Originally Posted by
Reely340
I've got about 500 hours in Enstrom F28As, and love a lot about them. They're roomy, and easy to autorotate, and they've put many an A&P's kids through college! And yeah, the head and blades are pretty much bulletproof. They have, like lots of Americans, a bit of a weight problem. In my mind, they're sort of the Checker Cab of the American helicopter industry (
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker_Taxi ). Bulletproof construction, if not exactly sexy from a specs standpoint.
They are, seriously, built like tanks. And the A model hovers like a tank, too ( I.e not all that great ).
I got checked out by an acquaintance who had a fair bit of time in them, and was quite fond of them ( as I am ). However, he had moved onto other types so he may have been a bit rusty in type at the time he checked me out. He was an extremely experienced pilot, having flown OH6 in Vietnam, and many types subsequently.
In any case we worked on normal stuff like hovering, and manipulating the ( uncorrelated ) throttle, which was pretty easy in the A model because you pretty much roll it full on and leave it there for the entire flight ( I kid, I kid ).
In any case it came time for him to show me my first Enstrom autorotation. Keep in mind that he had been flying 222s and such, so not only was he rusty in the Enstrom, he probably hadn't flown anything that small in a while.
So, when the flare stopped us 15-20 feet in the air, and we fell the rest of the way to the ground, you can imagine I was a little concerned for the machine. He assured me that it would take a lot more than THAT to hurt an Enstrom, and proceeded with the checkout.
Sure enough the machine was fine and we continued with my checkout including night touchdowns, etc.
A robustly built helicopter, and if it wouldn't hover all summer long, well that's what running takeoffs and landings are for, right?
