since you are not part of that anymore, you can relax. If you read the whole article, the EASA might not be very sad about it.
We had this discussion about the differences in training and I don't want to trigger it again. That would be for another thread.
But I can't help it. One thing, all the manoeuvres you mention solve only mechanical failures, which are very rare and by far not the things that kill people regularly.
BTW, I have done them all and more (stuck cyclic anyone?).
There is one thing that stuck in my mind many many moons ago.
Somebody asked what would you do, if you could go on a flight with Bob Hoover. What would you like him to show you.
And the answer was: Show me how you conduct a normal flight. With preparation, preflight and everything. That made a lot of sense to me.

@SASless: At least you don't have to live with this accent of mine. And regarding statistics, it is what it is. Helpful if used accordingly, deceptive if you want it to be.

@All: If EASA has concerns about the accident rate in Europe, we can at least take that as food for thought and not just dismiss it.
And by the way, VRS wasn't on the list.

Rotorbee
Sorry wasnt trying to shoot you down at all. From what I have seen recently where maintenance companies have been forced by EASA to have reams of paperwork with less and less attention being paid to actually maintaining the machines, i would beg to differ. Up to fairly recently my 300's were maintained by a type rated engineer working for himself. that has now become illegal so had to move my machines to a company that has no experience on the type, no type rated engineers ( in fact they have to use my old engineer to sign things off )takes 4 times as long to do anything and quite often gets it wrong, BUT has all the correct bits of paper , that is EASA improving safety ! Another company's chief engineer didnt even know how the track and balance gear worked !
As for training there has been a severe dumbing down of training here in Europe with standards of instructors plummeting. It is actually really easy to land a S 300 in auto, I have probably done 5 to 6000 in my time, havent bent anything yet apart from a genuine double mag failure at 80 ft 30 knots coming into land and that was just the cross beam.
The culture unfortunately is that instruction is seen as the lowest of the low and a way to build hours to a " better paid job"that needs to change where the best people are teaching the newest guys, that way the accident rate will come down here in Europe, although I think it is pretty good here in UK. I have no idea of instruction in the USA or else where come to that

According to her profile, she was female.

In the States....as a civilian trained zero time helicopter pilot....the next step up the ladder is getting your CFI and build hours until you can move up to Sightseeing flying....then get your Instrument Rating.....then perhaps a SIC Job on an IFR Twin.....then to Offshore on singles VFR.....or on a VFR only EMS job.

Minor variations as in all things depending upon opportunity, skill, who you know.......and a lot of luck of being in the right place at the right time.

Hughes500. I feel your pain and you are not alone. Many small helicopter companies complain about that and other bureaucratic overload. In that article I used, it was quite clear, that EASA is aware of the problem. I hope there will be a change, but bureaucracy has the unfortunate habit to get worse. Interestingly, the UK was the main driver of it (ask any Swiss operator). The big UK companies forced the smaller ones to adapt to their standard. What I don't get, you are not part of EASA since 2021. You have to blame the CAA, now. EASA really wants the smaller companies to have more freedom, but EASA has to coordinate quite a few national agencies and not all of them think that this idea is good.
As for training in the US, they are in a transition phase, from the Practical Test Standards (PTS, one fits all) to Scenario Based Training. It is implemented for fixed wing and should shortly become also the standard for helicopter training.
The idea behind it is, that every student learns what he actually needs. A private pilot who is only flying around on Sundays for recreational purposes, will receive a different training, than a pilot who aims for the airlines from the start. I think this makes sense, others think it is complicated and stupid. Time will tell. BTW the FAA mentions expressly that stick and rudder skills will not be compromised. I hope they stick to that, because some pilots today are lost without iPad and autopilot.
If you are interested here is the FAA site: https://www.faa.gov/training_testing/training/fits/
From my experience, there are all sorts of FI's and schools in the US. Some of them are bad, I mean really bad. They tend to disappear after a while with the money of the students normally. But the US also has companies like Flight Safety or quite a few universities have an aeronautical department with flight training - also helicopter. You get ratings and degrees there. Even EASA ratings are possible at least for fixed wing. EASA does not have any helicopter flight school anymore on their list of approved schools. I thought there were two.
The FI-problem is a mixed bag in the US. Some schools really take the cheapest CFI's they can get and know very well, that they will leave for the airlines as soon as possible. Not so bad in the helicopter industry, where low time CFI's start with just the easy flights and ground school and have to work their way up to more difficult tasks (insurance). None of the CFI's I did full downs or other crazy things with, was a young hot shot. Many CFI's enjoy teaching and do it part time with a better paying flying job as the main occupation. Some of them have strange habits, but one can always learn something from the old geezers. One of them insisted, that on the 180° auto to bleed of airspeed almost completely, like a quickstop at altitude, turn with the pedals towards your landing spot and then build up airspeed again. While I was quite reluctant at first, it worked quite well. Somehow much less stressful than the conventional way and a lot easier to hit the spot. One trick more in the bag. Anyway, there are very good schools and very experienced CFI's in the US, one has just to find them.
Yeah, I have done full downs in the H300. No drama. In the R44 it is almost boring. The R22 I don't like for full downs. Not extremely difficult but I just don't get very comfortable with it. Strange feeling, since I have most of my full downs in R22's.

Time to let it go.
 

I've been waiting a week to say this.

