Vortex

Which basically amounts to the same thing, doesn't it? You're still going to
have to have sufficient altitude to nose over to gain airspeed either way or
can you recover more easily once the VRS is halted and the rotor blades are
flying in relatively clean air again?


Hmm, no, not really. I'm just suggesting another way to skin a cat. It would
be possible to get into SWP in a helicopter and not having the luxury of forwad
flight...confined area for instance. Granted, if one were in that position, it
would be about as hairy as it gets, but it is possible. And in that case I'd
sure want to at least try the auto angle before I deliberately flew into
something. :^)

I'd doubt there are many who have been in that position, and I've certainly
never heard anyone telling that tale. As you noted it's going to take clean
air to get out of the situation. I don't really know what would happen if one
were forced to auto out of SWP...I have the sneaking suspcion that it would be
a hail Mary collective pull at the bottom. It seems to me that if one got into
established SWP in a confined area, did a vertical auto to get out of it, and
then pulled power to stop the descent again, SWP would be reestablished and it
would all be for naught. That's why I'd think it would be necessary to auto,
hold what you got, and then pull like heck at the bottom. But, mind you,
that's just thinking out loud. The important thing about SWP is to recognize
the conditions necessary to get into it and then avoid those conditions like
the plague. And it's always seemed to me the easiest way to avoid it is to
control your rate of descent.

One thing I was wondering, when I pushed cyclic to get out of the VRS, I
found
that my cyclic control authority was almost gone. The model was very
sluggish
in response.

Same in the Bell 47's we did the demos in.

Come to think of it, cutting power and
entering an autorotation as you suggested above, would have negated that
problem. It's just not something that would have occured to me in the heat
of
the moment.

And it's really easy for me to sit at this computer at my cluttered desk and
think about what I'd do if put in that situation. I'd like to think that I'd
react in a proper manner, but that "heat of the moment" you mentioned above can
sure make things trying. One of the old guys that taught me to fly used to say
"anyone can be taught to fly. It is not a difficult thing to accomplish. It's
knowing what to do when things go to worms that makes a true pilot." I tend to
agree with statement wholeheartedly.


Stephen Austin
Austin Ag Aviation
Charleston, Missouri