Mr Selfish, the problems that Paco mentioned with the 350 in Canada are not the typical "Jack stall" that we have all heard about.
This seems to be a cold weather situation, where high time pilots have lost control of the aircraft.
Please don't "try harder" to attempt this yourself, as I doubt that you have the required low temperatures, and your family won't like the results !
I have several thousand hours of Squirrel time and have encountered "Jack Stall" or as EC describes it..."servo control transparency". Let me be the first to warn you, you need not "try" to enter this situation, it happens at the most inopportune moment and it hits hard. I was in a B model at 4000 lb AUW circling a fire at 4,000 with a gentle 15 degrees of bank and the controls simply froze.
Be very aware of this situation, and never allow yourself to enter a situation where a hard turn or climb is required for safety, as that's when it may happen. Remember, the only way to exit this "transparecy" is to reduce collective and bank angle.
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Francois, I too am mis-informed over the number and seriousness of 407 Tailboom problems worldwide. AS with Paco, we probably only get Canada and USA info via the
NTSB website and I was under the impression, that the majority of accidents were not fatal. In one of the Tailboom accidents, the aircraft was landed safely and the only fatalities were 2 passengers running away uphill ( Brazil?)
Do you have an accident website or database that you access (in SA?)
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Belly Tank, you must be almost as old as me, I too recall that situation when Astars first hit the skies in the late 70's. The flexible blade-spar allowed the T/R to contact the boom, and the fix was a longer shaft on the T/R gearbox output.