Welcome back to Helicopter Lessons in 10 Minutes or Less. I'm Jacob, and this is Part 2 of Dynamic Rollover. Now, if you haven't watched Part 1, I'd recommend watching that first. We cover what is static rollover, as well as dynamic rollover.
In this episode, we'll take what we learned from the first episode and go into some of the causes, the factors, both physical and human factors, as well as how to avoid it. It's very important to understand this dynamic rollover because it's very, very easy to get into. We'll break down some of the causes that you'll see getting into this. With the first one being just doing a basic pre-flat. checking for tie downs.
Obviously if you get in the helicopter and you go to take off and a tie down is maybe laying over skid, laying over a wheel or something like that, you pull in a bunch of collective. Well now you've got a pivot point because one landing gear is secure. You're gonna have a rolling motion because it's gonna pivot pivot across that pivot point and it's going to be very easy to exceed the critical angle and the helicopter continue to roll over.
Now another one that could potentially cause dynamic rollover would be skid contact or wheel contact with the ground, kind of like in this obstacle. Maybe you're hovering across an airfield and you make contact with a ground light, a fence, a sprinkler, bush, cable, anything on the ground that could potentially catch that skid and create that rolling motion and exceed a critical angle. angle you could have dynamic rollover. Alright, another one, stuck landing gear. This could be something like landing and taking off in ice or mud conditions where one skid or one wheel catches and is instantly becoming a pivot point for that rolling motion.
Another cause would be improper technique for slope takeoff and landing. I'll make a video there or later covering slope takeoff. off and landing, but improper technique when you're landing or taking off from a surface condition that already has a slight angle into it, or angle in it, could make you exceed a critical angle even easier. Lastly, landing or taking off with your cyclic already at its limits.
So say you're landing to a slope or something like that and you've already given it as much left cyclic as it already has and the aircraft doesn't really have much more and you continue down on the slope and you've just just run out of cyclic input to affect that landing. It could potentially cause a dynamic rollover condition. Now those are some of the causes.
Let's look at some of the factors that affect it. I'd like to break that down into the physical factors as well as the human factors. Now some of the physical factors, you've got your main rotor and your tail rotor thrust. Obviously the control inputs that you have on the cyclic, the collective and the pedals can affect how this rotor performs when you're landing and taking off could potentially agitate or affect getting into dynamic rollover. Another could be your aircraft center of gravity.
If it's already say far left or far far right it could affect how much thrust you have to go in or thrust you have to adjust when making these takeoffs and landings. Could potential or potentially affect your exceeding of a critical angle when you're trying to cause any or stop any unnecessary drift due to center of gravity. Another one It could be a crosswind component. If you're fighting against crosswind, it's going to affect your main rotor, tail rotor thrust, potentially hit your cyclic stops, whatnot. You could potentially find yourself getting into a dynamic rollover condition because of that.
Lastly would be your ground surface conditions. So we talked about the slope, but also it could be anything from loose gravel, loose sand, stuff like that that causes you to get into a dynamic rollover because of a slipping. flipping of the main landing gear and whatnot.
Some of the human factors you can get into inattentiveness maybe you're doing the same takeoffs and landings from the same airfield every single day and you just don't catch it on pre-flight that maybe there's a cable on your landing gear or you're landing somewhere and you're just not paying attention. Very easy to get into dynamic rollover. Another one, inexperience.
So getting into dynamic rollover and not even realizing it, or realizing that you may have a pivot point and a slight rolling motion and not catching it. With that goes along with the inappropriate corrective inputs. So say you find yourself with a pivot point and a rolling motion, and instead of reducing the collective, you just suck in a bunch of collective to try to take off out of it, and it just further agitates that rolling motion and reduces that critical angle, makes it easier. easier to roll over the helicopter. Another one would be slow inputs where you start to roll over and you don't correct soon enough and the helicopter continues to roll.
Lastly, your loss of visual reference points and that's where the helicopter or you're flying the helicopter and maybe you've lost your visual reference points because you've changed where your attention is and maybe you're focusing on what's farther out. front of the helicopter instead of what's immediately underneath it and you just don't look at the fact that maybe you are taking off into something, some sort of dynamic rollover condition. Alright, so those are some of the causes and the factors, but ultimately, how do you avoid dynamic rollover?
Well, number one thing is focus on the takeoff and slow down for your takeoffs and your landings, that is. If you treat every single takeoff and landing as if there's the potential for dynamic rollover, it's a lot easier to arrest or to fix any kind of dynamic rollover instead of getting into the habit of I'm going to take off and just pull in a bunch of power and get out of here. I'm just going to land slimmer on the ground real quick.
So if you focus and you slow down all your takeoffs and landings and you think about these factors, you're going to reduce it. Another technique is to count your landing gear as you take off and land. You know, say left skid, right skid, clear. Or left wheel, tail wheel, right wheel, clear as you take off and you land.
But ultimately, if you do find yourself in a dynamic rollover condition or it is suspected, Your number one best corrective action is going to be lower the collective. It's going to be more effective than any kind of other input, whether it be pedal or cyclic. If you can lower the collective, you're going to lower that CG, you're going to decrease that rolling motion. It's going to arrest the potential for your dynamic rollover faster than any other control input, and hopefully save the helicopter. Alright, so that wraps up the dynamic rollover.
I hope you enjoyed the video. Be sure to hit like and subscribe below as well as leave your questions and your comments below. Thanks again for watching.
Once again, I'm Jacob and this has been Helicopter Lessons in 10 Minutes or Less. Safe flying.