I can't afford to take actual helicopter lessons, so I'm using flying in X-Plane. My issue, of course, is how to "do it right".... and I found you. These are great things for me to practice in the simulator - Thank you so much!!
When I was a Huey flight instructor I taught my students the certain way to avoid any low power problem (settling with power or vortex ring state) was to maintain an airspeed above translational lift until the helicopter is within ground effect. When exiting a confined area in Vietnam we would ascend an imaginary slope from the front of the skids to the top of the trees in our intended path. That allowed us to use minimal power, and possibly transition to translational lift before we reached the tree line.
Tom Dowling that’s great when you are flying a Huey but if you are at max power you don’t want to move away from your safe area. If you start moving forwards and you run out of power and down have some safe underneath you to land then you are sinking into whatever it is that is below you. Also when descending into a confined area that needs a vertical landing you can’t maintain translational lift. Also if you come in too fast and you are near max weight limit you could settle with power or not realize you don’t have enough power for the landing until you are too close and committed to you landing spot.
Man im so envious, i bet you have some amazing stories, thankyou for what you did for our country, i was registered but they were winding down the war. You guys got a raw deal. Some of us really appreciated you though.
Thanks Tom. Nice tip. I really respect you guys that flew choppers in Viet Nam. You had to get in and out of tight spots without the luxury of extra time to do everything the safest way. You guys are great pilots. Thanks for all the missions you completed safely!
That's another good one. I was unconvinced by your vortex-ring-state-is-not-settling-with-power argument previously, but I think I'm coming around to it. It makes sense to have a separate name for just having too much momentum to arrest your descent in a situation where you are not actually creating a vortex ring state.
The reason for VRS sometimes being called "settling with power" (or even "power settling") dates back to when different branches of the Armed Forces used the terms reciprocally. The FAA made the situation worse when they chose "Settling with power" as an alternative name for VRS (it's in the handbooks) alienating an entire branch of the military.
Great video Mischa! I like the external camera views. I also like that you teach checking for available power before you get into the confined area. Not many instructors teach that part and focus more on vortex ring state. It is important though that pilots realize that settling with power can occur right when you get out of ETL and enter OGE hover which will be when you have little to no forward air speed or vertical descent. This is especially important to check for power if you are running close to gross limits. Another important thing that is not taught often is checking the OGE performance curves for your weight and density altitude before you head out to the confined area. Keep up the great work!
Love your videos, former Black Hawk crew chief. I'm not a helicopter pilot but do have an hour of stick time in a MD500. I like the Cabri helicopters, especially the fenestron tail rotor. There's a video of a Robinson settling with power over water, the aircraft could not recover and went down in the water. Had he followed your advice he would have saved the aircraft.
Good video. I'm a helicopter CFI also so I usually look at videos really critically as you can imagine. May have to stop by and checkout the Guimbal on my trip to Whistler
As a retired military and commercial helicopter pilot, it's nice to come across a video where the instructor knows what he's talking about. So many talk nonsense.
Good job checking the truck for survivors. I would hate to be stuck and have a helicopter just fly by and ignore me. I also love the pencil/pen holder in the panel.
Gosh, every video you post is informative and well put together. You explain things clearly and effectively to your students AND your audience. Great videos Mischa! If I'm ever in BC I'd love to stop by! I'm going for my CFI checkride on the 15th of December, your teaching style is one to emulate! Keep it up!
Nicely done guys....but a little more on wind assessment would be good... assessing techniques in particular as well as what to do when you run out of steam on the vertical out should also be covered..
Very awesome to see. Knowing the difference between settling with power and vortex ring state seems really important in this scenario. Do you know if they in the US have another term for what you in Canada call settling with power? Or if they are taught the risk of coming in with too much inertia?
Not to be too picky about the physics: Settling with power is too much MOMENTUM that you don't have enough power to arrest in the downward component of the flight vector, not too much mass and inertia. Momentum describes a relationship between the mass and velocity of the helicopter, as shown in the equation, p = mv, where p is momentum, m is mass in kg and v is velocity in m/s. Because momentum is a vector quantity, this means it has both magnitude and direction (towards the ground when settling with power). Mass is a component of momentum, but inertia is the tendency of a body to stay at rest. Inertia needs to be overcome when the helicopter is initiating flight.
Paul Becker hey Paul, thanks for the great physics description. You are completely correct. I’m just trying to keep it simple. So why you combine mass and inertia you get momentum.
