I can't decide whether it's the alien insects, white swans, black swans, ghosted black trash bags, capitalist friendly communist saboteurs, monkey wrenching ghosts escaping the tailpipe right before our very eyes. Or if it's just plain old 'built on a Friday afternoon' to the irresistible call of the 'dolce vita' that is the root cause of this unfortunate event.
I know the 'old hands' here, know the hopelessness of the situation but I would like to address those with 'Walter Mitty' ideas of an ideal outcome to the scenario. Seeing as the manufacturers with their relatively bottomless time and intellectual resources haven't been able to accurately model yaw rate outcomes in the simulator. I wouldn't fault this fellow for overestimating his keel surface area while in the midst of a mortal split second decision in which the other option (while yaw free) looks like the drop of doom.
It's a classic crew room argument regarding autorotation deep within the vertical part of the HV curve, you have your nose diver/lawn dart school versus your saner and more conservative,keep the disc mostly level , 'bottom and pull ' school. The nose divers reassure themselves of their superiority by getting away with preplanned and pre rehearsed practice autos in the shady portions of the curve. It's a high risk gamble that doesn't allow time for any necessary thought or hesitation when the real thing happens. Much helped with a significant headwind and a field free of obstructions. I am going to cast this option out as pure 'holeshot' fantasy. ROD building to free fall speeds with insufficient height and airspeed to carve a proper flare trajectory..= lawn dart. Though Walter Mitty would have the panache to plant it across 'the away teams' goal line. Leaving us with the 'parachute' option.
It's an oft repeated statement in rotorcraft engineering textbooks that steady state vertical autorotation rates are very close to, if not a little greater, than what a parachute with an effective diameter equal to that of the rotor disc would yield. Knowing this we can build an idea of what the ideal 'bottom and pull' reaction is going to look like.
You can spare yourself the freshman physics headache by using the modern miracle of the internet, to enlist the help of a physics engine to calculate free fall with air resistance.
https://www.omnicalculator.com/physi...air-resistance. Go to advanced settings, set your coefficient of drag to 1(flat plat area) ,enter disc area and approx weight, height,air density is obtained within the sites database itself. Lock those parameters in. I've got that AW169 coming to pitch pull height with round about 55 mph of vertical velocity. (Equal to the cab dropped free fall by a crane at 100 feet) Sure the pitch pull might scrub 5 even 10 mph off, it's somewhat of a bone of contention. The real studious among us will figure this out by the height at which hover chop exercises can arrest the descent rate to zero.
It's nothing but ugly......but may encourage respect for the curve...or a change of profession. Paratroopers eat your heart out, Robinson drivers don't subtract anything for the pitch pull....
I don't pretend aspiring billionaires are safe in anything flown at this profile but would offer a shameless plug for a restricted weight ,modernized 212 or 214st. Beautiful Americana. Leave the martinis till the after party. Laughable as VIP ships but likely still the most favourable autorotation index of anything out there "off the shelf"