A Time And A Place Fo Everything

[bag swinnger]

Some interesting conversation around our hanger the other day. I would like some feed back from as good a variety of people as possible. instructors through to the military guys.
a good friend of mine is taking his private heli licence right now and told me an interesting story about his training the other day. he was in his third or fourth hour of training and is just about on top of this hover challenge when the insructor feels its time to teach him about vortex ring state and proceeds to run it through a couple of times with him following along on the controls.
as i tell this to the guys in the hanger every bodys mouth is wide open in astonishment and we all agreed that this excercise should be shown during training but we all figured it should be some time after getting the feel for going through translation to say the least. now whats more is that half of us here had an introduction to this lesson in our commercial trainning, and the other half did not get exposed to this lesson till some time later in their career. as we are in the long line buissness here, we are expossed to it annually in are in house recurrency. as the boss wants every one to be able to recognize the symptoms, for he once almost lost a machine and pilot because the pilot could not recognize the symptoms, repeatedly.
I mentioned that we did this lesson to the transport canada examiner that did our ride this year and his opinion was that nobody should ever be doing this for the purpose of education or not.
so now i am curios as to who saw this lesson for the first time in thier commercial training, or if ever? or if the military guys do any trainning for this.
one of those things that makes you go hhhmmmm. :wacko:

 

[Winnie]

Mr Bag swinger:
I am as they say an instructor, and the lesson Vortex Ring State was first shown to me during the preparation for my PPL/H in the states, in the FINAL phases. Here I give them an introduction to it where it is due, that is exercise no 26 I think. It fits in, because as I see it, it is in the confined area situation/slingload situation it would be most "normal" to see it. I.e. turning downwind without keeping your speed, and there she blows!!

It definitively does not belong on the first 10 hours of flying for sure! :down:

Now if my student is a conversion student (60 hr CPL/H), I may show them Autos in the 2nd or 3rd flight, but hey!

It even says in the Flight Training Manual and Flight Instructor Guide that the exercise should not be taken too far, as the stresses it puts on the airframe is not generally understood.

well those where my 5 cents

 

[T5limit]

At an instructor refresher course back in 95 it was the consensus of all of the attendees (T/C and Instructors) that this exercise should not be carried out in training with ab-initio students. Unknown airframe stresses were the main reason cited with examples given of a lost 61 in the RAF.

For licenced folks, I guess it all boils down to the company policy.

As for introducing this in the first couple of hours of a newbie's training - that sounds like an instructor that is either bored or wants to show off. Why not take the student out and do full-ons for two hours?Better yet, throw a map at the guy/gal and tell them to plan a nav trip for the second ever flight.

OK, so I'm being sarcastic. It all boils down to giving quality training tailored to the student's level.

 

[RDM]

Agree with T5 on this one............
we NEVER brought this into our course at all, it was not shown to the student till after he was hired and on-line, when the advance exercises were taking place.

T5 hit the nail on the head, a instructor with to much time on his hands. At this stage of the students training it serves absolutely no purposes.


BTW Winnie, doc gave me my med back a few days ago, did you find someone to do those rides for you or should I start looking up some new questions in the CFS? :blink:

call me at work today after 1100.

 

[412driver]

DEFINITELY NOT! :down:

come on, at the 3 - 4 hour mark the student is just trying to hang on let alone understand all the principles of flight. :wacko:

discuss it in the classroom, yes, but demostration? not until late in the training would be my vote. better to teach them to avoid it!

 

[Batfink]

I went through Portage La Prarie with the Military in 1996. We did Night Autos to touchdown, but at no time did an instructor put the machine into Vortex Ring to demonstrate the "feel" of it. We didn't do it on the Griffon OTU either.... We discussed the physics of VR and the conditions that lead to it, but no "Demonstrations".

Now that you mention it, I don't remember doing that lesson when I did my commercial with Canadian in Sudbury back in 1995...

Cheers!

 

[The Real Batman]

I think the exercise taught to this fledgling student was inappropriate.

I learned to fly helicopters in 1973, and I don't think anyone even KNEW there was such a thing as Vortex Ring state!! I don't recall hearing about it for another 10 years, after my initial training!

I think it should definitely be taught... but not in the first few hours! Our company located in Alberta, reviews Vortex Ring State and Settling with Power, definitions, and appropriate response, annually in our PPC/PCC exams. It is then reviewed verbally during the flight test. Hopefully your friend is at a credible school, where the instructors are not brand new pilots trying to build hours. (One of my pet peeves over the past 30 years of RW flying).

My two cents! (given inflation... how much would that be in 2003 dollars?)