"inertia is the tendency of a body to stay at rest. Inertia needs to be overcome when the helicopter is initiating flight." You are only (about) half right. Inertia is the property of a body that resists change, at ALL times, under ALL conditions. At rest, inertia must be overcome to initiate flight, that is true, but once in flight, inertia must be overcome in order to accelerate/decelerate, even to change direction.
Here's another physics tidbit: The net force applied to a moving object is equal to the rate of change of the momentum. A large force will cause the momentum (related to speed) to change quickly. Smaller force, the change will occur more slowly. If a heli is descending rapidly, a large thrust from the rotor will be required to change the vertical speed quickly. Note: it's the rotor thrust (lift) minus the weight of the heli that gives the force that will serve to change the momentum. If the rotor thrust just equals the weight, the heli will continue to descend at a constant speed.
Exterior shots you added in this were leeegit! Sketchy how slowly she climbs almost seemed like you were going to have to burn some fuel off to get out of there😬
Hey Mischa-- do you guys have the... firmware update(?) that lets you pull additional power yet? One thing that looks nice about the Cabri is that you're still needing to push the helicopter a bit to make it do things like steep approaches and max-performance takeoffs. I think it's good for students to learn power management, vs students who train in the R44 and are used to having tons of reserve power in a typical, two-guys / half fuel training scenario.
My understanding is that entering vortex ring state only happens when you're descent rate is too high AND your airspeed is too low. The rule of thumb I've been taught is you don't want to be descending at more than 300 FPM if your airspeed is less than 30 knots. If you're airspeed is more than 30 knots you won't be descending into your downwash and you won't enter vortex ring state.
This is what I was taught as well. I think 300fpm is a lot safer than 500fpm. There are charts that show which combination of IAS and vertical speed will cause VRS to occur. I believe the same is true for the 30 knot IAS, it's really once you slow below translation that VRS can occur, but 30knots is a nice number with a bit of a safety buffer.
The published figures (300fpm < 30kts) mean that if you are not within those boundaries, you will not enter VRS. However, being inside those boundaries does not mean you WILL enter VRS. Some helicopters will not enter VRS until > 1600fpm, and some only at 1kt (yes, ONE knot). The 30kt limit was actually chosen because, at speeds lower than this, your ASI is incapable of displaying an accurate airspeed reading
It depends on the helicopter. 300/30 are nice, conservative numbers that we teach for the R22 and R44. To actually develop VRS requires that you be a lot slower than 30 knots, as students often discover while trying to enter VRS during recovery practice sessions. One handy technique they use at the factory school for quickly and reliably dropping into VRS is to start in forward flight with a power setting below what's required for a hover, then hold the nose a few degrees high while staying in trim. As you slow down, the aircraft should drop right into VRS. Much easier for students than first entering an OGE hover, then trying to induce VRS by lowering collective (students tend to leave the aircraft translating a little bit when they do OGE hovers, so you might get a little vibration but no VRS). Obviously you should teach them to do OGE hover as well, but for banging out several successive VRS recoveries, the previous method works really well.
I always have a problem getting my head around why you talk about having enough power (in this case to do a straightforward vertical take-off) in the Cabri ? I could understand when up a high mountain and the air is thinner but it suggests to me the Cabri must be fairly underpowered if you are always having to work out if you have enough power to do a basic thing like a vertical climb in every situation ?
We did a flight with a mustering pilot in a R44 at Sweets Lagoon in the Northern Territory, Australia. No doors, crocodiles everywhere. Frightened the chromosomes out me.
Steep descents (and ascents) are always more dangerous even when done slowly because you have little to no ability to auto rotate in the event of power loss or failure.
love it :).. glad too see your back on your game video wise :).. can understand why u were distracted pre birth.. i think any father would be and rightly so.. but glad to see your back to you usual self :)
At least turbine helicopters pretty much always have wipers but for some reason the smaller ones don't. Perhaps it has something to do with the shape of the windshield.
Hello pilot yellow Am Geoffrey from kenya my company is considering to buy the cabri but our concern is about perfomance on high altitude areas could you please assist me (am an instructor)
Thank you for the manual apart from it how is perfoming in canada and as a pilot how would you describe it We got the perfomance data but what we needed was an input over how it does feel currently we have an SC300 and B2 and they do perfome considering the high temp in this area so i would appreciate if you could tell me how it perfomed during summer and now as i understand you are in winter (r.o.c , ceiling gross weight)
Read the Manual , there is so much in there. I am from Uganda btw setting up a Flight School here and we are looking at the R22 and Cabri plus an R44 as the Bundle
I can't afford to take actual helicopter lessons, so I'm using flying in X-Plane. My issue, of course, is how to "do it right".... and I found you. These are great things for me to practice in the simulator - Thank you so much!!
