Actually relative silence could be very telling. The TR produces a huge amount of the noise of a helicopter. If it stops that noise goes, often followed by the engines as the pilot stops them. I had a drive failure 23 years ago, the lack of TR noise was even noticeable inside the aircraft and oddly the remaining part of the ride much smoother without all the vibration from the back end. Mine was a drive shaft failure close to the main box so we were spared the sound of the shaft flailing.
Also had had a loss of TR authority on short final to a congested area, class one caused by a teleflex problem. The recovery aged me a lot, it was a very aggressive manoeuvre at low level, back to a run on at an airfield. But as soon as I realised I had a little control I knew it was workable so long as I remembered the training.
Last night’s pilot was an instructor and examiner and very talented aviator, if such a pilot crashes then the rest of us will really struggle.
In the sim, expecting things to go wrong a failure in the cruise can be hard work, effectively in the transition a lot of things are going to happen very fast, with good training and skill luck is still going to play a big part.
Waiting for pax today a colleague and I saw a drone shot from this morning in which all 3 TR blades appeared attached and from the angle of the shot undamaged.
SND