Time to Bring Up the Tail Rotor
From the report.
1. The pilot's delay in flipping the bypass switch would have had no effect.
2. The main transmission was not compromised to such an extent to degrade the basic aircraft autorotation capability.
3. The FM states the only response to a loss of tail rotor thrust is immediate autorotation.
4. The transmission failure was a loss of drive to the tail rotor.
5. Loss of tail rotor resulted in extreme attitude excursions which had to have an impact on the ability of the crew to pull off a successful autorotation.
As the S-92 requires a lot of torque to the tail rotor, even in cruise, is this aircraft even capable of surviving a total loss of tail rotor thrust? Did SAC actually test their flight manual procedures to show the aircraft can be successfully autorotated with no tail rotor thrust?
It has been reported that there was an S-92 that lost tail rotor control resulting in a runway landing in Norway. The loss of control does not equate to total loss of thrust as the elastomers can maintain the tail rotor at a thrust level.
All helicopters I have flown in (and there are many) can have a total tail rotor failure in cruise flight and can be guided to a controlled run on landing or an auto into a selected area. I admit none of these have highly canted tail rotors.
The Sultan