World Affairs Board - View Single Post - V-22 in the news again

GGTharos · 12-21-2006, 11:09 AM

The Vortex Ring condition is a pretty standard helicopter phenomenon.

So, what we have is three crashes due to poor parts/QA, for which the blame rests squarely with the manufacturer, and another which is essentially pilot error (the pilot is supposed to be trained to anticipate the VRS and avoid it - it is a KNOWN phenomenon of rotary-wing aircraft)

So then, the pilot should have done his transition at speed and altitude - the only two things that let you recover from VRS, or allow you to avoid it completely (especially speed). Helicopter pilot face THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM.

If they need to descend quickly they must have a lot of forward speed, -then- slow down and go into hover or near-hover like descent.

12-21-2006, 11:09 AM	#5 (permalink)
GGTharos Contributor Join Date: 10-06-06 Posts: 357	The Vortex Ring condition is a pretty standard helicopter phenomenon. So, what we have is three crashes due to poor parts/QA, for which the blame rests squarely with the manufacturer, and another which is essentially pilot error (the pilot is supposed to be trained to anticipate the VRS and avoid it - it is a KNOWN phenomenon of rotary-wing aircraft) So then, the pilot should have done his transition at speed and altitude - the only two things that let you recover from VRS, or allow you to avoid it completely (especially speed). Helicopter pilot face THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM. If they need to descend quickly they must have a lot of forward speed, -then- slow down and go into hover or near-hover like descent. Last edited by GGTharos : 12-21-2006 at 11:13 AM.