Over another hurdle?

Hi Kevin - I enjoy reading your flight training diary. Some comments:

The OTHER Kevin in San Diego wrote:

My instructor demonstrated the 1st one and didn't quite get all the
way in, but did get the power to 22 inches and a descent rate of about
1,000 fpm. Didn't get the vibration I was expecting but there was a
little bit of wind so that might explain it. A quick demo of how to
get out and it was my turn.

Ideally the winds won't play a role - you should be at zero indicated
airspeed, which, if you're pointing into the winds, means you're
drifting backwards relative to the ground. Just a little bit of
translational lift will go a long way towards avoiding VRS.

Did a couple more on my own and then my instructor took control. He
got deep into it with about 18-19" of MAP and without forward cyclic
input, just poured on the coals and recovered on collective only.
Kinda contrary to everything I've been studying about settling with
power. He went on to explain how he's been able to do that in the
R22s quite a lot and how he just wanted to show me it could be done
like that, but to actually recover the way he intially showed me. I
actually found it pretty easy to recover but was a bit confused by how
the VSI showed a huge rate of descent, but it didn't appear as if the
helicopter was falling at all. Eyes playing tricks I guess.. Very
odd. Easy to see how someone could get into it and not recognize it
though.

There's a good chance you were still flying with the help of at least
some translational lift if that was the case. I don't fly the R-22, but
after losing 500 or more feet in the 300CB we just can't get out with
collective alone - pulling pitch just makes it worse (much like stalls
in fixed wing aircraft.)

Of course atmospheric effects and the weight of the helicopter have a
direct impact on the rate at which VRS will develop.

Another 1.0 in the books. It's getting kind of funny because my last
6 or 7 flights have also been exactly 1 hour. People are going to
think I'm faking log entries if this keeps up.

Have fun and keep writing about your adventures!

-Ryan
ATP/CFII (airplanes and helicopters)