We rolled throttle off, pitched for 60kts and counted to 5 before we got too nervous and bottomed collective and rolled throttle on. RPM was waaay down past bottom of the green. In retrospect it was a stupid thing to do. Proves to me just how forgiving the 269 really is.
Yes but one day it could save your life. Imagine having to "stretch" an auto to reach a safe landing site (because of trees or rough terrain etc). There you are, engine has failed, set up in the auto and you know you will not reach the clear area. What do you do? keep it in the green and fall short, smashing to pieces in the trees or raise the lever a little, increase to max airspeed, loose rrpm to below the min, then when clear recover to minimum by flaring like a b@2tard? I suppose the more you practice, the more you will know the absolute limitations?.