I have to disagree with SPS slightly although what he says is true.
But. If a low time pilot is flying along minding his own business and suddenly
his tail rotor drive goes, a blade fails or the pitch change controls failed,
I would bet that his first thought would be "tail rotor failure", no matter
what the real cause was.
Depending on the type of helo he/she is flying (got to be PCorrect)then there would be the yaw to contend with.
In all of the above scenarios there will be no tail rotor control so if there is enough altitude, enough airspeed must be maintained to help the vertical stabiliser give some directional stability.
As it is reasonably easy to demo to a student a jammed TR, the possible vibration and severity of the yaw cannot be determined until it happens.
What if the pitch controls have jammed in one direction adding to the yaw?
If anyone has suffered from this I would like them to post what they did and what
the cause was. It's not exactly the most frequent cause of accidents but it doesn't
mean someone's mobile phone or (make up kit) isn't going to slip down to the pedals
and jam one of them at a critical moment.
I have been told of students locking up on the controls and jamming the foot pedals but
haven't experienced this myself yet.
I don't think it's necessary to enter auto immediately but this is one option if a
suitable landing site is directly below.
The a/c must be levelled with the skids (hopefully below the fuselage), and parallel
to the a/c's track.
If a run on landing is carried out(speed helping with directional control) then the
collective could be used to yaw the aircraft back in line with the landing track on
touchdown.
If you have either pedal stuck on you, I would doubt a safe or suitable landing could be carried out without the luck of a lottery winner.
Or I might just be talking a load of old B******s!!!!!!!!!
Forgot to mention that at low speeds, the a/c would probably start to rotate pretty quickly and not be recoverable.
[This message has been edited by helimutt (edited 13 February 2001).]