I got aprox 2000hrs in the 520 about 10 yrs ago......fun machine to fly, but not much of a people carrier, and the limited range made ferries across Canada interesting, to say we visited airports we would never normally visit for fuel is rather an understatement. The 6 machines the company had all had YSAS but IIRC all the a/c had circuit breaker pulled and tiewrapped inop, apparently the system was always going u/s so company stopped repairing it. Due to nature of our work, mostly moving drills, we spent a fair bit of time practicing zero airspeed autos from 100ft and if my memory is all it was, scary to say the least, the first time I had it demonstrated, I was pretty horrifyed at the way the nose dropped straight down,literally....
Qiute a suprise as it took 3 people to wheel out the hangar being very tail heavy, 2xpushing and one guy standing on front of skids as a dead weight to keep tail off ground.....like I said fun machine and always generated lots of interset amongst other crews, but I think these days I;ll stick to Eurocopter and Bell mediums thank you very much. Now the 500D, that was a blast.........
Newfie.