DCS Huey and VRS

Forgive me.

I don't mind the stupidity, it's the undeserved arrogance that grates.

I'll just ignore him instead.

- Bear

Know exactly what you mean. But are we spared?

Most of the stupid things I did, I did out of arrogance. Especially when I was younger. Sometimes it scared the hell out of me, but it didn't save me from the next stupid thing.:music_whistling:

I've got around 1200 hours in the real UH-1H, did plenty of crazy/stupid things, never been close to VRS.

- Bear

Yes, we have been participating in the same threads.

Its easy to see that Bear has a bunch of solid knowledge about helo operations.

I have also noticed quite some humility; flying helos makes most people humble, so I quite sure about your profession

One is a mil chopper pilot, the other an ex-chopper instructor. And your quals were?

In my case, at least I say I am. I back my statements up with references to credible data, and it is up to the reader to judge if he/she think its valid.

Actually I could be lying about being a pilot to the extent that my nose grows, it really shouldnt matter as long as my statements is backed up with solid credible data.

Good lord; what a bunch of keyboard jockeys :argue: and chartologists. :vertag:

Most real pilots learn during basic training that aircrafts can not really defy the laws of nature.

What we learn to do is to use the flight manuals data to be able to stay on the safe side. This takes us to the charts you seem to despise. The more I learn the more humble I get, seeing that the data in the flight manuals is one part of what is keeping us alive.

What about the humble part, instead of trying to minimize our posts, and actually substantiate your statement with crefible data?

I’ll start by adding some extracts from the NASA documentation already refered and linked to:

TEST DATA

The following sections review the available test data for rotors operating in vortex ring state.

 

Lock and Glauert (1926)

Hafner (1947)

Reeder and Gustafson (1949)

Brotherhood (1949)

Drees (1949)

Castles and Gray (1951)

Stewart (1951)

 

Between these I cut out around 10 other research reports

 

Brinson and Ellenrieder (1998)

Newman (2001)

Betzina (2001)

Taghizad (2002)

This NASA report did look at the collected research available for VRS from the invention of the helicopter until 2006 when NASA released the report. Basically all researchers in the world came to the same conclusions, including very similar data and mathematic formulas for calculation of VRS.

Trying to shoot all of this down by saying, ”Nope, they’re wrong” should need some very thourough explanation and also very precise data to refer to.

As the Chief pilot of NH90 in our Airforce I had a plan to order VRS training in the 20M $ Full flight simulator for OPC training this year, to increase the knowledge and awareness of VRS for our pilots. What I found was that these simulators not really have VRS implemented. The plan was main rotor VRS as well as Tail rotor VRS but none was really implemented.

There has been a similar thing for airliner simulators where the need to train real stall conditions, found after some accidents and incidents. The problem was that the training was only made for avoiding stall and upset conditions, so the simulator software was only certified to that part of the flight envelope( before full stall and upset). The add on for getting a certified really correct flightmodel outside the flight tests fir the real aircraft was hard. There really was no flight test data and no computer simulation data available. Now they have started getting some simulators certified for this purpose. The catch is that IF you need to perform training on this part of the envelope it better be good damned correct otherwise you learn pilots wrong when handling really dangerous situations.

The Full Flight sims lacks some parts of the envelope because its hard and expensive to develop credible behaviour. It might be a notch harder to make it right for DCS...for the Huey i have seen more than one not credible behaviour. Some of this seems to come from the urge of having ”issues heard of” implemented and then getting it wrong.

For example(not knowing if it still present) if you flew for around two minutes with the EGT just a notch above limit, the engine broke down and actually caught fire. There is more margins than this IRL. I know of a Huey individual that got known as a ”most powerfull” compared to others, and we did start to say that there have to be something wrong( cant really be much more powerful than it should withouth a fault.

Later they found a faulty EGT meter by 50 or 60 degree celcius, when doing service. It had flown parts of flights for long time with way higher egt than the limit. I think the engine went to service but it didnt brake down.

I know of a Huey individual that got known as a ”most powerfull” compared to others, and we did start to say that there have to be something wrong( cant really be much more powerful than it should withouth a fault.

Later they found a faulty EGT meter by 50 or 60 degree celcius, when doing service. It had flown parts of flights for long time with way higher egt than the limit. I think the engine went to service but it didnt brake down.

I think E.D.(or whoever) modeled my UH-1H after that one individual Huey.:pilotfly:

Thanks for all of the knowledge guys.

I have felt for a while that VRS in the Huey was way to easy to encounter.

I remember the first couple of hours within the sim having some WTF moments when it fell out of the sky over the runway practicing quick stops. Having never flown anything but Robinsons I assumed (I know...) that being larger and heavier, the Huey would be much more forgiving during rapid deacceleration.

When I was training for my private my instructor would have me hover OGE downwind and pick a vertical reference near or beneath the helicopter to focus on.

It was hard to keep the relative airspeed low enough to enter VRS at altitude. I still couldn't tell you if it was because I was fixating, or my instructor was slowly pushing down the collective when I entered VRS for the first time. When I quick scanned the panel the VSI was indicating close to -1000fpm. Either way, both good lessons.

Now all I want to do is train for vertical reference, long lining and utility...  

If you think it's easy to VRS in Huey, maybe you should try Mi8. Especially if doing MAUW quick stop. Once you master that, Huey can be flown like RC heli.