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Old March 17th 16, 03:05 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Paul Agnew
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Posts: 306
Default Shameless update from Dale Kramer

Vortex ring state has nothing to do with "staying away from other vlift vehicles." VRS is the interaction with your own vortex that decreases the relative angle of attack on your own airfoils/rotor blades. The recovery is to lower collective (altitude permitting) and use cyclic to pitch forward in order to fly out of the ring state - essentially to leave the vortex behind you. Simple adding power will exacerbate the "settling with power" and accelerate your descent.

I've encountered settling with power a couple of times back when I flew helicopters. The worst was when holding a stationary position at 1000' in a Bell 47 with a skysign (grid of lights). The bottom suddenly dropped out and the entire ship started shuddering as the blades went in an out of a stalled or zero lift state. Recovery was textbook and we lost about 200' feet.

How to recover in something like this proposed VTOL will be a large hurdle to surmount for certification and for overall safety of the design.

Paul A.
(Knocking the dust off my CFI-Rotorcraft...)
Jupiter, FL