In answer to the second post on this thread, yes knievel, unfortunately they are more common than you might think. Indeed more helicopters are lost and lives with them during training for engine failures in R22s than have ever been lost in actual engine failures.
It's a combination of things. Firstly once a national aviation authority gets a training process for a type written, they are very reluctant to change anything. They are civil servants. So if they put into the training requirements for a PPL or CPL twenty years ago that autorotations must be tested on the licence test, they must be trained, practiced and then demonstrated on that test. Even when the manufacturer of the current training type says that he considers it unnecessarily dangerous to practice them, and the relevant country authority agrees, still the licence requirements will remain.
If you are not familiar with the autorotation case, in just about every common helicopter you can, within a degree of acceptable risk, (and yet I would be open to argument on this) practice autorotations to a flare and either hover or go-around. Unfortunately there are some authorities that still insist that autorotations are demonstrated in the flight test to a landing. This adds a considerable risk to the procedure both under training and test. As the pilot at this stage might have as few as 40 (ppl) or 105 (cpl) hours on type the requirement leads to a totally unacceptable number of accidents during this manoeuver.
I am familiar with a case in a state in Australia where a new Flight Operations Inspector with limited knowledge of the R22 is insisting on touchdown autos on CPL check rides. Many CFIs disagree as it is well known that if you can demonstrate completion to a stationary or slow forward motion hover then the safety of the occupants is almost assured. Frank Robinson agrees.
Which leads on to the next point. Some individuals both examiners and instructors feel that what was good enough for them in the Huey is good enough for this young upstart in an R22. In other words, ego problems. Threat and error management takes a long time to filter down to some people, and even then it is seen as the latest fad.
Sad really.