Calling overpitching/being too heavy to HOGE/waiting too long to put on the brakes/or any other situation where you find yourself running out of power, "Settling with Power" is not going to save my life any more than calling the Vortex Ring State, "Settling with Power" is going to end it.

Its just a slang term pilots made up to express what they were experiencing. It has no "correct" usage. Deal with it!

Anyway, I'm making a pinky swear to never use the term "Settling with ******* Power" ever again, or to get all butthurt anymore when someone else does. I'm out,...

- Rant over

Bit like a "hover auto" versus "power failure in the hover" (IGE) Neither of which involve autorotation of course.

Couldn't resist - sorry.

I thought Californians were supposed to be 'laid back'..........

Robbie, glad you'r back. In a way, you are right, but from a FI point of view, one wants her or his students to be clear, what they are talking about. Therefore it is legitimate to talk about the terms, because in the end that saves lifes.
As you can see, I do not agree with using both terms (again, from a FI view), because the whole situation is just too messed up. I recently read an old paper of the Navy (the culprit in this whole mess, apparently), where they use SWP in a slightly different way. This has to stop, just for the sake of new students.

Don't take the crab to serious. He really cares about all that stuff and that is a good thing.

Since we are done with the terms now, we can go back to Vuichard's thing, because if the NTSB finds out, that the R44 chopped it's tail of, because they were training Vuichard's method, we will have a lot to talk about.

You want a term that will chop the tail off? Yell out "add power" to a Robby pilot when you really mean "roll on throttle" as your 500 is approaching the ground while its rpm is decaying.

Anyway, if Vuchard is going to turn into one of those things that causes more accidents in practice than in reality, then maybe we don't need to fix something that wasn't broken.

Can you explain that as it doesn't make any sense to me?

Which was the whole point of this thread

When I was getting checked out in the 500 the instructor regailed the fate of their other 500 (which was sitting in the hangar in two pieces) the last time he checked out a Robby pilot.

Seems this companies 500's had very loose throttle friction, which allowed the normal vibrations to roll them down in cruise flight (something I noticed on my first flight) at least I'm guessing at that being the cause.

Anyway, they were coming in for a landing, the rpm had gotten low, the check pilot (who had been trained in Schweizers and was thus used to playing with the throttle) yells out, "ADD POWER, ADD POWER". The Robby pilot (who almost never touches the throttle) instinctively pulls up on the collective (which of course is the wrong thing to do in this situation) they hit hard, the tail is chopped off, and the instructor developes a stigma of Robby pilots always rolling the throttle down on him for reasons he cannot fathom (as he assumed of me when I told him our rpm had gotten low).

You see there's two things about Robby pilots this guy didn't know.

1. In an effort to not override the governor during the early (death grip) days of flight training, we are taught to hold the collective, with just a couple fingers lightly touching the throttle. Therefore, we are less likely to notice a loose throttle rolling itself down (I myself didn't notice it until I looked at the tach). Schweizer pilots (I have noticed) place their entire hand on the throttle, therefore preventing a loose throttle from rolling itself down,...in fact I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't even know it had a loose throttle.

2. Since Robby pilots do not manipulate the throttle during normal flight, the term "power" is associated with the collective, not the throttle. So "add power means" up collective, not increase throttle.

Curious if any operators, or even any manufacturers, train and test VRS with their pilots. In a full career of Bell mediums including factory training, 76, 139, 332, it was never once done in training. I've tried demonstrating it instructing on lights and was inconsistent. Got into VRS once with a 407 bucketing and easily transitioned out forward (non-Vuichard).

Not something that was ever envisaged when doing certification of fatigue lives which have a "menu" of expected proportion of phases of flight. All sorts of bad ju-ju is happening in VRS.

Robbie, the fault lies with the instructor doing the check ride for using the wrong terminology. If the RPM is down in a 500 then it is throttle not power, doesnt really matter how you look at it. As for throttle friction that is down to you, you have it set where you like it. If you have it undone the tendency is to close the throttle as you pull the lever up. The term power in any helicopter is always collective, go back to basic effects of controls the first flight lesson ( well it is in Europe ) collective controls power and height, throttle controls engine and rotor rpm.

In our military it was a once off demonstration flight only given by an instructor, parachute required to be worn, climb to 14,000 in a Huey, never did successfully make an entry on my flight.

I'm also a tad confused as my recollection of the H500 is that the throttle wide open sets the gas turbine into the fuel controlled 'zone', and a throttle rolling off would very soon become apparent.

Did you mean the piston powered Hughes/Schweizer 300?

Nope, MD500C turbine model.

I was just cruising along, looked at the tach, and saw the rpm was low. I rolled it back up, which caused the nose to yaw, waking up the instructor, who then said to me, "I don't know why you Robby pilots are always rolling the throttle down" To which I replied, "I wasn't even touching it".

That is much clearer and makes sense Robbiee, thank you.

Thank god I learned on the R22 HP. I always had a deathgrip on the throttle. Especially since you want to know immediately, if there was a sudden surprise by your instructor in the form of a throttle chop.
But isn't that a bit a strange behaviour of a throttle to role itself off?

Had it many times on the 412 EP - two collective twistgrip throttles - where you notice a Tq split and then realise the student has inadvertently backed off very slightly on one of the throttles - never happened by itself, always the student, and just a hand position thing.