alouette3:
The venerable AP3456, in it's extract for helicopter aerodynamics,talks about this and that was what I was taught as a baby pilot.In casual discussions with some of the younger blokes around me, I find the mindset is to lower collective and then look for a good spot to put the aircraft down.Blank stares when I ask how you would restore Rrpm in case it has edged into the lower part of the yellow arc.When I further explain what I am trying to get at then there is the shrug of the shoulders and the "Of course, the nose will pitch down and I will automatically bring the cyclic back" reponse.
In a helicopter which does not cruise significantly faster than it autos (Bell 47 comes to mind), it's probably okay while dumping the lever to just maintain the current pitch attitude - which would probably be an instinctive response.
"Did I input any aft cyclic? Uhh, I...guess so. The nose didn't drop so I must have."
But there's more to it than that.
In a helicopter that cruises substantially faster than it autos (e.g. Bell 206), lowering the collective lever while maintaining the same cruise flight pitch attitude WILL result in a descent, no question about it. If you're up at high altitude when this occurs, no big deal. But if you're down where helicopters fly, like at 500' agl or so it can be a very big deal.
So it's not merely a matter of making some automatic aft cyclic input to maintain attitude. The technique must be to consciously and deliberately
raise the nose, get the disk up as you transition from powered flight to autorotative. And I think this technique is lost on a lot of pilots. Either that or they've never been taught it. I certainly had not until I'd been a professional pilot for a number of years.
It's not just a matter of maintaining pitch attitude.