When I was a Huey flight instructor I taught my students the certain way to avoid any low power problem (settling with power or vortex ring state) was to maintain an airspeed above translational lift until the helicopter is within ground effect.
When exiting a confined area in Vietnam we would ascend an imaginary slope from the front of the skids to the top of the trees in our intended path. That allowed us to use minimal power, and possibly transition to translational lift before we reached the tree line.
Tom Dowling that’s great when you are flying a Huey but if you are at max power you don’t want to move away from your safe area. If you start moving forwards and you run out of power and down have some safe underneath you to land then you are sinking into whatever it is that is below you. Also when descending into a confined area that needs a vertical landing you can’t maintain translational lift. Also if you come in too fast and you are near max weight limit you could settle with power or not realize you don’t have enough power for the landing until you are too close and committed to you landing spot.
Tom Dowling where can one be trained to Hueys?
Man im so envious, i bet you have some amazing stories, thankyou for what you did for our country, i was registered but they were winding down the war. You guys got a raw deal. Some of us really appreciated you though.
That is probably because the military flight instructors are more thank likely the best of the best!
Thanks Tom. Nice tip. I really respect you guys that flew choppers in Viet Nam. You had to get in and out of tight spots without the luxury of extra time to do everything the safest way. You guys are great pilots. Thanks for all the missions you completed safely!
I like how you described your procedures to execute this confined landing, they are very detailed, and informative. Excellent video Mischa.
super cool finding truck in water, please leave update if anything about truck . great vid
You guys have changed my life with your videos!
That's another good one. I was unconvinced by your vortex-ring-state-is-not-settling-with-power argument previously, but I think I'm coming around to it. It makes sense to have a separate name for just having too much momentum to arrest your descent in a situation where you are not actually creating a vortex ring state.
The reason for VRS sometimes being called "settling with power" (or even "power settling") dates back to when different branches of the Armed Forces used the terms reciprocally. The FAA made the situation worse when they chose "Settling with power" as an alternative name for VRS (it's in the handbooks) alienating an entire branch of the military.
This helicopter is just amazing (and the videos of course). Thanks.
The low light pushes your shutter speed down to a perfect speed, makes the Cabri look awesome in flight!
Great video Mischa! I like the external camera views. I also like that you teach checking for available power before you get into the confined area. Not many instructors teach that part and focus more on vortex ring state. It is important though that pilots realize that settling with power can occur right when you get out of ETL and enter OGE hover which will be when you have little to no forward air speed or vertical descent. This is especially important to check for power if you are running close to gross limits. Another important thing that is not taught often is checking the OGE performance curves for your weight and density altitude before you head out to the confined area. Keep up the great work!
Love your videos, former Black Hawk crew chief. I'm not a helicopter pilot but do have an hour of stick time in a MD500. I like the Cabri helicopters, especially the fenestron tail rotor. There's a video of a Robinson settling with power over water, the aircraft could not recover and went down in the water. Had he followed your advice he would have saved the aircraft.
Good video. I'm a helicopter CFI also so I usually look at videos really critically as you can imagine. May have to stop by and checkout the Guimbal on my trip to Whistler
How many
hours does Simon have? he seems quite confident in his skills.
Can't get enough of these videos!! Absolutely love them.
Awesome, thank you again guys. I guess im totally addicted to these videos, flying vicariously ,lol keep up the great work.
Love these vids and your relaxed style of teaching, great stuff, thanks.
As a retired military and commercial helicopter pilot, it's nice to come across a video where the instructor knows what he's talking about. So many talk nonsense.
Fun video! You guys always pick the best spots to practice.
Well done training video on steep approach.
That was a pretty cool approach, both to the truck and the steep!
Simon has become a very good pilot. Well done Bro ( Simon) top Job.
Good job checking the truck for survivors. I would hate to be stuck and have a helicopter just fly by and ignore me. I also love the pencil/pen holder in the panel.
Gosh, every video you post is informative and well put together. You explain things clearly and effectively to your students AND your audience. Great videos Mischa! If I'm ever in BC I'd love to stop by! I'm going for my CFI checkride on the 15th of December, your teaching style is one to emulate! Keep it up!
Nicely done guys....but a little more on wind assessment would be good... assessing techniques in particular as well as what to do when you run out of steam on the vertical out should also be covered..
