PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Why do military helicopters crash rather than autorotate?
Old 10th Mar 2011, 16:18
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ifresh21
 
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Why do military helicopters crash rather than autorotate?

Hi,

This is a question I have wanted to ask for a good while. This forum isn't specifically related to military flying, but hopefully some of you guys have knowledge about that.

A while ago, I was watching black hawk down. In the movie, blackhawks get shot down at low altitude and crash. Crew members die. It is based off of real life and similar crashes happen often. I also heard that if the tail rotor on something like an AH-64 gets shot and malfunctions, the helicopter will crash.


My question is, why can't the pilots autorotate down to a fairly soft landing? I know in the R-22 they say if there is a tail rotor problem, enter an autorotation. Why would a helicopter have to crash because of just a tail rotor failure?

Thank you in advance for help
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