Les Jones

Misc > My New Benchmark for Bravery Outside of Combat

You want to know who's brave? The guy who goes on test flights with people getting their helicopter pilot's license.

The final part of the checkride was escaping from a vortex ring state. Joe took the controls and slowed the helicopter down so that we had lost almost all forward speed. Then he lowered the collective to start a 500 foot-per-minute descent from our 700' altitude. The helicopter began "settling with power" into its own disturbed air, falling suddenly much faster than the initial descent rate established by Joe. The controls became mushy just as he said "You have the controls". The way to escape from a vortex ring state is by pushing the cyclic forward to try to fly the helicopter forward out of the disturbed air while simultaneously lowering the collective so that the helicopter isn't beating the air so hard. Once I had recovered some flying speed I pulled on the collective to resume a climb.

The checkout for going into an autorotation landing after main engine failure sounds like alot of fun, too.