I have thought about this a lot as its where i spend most of my time while flying, but......I am keen to what others have to say and think on my theorys.
Number 1 is have a longer rather than shorter line on, i like a 200ft line minimum.
reason being i think i would have more time to react, especially in mountainous terrain, it may make the difference between clearing the trees and making it out over a valley and getting some sort of auto together or not,
A friend of mine questioned me on my longer (200ft) line i was using, granted a 100ft or even a 50ft would have done the job, but he had a GOV failure on a 150ft line and ended up 4ft off the ground trying to get RRPM sorted with a 200ft he reckons he would have been 54ft, who knows.
But other than that there is **** all time to sort it all out as too whats going on, but would probably be just lowering the club, to conserve whatever RRPM was left and pulling the thing out of the deck to cushon the impact, and as stated earlier if there was some hope of getting out over a valley of desending terrain i would go for that and get some forward speed for a flare.
If over flat ground any fwd speed would probably be of help but over trees straight down would be my choice with aft cyclic on contact with the greenery, bearing in mind the gurus say an A/S under 40kts is not much help in the flare.
Others thoughts on this would be read with interest as its a very valid and not much talked about topic.
all this aside i have talked to a grey haired gentleman pilot friend that had a engine failure in a 206 picking a load off the ground with a 100 ft line and he reckons the first he knew about it he was on the ground upside down..... that quick