Awesome video as usual, appreciate all the camera angles makes the video 10x cooler.
If I ever get the money I'm coming to learn with you guys haha.
Thanks. Informed.
I love these videos. Keep up the good work
Another fun learning experience!
Great video lesson. Thank you both!
Well done video and explanation of the complexities😉
I am an rc heli flyer totally enjoying your videos.
Enjoy your videos very much.
Haha this vid starts out so awesome. Well done.
Great job on this video!
Very awesome to see. Knowing the difference between settling with power and vortex ring state seems really important in this scenario. Do you know if they in the US have another term for what you in Canada call settling with power? Or if they are taught the risk of coming in with too much inertia?
HappyCamper I’m not really sure what they would call that because they call Vortex ring state just “Settling”.
great video!!! loved it!!
Nice control touch by Simon! Does that Helicopter have any SAS or augmentation system to help with stability? Cool stuff!
Great video, reminds me of steep approaches into jungle LZ's in Vietnam. Curious about status on truck.
Awesome video
Let us know what becomes of the truck in the river😎
Not to be too picky about the physics: Settling with power is too much MOMENTUM that you don't have enough power to arrest in the downward component of the flight vector, not too much mass and inertia. Momentum describes a relationship between the mass and velocity of the helicopter, as shown in the equation, p = mv, where p is momentum, m is mass in kg and v is velocity in m/s. Because momentum is a vector quantity, this means it has both magnitude and direction (towards the ground when settling with power). Mass is a component of momentum, but inertia is the tendency of a body to stay at rest. Inertia needs to be overcome when the helicopter is initiating flight.
Paul Becker hey Paul, thanks for the great physics description. You are completely correct. I’m just trying to keep it simple. So why you combine mass and inertia you get momentum.
"inertia is the tendency of a body to stay at rest. Inertia needs to be overcome when the helicopter is initiating flight."
You are only (about) half right.
Inertia is the property of a body that resists change, at ALL times, under ALL conditions.
At rest, inertia must be overcome to initiate flight, that is true, but once in flight, inertia must be overcome in order to accelerate/decelerate, even to change direction.
Here's another physics tidbit: The net force applied to a moving object is equal to the rate of change of the momentum. A large force will cause the momentum (related to speed) to change quickly. Smaller force, the change will occur more slowly. If a heli is descending rapidly, a large thrust from the rotor will be required to change the vertical speed quickly. Note: it's the rotor thrust (lift) minus the weight of the heli that gives the force that will serve to change the momentum. If the rotor thrust just equals the weight, the heli will continue to descend at a constant speed.
Please reply with the altitude for this steep approach. Very nice. Biff
'Let me take control, Simon'
Simon still has his hands on the cyclic.
heard about a software upgrade to 160 HP can you talk about that in a video?
Nice video, however no mention of the importance of wind, and no mention of maintaining ETL in the descent.
Exterior shots you added in this were leeegit! Sketchy how slowly she climbs almost seemed like you were going to have to burn some fuel off to get out of there😬
Hey Mischa-- do you guys have the... firmware update(?) that lets you pull additional power yet? One thing that looks nice about the Cabri is that you're still needing to push the helicopter a bit to make it do things like steep approaches and max-performance takeoffs. I think it's good for students to learn power management, vs students who train in the R44 and are used to having tons of reserve power in a typical, two-guys / half fuel training scenario.
It looks like your torque got a little high when you were flying away from the truck in the river?
gosh i love helicopters =w=
My understanding is that entering vortex ring state only happens when you're descent rate is too high AND your airspeed is too low. The rule of thumb I've been taught is you don't want to be descending at more than 300 FPM if your airspeed is less than 30 knots. If you're airspeed is more than 30 knots you won't be descending into your downwash and you won't enter vortex ring state.
This is what I was taught as well. I think 300fpm is a lot safer than 500fpm. There are charts that show which combination of IAS and vertical speed will cause VRS to occur. I believe the same is true for the 30 knot IAS, it's really once you slow below translation that VRS can occur, but 30knots is a nice number with a bit of a safety buffer.
r070rHead yup! Just like coming out of an autorotation with a power recovery!
The Vuichard Recovery method offers a significant improvement over the traditional recovery technique which you describe.
The published figures (300fpm < 30kts) mean that if you are not within those boundaries, you will not enter VRS.
However, being inside those boundaries does not mean you WILL enter VRS. Some helicopters will not enter VRS until > 1600fpm, and some only at 1kt (yes, ONE knot).
