Sorry, I'm catching up on this thread, so I'm quoting from several postings:
I'm afraid I'm a lot less sanguine than you about pilots' ability to get into autorotation after a sudden and complete engine failure in an R22.
In the case of a partial or gradual engine failure I'm sure there would be few problems, but where something like carb icing turns the engine off like a light, especially in the climb, I'm simply not convinced that the average person's recognition processes/reaction time are up to the job.
This is one reason I think it is a good idea to perform a *lot* of throttle chops with a student. You don't want the pilot to be having to think "oh, what's going on, OMG it's an engine failure, now what is it I have to do again?". You want the reaction to be instinctive - between the yaw, and the change in engine/rotor noise, the left arm should just immediately go down. The thought process should almost be "hmm, I'm autorotating... I must have had an engine failure!".
tabdy: I think I will continue to avoid the R22! (wrt autos)
There is another side to doing autos in the R22: when I went to Bell school years ago, after the first throttle chop and landing, the Bell instructor looks at me kind of funny and asks me: are you an R22 pilot? I thought he was going to disrespect the aircraft, but when I said "yes" his response: "Yeah, I thought so. R22 pilots do the BEST autos". :-)
puntosaurus: I had an ex Navy instructor in the early nineties who was nuts about autos to the ground, and his enthusiasm eventually rubbed off on me. About four years after I qualified he had his sixth genuine engine problem (first since the navy) in an R22 on a recovery from practise auto away from the field. Because it wasn't the nice smooth grass of the airfield, he tipped it over on landing, wrecked the machine but walked away with his student. The point there is that I would have backed him over anyone to land intact, but even he couldn't do it on a less than perfect surface.
Of the people I know: 3 carb ice engine failures at the school when I was learning (before Robinson figured out about the carb temp gauge). My instructor landed on the paved runway, no problem. Another instructor landed off airport, no problem. A third instructor landed no problem, but I never heard whether that was off airport or to the pavement. My instructor on the CPL had an engine failure in an R22 and landed off airport: she tipped it over. The guy who owned the school I learned at had an engine failure at 300 feet and landed off airport, no problem. A local pilot with a lower bearing failure a couple years back bent the machine. Personally, I think it's a bit of luck: lots of fields that look great from 1,000 feet turn out to be so steep you wouldn't land on them power on, let alone power off.
manfromuncle: As an experienced instructor, I will not do EOLs to the ground in an R22, sure, I can do them, but it's just too easy to bend up the aircraft, get the sack, get a reputation etc. I will do them in the Schweizer with a student, because it's a much more forgiving aircraft for it.
I think some of this is how often you are doing them in make/model. When I'm teaching almost every day in the R22, I have no doubts about my abilities. However, when I go through slow periods, or periods where most of my time is in other make/model, I find my skills in the R22 erode pretty quickly, and I get more conservative.
My favorite aircraft to teach autos in was the Enstrom. Lots and lots of inertia. The R44 and the B206 are both pretty forgiving as well, but the Enstrom is a TANK!. I only have a little time in the Schweizer and didn't think it was *that* much easier than the R22, but then I have a lot more hours in the Robby.
Engine failures are EXTREMELY rare, you're much more likely to get some sort of malfunction/chip light/partial power loss, than a full-blown engine failure.
Well, they aren't *that* rare. I know quite a few helicopter pilots who have had them, I've had one in an airplane, and then there are all the other failures that have the same result: we had a local pilot lose the lower bearing in an R22 a couple years back, I've had a sprag clutch malfunction that required a full down; it happens, even in turbine helicopters.
manfromuncle:Frank Robinson said on the safety course that, at one point, so many people were crashing R22s during practice autos that he seriously wanted to ban people from doing autos in them!
You have to realize that Frank believes in his heart that his helicopter can do no wrong. It
is pretty depressing to read the accident reports and see the same accident over and over, but I don't personally think that means you should limit teaching autos/EOLs, it just means you have to find ways to avoid those sorts of accidents. Here in the USA where most of the training is being conducted by relatively inexperienced instructors, it's not surprising that there are a lot of training accidents. You also have to look at the aircraft being used for training: The R22 is not impossible to land EOL, but it certainly is a lot harder than many of the other helicopters. I've always wished for a high inertia version of the R22 for training. I've done a fair amount of training in the Enstrom and the R44 and it is certainly much easier to teach autos in those types, and also lets you as the instructor roll the throttle off in many more situations. I won't roll the throttle off on an R22 student in a 5 foot hover: there's too little energy if he does the wrong thing. In the Enstrom I used to roll it off in pretty much any flight regime because there was plenty of energy for the student to mess up and me to still fix it. Having the oleos helped too ;-)