An unblievably stupid sequence. The after crash picture shows that before flight a set of scales perhaps could have been used for seat maximum weight.
At about the four to five second mark the MAP and RPM flash past. MAP at about 18". Needles joined and somewhere fairly high.
Definately cannot be power settling of any sort so i disagree with FH1100 pilot there. He appears to have put the lever down, the engine noise is consistant and healthy to this point. Also it can be seen then that the aircraft is descending which it wouldn't for a short time at least, had he kept the lever up and simply rolled off throttle.
I suspect he entered auto to be a flash harry for a movie star youtube appearance with a zero speed auto and stuffed it is my opinion. Note the high nose angle at the four second low power mark.
Note also no violent yaw at entry, ol' mate was possibly prepared for this maneuvre to a small extent.
Had the engine quit we would have heard it and quite possibly heard also a vocal exclamation of surprise of some sort as well as a yaw.
Before the MAP disappeared at about 7.5 seconds it can be clearly seen fluctuating up to nearly 19' then back down, like - uh oh first pull way too high there Einstein.- still at about 250'.
Then next we saw the MAP at about 12 seconds its at the top of the gauge, don't worry about where the red line is back aways, still now at about fifty feet - according to altimeter and outside reference.
Did I say a bit high for pulling collective?
Ol mate has pulled it right up at around the nine second mark it looks like somewhere above fifty feet.
1.At that point the ROD slowed and pegged at about 500 FPM but didn't get time to show the higher ROD closer to the ground.
2. The altimeter also had time to stabilise at fifty feet and was still reading that at very close to the ground as ROD built up.
3. Needles at 50' were already at 80 to 82%. Onset of rotor stall here. At 14 seconds it clearly looks like a faster closure rate with the ground from somewhere around twenty to fifteen feet.
The real ROD at impact was just slow enough with just enough forward airspeed to take just enough bounce out of it to be survivable.
Had the aircraft been at Max AUW it certainly would have been a different story for those onboard or if the final pull to full power been another four to ten feet higher.
The Main Rotor blades demonstrate bending consistant with rotor blade stall.
The question remains unsolved, why have a very low power setting at normal RRPM at about 300' with a deliberate very high nose attiutude and a normal sounding engine?
Tingles run up and down my spine thinking about it.