Yes Dash
The horn does come on at 97% with the collective only slightly raised but remember the problem really started during the students second attempt, and with the friction tightly locked maybe he was unsure as to the position of the collective (relative to the down stop) also he said that during the first attempt he lowered the RRPM to 90%. Why?
Two points to consider (on 1st attempt)
One --Surely when when the RRPM dropped below 96% it was time to stop staring at the RRPM gauge and look elsewhere rather than continuing down to 90% and hoping that eventually the machine will decide to change it's mind and produce the correct result.
Or two perhaps he is prone to overcontrolling.
Either way it seems to me that he was concentrating to much on the RRPM gauge and was not sufficiently aware of the conseqences of raising the collective to much.
This leads to the mistake on the second attempt. Whilst Still staring at the the RRPM did he then continue to pull collective 'til the machine changed it's mind or did he overcontrol?- At the same time not having sufficient control over the collective due to the friction.
Either way he suddenly he finds himself trying to fly an R22 with the govenor off and frictions on- and then it was too late.
The accident report seems fairly conclusive insofar as it recommended that the operator changed it's procedure.
I'm personally not in favour of changing a procedure unless the old one is flawed/dangerous- even if the change comes from the manufacturer (why frank now tells us to turn the governor on twice is beyond me)
Also in this case the student may have had some chance of avoiding an accident if the govenor was on and frictions were off.
So as I dive for cover can I just ask what is the advantage of changing the checklist to friction on and govenor off? -Or has hindsight given everbody 20-20 vision on this one?