When I was doing my PPL (R22) one of my instructors taught told me to transition away and climb into the circuit. . Climbing through 200ft agl (23" 60kts) and just crossing the airfield boundary he said to me, 'have you got your headset volume correctly adjusted?'. So I reached up with my left hand to find the volume control on my headset. . .
Then this is what happened - He chopped the throttle and said (quickly) "Right, the engine has just failed what are you going to do about it?" I said, (slowly) "Errr. . . " and watched the RRPM fall to 80%
He said, "Too late" dropped the lever and threw it into a near 90deg banked turn and got back inside the airfield boundary. RRPM now about 90% with about 50ft to go. . another 90deg banked turn in the opposite direction to level us and the RRPM was up to 100% just in time for him to raise the lever and cushion the landing.
Going over this in my mind with a stopwatch it must have been about 4 seconds between 'engine failure' and the lever going down.
I guess it's not always 'who you know. . .'?