 

[Vortex Ring]

I'm with you boys, no way jose.

Never saw it in military wings training although a great deal of classroom time is dedicated to it there and since then at least annually.

I did enter end up in a VR state one time while doing night slinging in a 212. I was the young copilot with a mature Major who was an old L19 Artillery pilot. He froze and I recall taking control, unloading the collective and entering a shallow descent only to fly out of it with our slung load barely missing the tree line. We went back to base and called it a night. I'll never forget it and often use it to pass on to young pilots.

Recently while I was riding in the back of a Sea King as an observer for an exercise I overheard one of the pilots say, "hey watch this"! :unsure: I always hate hearing that, it always prefaces a really stupid act. Sure enought the guy at the controls purposely entered V.R. to demo it to his young cojo. He did everything very well but him and I had real words after.

If done for demonstration and instruction purposes, I recommend a complete briefing and review of it before the flight and then only with experienced pilots, definitely NOT at lesson 4 or 5! :down:

 

[VERTICAL REF]

If you are going to teach slinging and longlining in your basic 100 hour course then you better give detailed training in the classroom and in the cockpit for the onset, full blown and the recovery procedures for "vortex ring". That being said I know of no individual that has had advanced operational training at the 4 hour mark. If you are just going to fly ems or line patrols, don't waste your time you will never get into it! As for the stress on the aircraft I disagree with the "unknown" damage to the airframe! A proper demonstration from and educated training pilot will show less stress than an hour of full ons or one logging cycle.

 

[Big Duke 6]

I would have to agree with all of the pilots on this topic. Not the time or the place.This should be shown operationaly, if the type of flying warrants it. That instructor should be showing that student a few things far more important, like finding wind, let alone Vortex-Ring State. Hell, if he's going to take the training that far, might as well show him LTE, settlig with power, high altitude whiteout recovery procedures while skiing, the difference between the log landing and the service landing, Kodiak SOP's and what BOL is, all before he has 10 hrs. I would hope that todays instructors have the courtesy to properly prepare students for there flight test, that is after all there single mission. Don't waste the students time, money and life expectancy by showing them things that are far beyond there comprehesion in the first 100 hrs, these are not requirement standards to show compentency to Transport Canada. :rant: I would also have to agree entirely with Vert-Ref in regards to "Unknown Airframe Damage" while demonstrating Vortex-Ring.

 

[Winnie]

Yes RDM
Unfortunately we had Mr. Houde from TC in to do the 3 rides...

Went well of course, but it was a kafuffel for sure. One guy is soon ready for your well known and versed Chinese CFS Torture!

Talk to ya later

PS my ticket home is the 11th of Nov.

 

[bag swinnger]

well thanks for all the responses every one, and thats pretty much what i expected to hear. maybe theres a bonus if the instructor also reads this thread.
hey vortex ring whats up with the slinging at night, do you guys where nvg's for that. I have gotta agree with you on hearing the words "hey watch this " had a good chuckle over that.

 

[Vortex Ring]

What great replies, thanks Kyle for such a terrific forum to share and learn from.

B/S, yeah slinging at night, doesn't everyone do that? I know it's seems crazy but Tactical Helicopter squadrons all do that or at least waaaaay back in the early eighties we did and no we did not have goggles back then. We had to be able to re-supply the Army guys day or night. It's perfectly safe but obviously done in VFR night weather.

I have always wondered why my commercial helo peers (most of you guys) don't sling at night?? Since a lot of jobs are under such time constraints and in the Arctic you don't have much choice in the winter, why not sling at night?

We did an exercise in Goose Bay back in the winter of 86/87 and we flew eight to ten hours straight of night slinging for several nights in a row, a constant daisy chain from a large frozen lake about twenty minutes north of Goose back to the airfield. If I recall correctly the Universal Helicopter guys at the time just shook their heads at us for doing this. I couldn't then and cannot now figure out what the big deal is?!

Now before I get shot out of the sky please remember that I do not refer to CARS from day to day for my military operations but I am pretty sure you can fly revenue hours in a single engine helo with one pilot at night so long as you are not carrying passengers, am I correct? If so, why not sling at night? If not why not and why not change it!

The moderator of this post can feel free to redirect this one to another new topic. I look forward to hearing from everyone with much more experience than me, please be gentle. :wacko:

 

[RDM]

Universal in the late 80's, hmmmm..... make a face of yourself there Vortex, see if I know'd ya. :huh:

 

[VERTICAL REF]

...because you cannot fly a single engine helicopter for "revenue' at night...passangers or no passangers...and i sure as hell ain't gonna do it fur free!!! :huh: :huh: :huh: