What was your scariest moment in a helicopter
Many, many years ago I was tasked to take a Saunders Roe Skeeter - who remembers those - from an exercise location in North Germany to Division Workshops to collect some spares. I climbed out of the clearing in the woods in which we were based using full power. The Skeeter was so under-powered that if you didn't pull full power, you didn't go anywhere. It was not unusual to smell fuel as you did that - quirk of the system.
On this occasion the smell got rapidly stronger and as I passed about 400 ft I looked down to find Avgas pouring over my feet and disappearing into the well from which the electrical cables led to the cyclic. Realising that I was a spark away from becoming an airborne fire-ball I made the quickest circuit in the history of circuits to find my clearing. I landed, shut-down as the undercarriage oleos were still compressing and covered 100 yards in about three strides.
Turned out that the metal filter used to re-fuel the aircraft from jerri-cans had fractured the fuel filler neck, situated just behind the pilots door. As I lowered the nose to accelerate the single fuel tank began to empty into the cockpit. I was too dumb in those days to be worried for long but it was scarier than anything that happened in the next thirty-five years