The 30kt limit was actually chosen because, at speeds lower than this, your ASI is incapable of displaying an accurate airspeed reading
It depends on the helicopter. 300/30 are nice, conservative numbers that we teach for the R22 and R44. To actually develop VRS requires that you be a lot slower than 30 knots, as students often discover while trying to enter VRS during recovery practice sessions.
One handy technique they use at the factory school for quickly and reliably dropping into VRS is to start in forward flight with a power setting below what's required for a hover, then hold the nose a few degrees high while staying in trim. As you slow down, the aircraft should drop right into VRS. Much easier for students than first entering an OGE hover, then trying to induce VRS by lowering collective (students tend to leave the aircraft translating a little bit when they do OGE hovers, so you might get a little vibration but no VRS). Obviously you should teach them to do OGE hover as well, but for banging out several successive VRS recoveries, the previous method works really well.
I always have a problem getting my head around why you talk about having enough power (in this case to do a straightforward vertical take-off) in the Cabri ? I could understand when up a high mountain and the air is thinner but it suggests to me the Cabri must be fairly underpowered if you are always having to work out if you have enough power to do a basic thing like a vertical climb in every situation ?
How would you handle an engine failure just before climbing over the tree tops in such a confined space?
Crash landing
Nice
Pilot Yellow...What was the status on that truck in the water? Do you think he “flooded” his carburetor?🙈💥🤔
The safe approach speed is around 300FPM but I've heard guys saying when they flew in vietnam they would descend at speeds over 2000FpM
The dangerous range for setting up vrs is 400-800 fmp. If you’re above 800 though good luck stopping yourself when you get to the ground.
We did a flight with a mustering pilot in a R44 at Sweets Lagoon in the Northern Territory, Australia. No doors, crocodiles everywhere. Frightened the chromosomes out me.
Graham Wilson wow sounds intense.
Pilot Yellow if you manage to get to the NT you have to do it.
Graham Wilson will do. Thanks
The truck capped out due to a "flooded" carburetor 😊😂😂😃😃So M....was it stolen/dumped?
Can you apply Rain X to your bubble cockpit?
Steep descents (and ascents) are always more dangerous even when done slowly because you have little to no ability to auto rotate in the event of power loss or failure.
What exactly is a seating check?
love it :).. glad too see your back on your game video wise :).. can understand why u were distracted pre birth.. i think any father would be and rightly so.. but glad to see your back to you usual self :)
Should've seen what I did 😢
👌
@ 2:20 Just kissing the over-torque there!
Yup
Curious, can you sign someone off for a US FAA flight review?
Zachary Byers no sorry we can only do Canadian licenses.
No worries, I may still come take a flight in the Guimbal. Looks like you guys have a killer area to fly around in.
Zachary Byers you bet, it’s amazing here. We’d love to have you any time.
Are there no windshield wipers on helicopters ?
At least turbine helicopters pretty much always have wipers but for some reason the smaller ones don't. Perhaps it has something to do with the shape of the windshield.
Hello pilot yellow
Am Geoffrey from kenya my company is considering to buy the cabri but our concern is about perfomance on high altitude areas could you please assist me (am an instructor)
Here's the pilot manual with Limitations, Performance, etc. coreheli.com/CabriG2_files/J40-001-Issue-02-PFM-eng.pdf
Thank you for the manual apart from it how is perfoming in canada and as a pilot how would you describe it
We got the perfomance data but what we needed was an input over how it does feel currently we have an SC300 and B2 and they do perfome considering the high temp in this area so i would appreciate if you could tell me how it perfomed during summer and now as i understand you are in winter (r.o.c , ceiling gross weight)
the cabri is no longer 144shp it's just been upgraded to 160shp - no doubt it will help
Won't the OGE and IGE charts in the pilots manual tell you how it performs in various temperatures, altitudes, and gross weights?
Read the Manual , there is so much in there. I am from Uganda btw setting up a Flight School here and we are looking at the R22 and Cabri plus an R44 as the Bundle
How is your child doing
Man the G2 sure lacks power!
it's been upgraded to 160shp - all cabris will be retrofitted
So you're qualified to "revise" the "book" by 66%?
What are the chances I come across this random video and see a mf car in the river like that..
The top knot is wayyyyy distracting with all the head movement!
This guy loves hearing himself talk.
I saw the title and came just to say: You should not be shooting at helicopters. It's bad. MmKay.
Are you a CFI? Please provide your credentials. You know nothing.