Originally Posted by
MichaelArchangel
With regards to autorotation, I had previously read this was taught to all new pilots as basic training (land with engines shut off)
The
US Private Pilot Rotorcraft Practical Test Standards require the applicant to demonstrate their ability to autorotate. Per page 1-18:
B. TASK: STRAIGHT IN AUTOROTATION REFERENCES: FAA-H-8083-21; POH/RFM.
Objective. To determine that the applicant:
1. Exhibits knowledge of the elements related to a straight in autorotation terminating with a power recovery to a hover.
2. Selects a suitable touchdown area.
3. Initiates the maneuver at the proper point.
4. Establishes proper aircraft trim and autorotation airspeed, ±5 knots.
5. Maintains rotor RPM within normal limits.
6. Compensates for windspeed and direction as necessary to avoid undershooting or overshooting the selected landing area.
7. Utilizes proper deceleration, collective pitch application to a hover.
8. Comes to a hover within 200 feet of a designated point.
For a commercial rotorcraft certificate the standard is within 50 feet of a designated point.
, and is apparently even easier to learn than hovering.
Depending on the pilot it can be easier, the same, or harder. For me it was easier.
However the person I was talking to said in real life scenarios, "the number of successful auto-rotates performed is in single figures" and "in reality helicopters fall out of the sky". Is this true?
Total nonsense. As usual, successful auto's don't make media headlines. All the media prints is that a helicopter made an emergency landing. They don't wax poetic about whether it was due to an autorotation or not. But if a helicopter crashes, then it automatically "fell out of the sky".
Helicopters only fall out of the sky if the pilot allows the helicopter to lose rotor RPM below a certain value, which can happen even in powered flight where nothing at all is wrong with the helicopter, or the helicopter undergoes a dramatic mechanical failure (loss of a main rotor blade, loss of a tailboom which can happen for a variety of reasons, etc.). Low RPM accidents are, unfortunately, not all that rare, and are a failure of pilot decision making and/or technique. Serious mechanical failures like shedding a rotor blade, while dramatic like the crash of an airliner, are similarly exceedingly rare.
It is probably fair to say that some (many?) emergency autorotations often result in damage to the helicopter, typically a rollover on touchdown, which may be due to the unavailability of suitable terrain or poor technique. If the day ever comes for me where I have to perform an autorotation in anger, all things being equal I'd rather roll one at touchdown due to a failure of my piloting technique than "fall out of the sky". The first is eminently survivable, the latter is not. Not to say that my intent would not be a perfect autorotation, because it certainly will be!