So I come across this while studying for my RW add on.

Why on earth would anyone yank collective up during a engine failure?

All the helicopter is, is a spinning wing, why on earth would I dramatically increase my AOA and jam in throttle if my engine failed?



I mean I guess if you only understand this stuff to a rote level, but the safety bulletin says “experienced” pilots, maybe there is some procedure that people get so ingrained they preform it like a monkey see monkey do, to the point it might as well be rote?


Just don’t get this, I mean if you actually understand how a wing flys, and have a basic understanding of how the controls work in a helicopter, this really makes zero sense to me, had a engine failure in a plane once, it didn’t even occur to me to jam the throttle in and pitch for the moon, confused.

Agree, but realize that we're all built differently, regardless of experience.
This reminds me of the thread discussing the challenges in switching from right hand throttle left wheel, to left throttle and right stick.
I jump back and forth in various aircraft and don't stuff the nose into the ground when I meant to power up, but that opinion wasn't very well received.

Rob wrote:Agree, but realize that we're all built differently, regardless of experience.
This reminds me of the thread discussing the challenges in switching from right hand throttle left wheel, to left throttle and right stick.
I jump back and forth in various aircraft and don't stuff the nose into the ground when I meant to power up, but that opinion wasn't very well received.

It can be a little odd going back and forth, going from working pilot to instructor, to playing in helicopters it’s like going from wearing shoes all summer to boots in the winter.

I’ve had to take half a second to hit the mic button, or something like that, but that’s about it.

Have you ever, while simulating a engine failure, yanked the stick back and stuffed throttle because the controls were a little different?

I don’t claim to be Hoover, but I’m just not getting this one

The main thing in learning to fly airplane or helicopter is to move the controls to find out what they actually do. The very idea that doing so will quickly kill you goes against common sense. We live in a society that would make it cost too much to have such a dangerous machine. Yes, the helicopter is more dangerous than the airplane because it has more moving parts. No, learning to control one does not make you dangerous in the control of the other.

Control movement will cause very rapid response in most small helicopters. The exception is the Hiller, which uses paddles for cyclic control. So you will pick up helicopter control response more quickly than with you airplane control learning experience, other things being equal. Move the control. If you don't like what you get, move it the other way. Same as riding a bicycle. The dynamic control nature of physics is pretty universal. Proactive? Sure. Bracketing, burst on target, walking the anti-torque or rudder pedals works for accurate stability. Waiting so as to have a well thought out reaction does not work any better than in a tailwheel airplane.

We are mechanical. There was an industrial revolution, you know. Experience with one machine helps, not hinders, learning to control another machine. No manufacturer is going to make any machine work directly opposite to similar machines just to be different. Yes, the software guys want to keep us old farts guessing, but not Piper nor Cessna nor Bell. Certification standards are going to look at control standardization.

Helicopters can get weird when unloaded but, when not liking that, a sensible pilot would pull the forward cyclic back to end it. Anti-torque is going to keep working against main rotor rotation, but left or right pedal can create bank same as rudder in airplane. The only pilot going full deflection on the controls is the acrobatic pilot, hopefully with acrobatic training.

I have flown the Cobra in Vietnam and various airplanes crop dusting. In neither aircraft did I ever push over to negative g in the energy management turn into target or crop row. I agree with Dan Gryder about pushing over in the inadvertent engine failure that happens to normal pilots seeking altitude, as in the takeoff and climb out. In thirteen failures, both airplane and helicopter, I never did this. Why? Because I always had zoom reserve in the form of airspeed. It was just the way I worked. Altitude was not a worthwhile objective, airspeed was. Airspeed gave me the maneuverability I needed when the engines quit. Dan is after the same thing, airspeed, with the push over. Unloading the wing, with collective, is similarly a good idea in a helicopter. No, unloading the CG by pushing forward is not going to unload the helicopters wing. The cyclic changes rotary wing pitch, with reference to relative wind, variably and the collective changes rotary wing pitch, with reference to relative wind, collectively. All as mechanically sound as fixed wing pitch with reference to relative wind.

NineThreeKilo,

I have mentioned this in other threads, but the way to save money by learning to hover a helicopter (the only part more difficult than airplane) in a couple of hours is to go rent a backhoe at your local tools and equipment rental place. Anyone can rent the small backhoes. In a days rental time you will be able to smoothly move bucket fore and aft to dig at the correct depth, the big arm vertically and horizontally, and even move the tractor up without changing seats. It is the same rub tummy while patting head as side slip to landing in a crosswind.

Robinson was anti ex-Army instructors because they, like Cirrus, wanted to be their own special category of aircraft. Like MTV says, "take your machine out and find out exactly what it will do." He is talking about particulars to a fine degree of separation. He is not saying the controls work differently. It is a lot of monkey see, monkey do. It is a lot of monkey hear, monkey do. It is a lot of monkey instructor speak, monkey student speak, old farts speak, monkey do. Only cults limit their student's observation to their programmed dogma. The tactical situation is just too fluid for that to work out well.

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