Originally Posted by
megan
Throttles in the roof - during one sim session in a 76 level D we were taught, if single pilot (we always were), a tail drive failure in the hover could be handled, if power available, by climbing vertically to height (1,000 suggested), nosing over to gain airspeed, accept side slip, and fly to suitable, spot for auto. It worked in the sim, but in real life? Always had my doubts having seen a fully loaded Huey lose drive in the hover. First question is sim modelling accuracy. John Dixon might give his considered opinion.
Helicopter flying is not inherently dangerous, it's only as dangerous as you want to make it. Three decades with an offshore operator and they never had an accident, nor injured anyone.
I was also given that exercise in the D sim. From personal experience of a low level drive failure (Pulling power in the flare to land in a different type) I didn't believe the spin rate. The C++ sim was I believe more realistic in terms of spin rate.
However I got away from a control failure in another different type (355) after a teleflex failure at a similar point. The TR was providing some thrust, the spin was extremely uncomfortable, and used an aggressive nose over at somewhere near 500', I'm not sure, just took what I could see out of the window. The reason for doing it was I was into a crowded, congested area, with clear space in very short supply. The flight to safety was flown at a bank angle higher than I expected, but the run on landing was exactly as the trainers and manuals described.
Someone mentioned earlier the RFM point about controlling pitch and roll on the cyclic as you attempt to put the aircraft down after a drive failure, If the failure occurs in the cruise and you get into auto safely then from sim experience I can believe that, BUT, in the low level drive failure the spin was so violent there was no chance, the yaw/roll couple was bad and I believe that being chucked about in the cockpit I was into PIO due to the lateral G forces, but I'm not sure. Certainly it took a lot of T Cut before the aircraft was flyable again.
After those two experiences I've often considered the positioning of FCL's and engine control swithches, a pair of guarded kill switches on the P1 collective seem to be probably the best option, but in a drive failure in the S76 sim reaching up and cocking the FCL's certainly stops the spin, the aircraft then flopping onto the ground before your hand is back to the collective, the 332 and S61 did something similar, but those sims were early and there were a lot of differences between them and the aircraft.
SND