Disclaimer: I knew Russ when we worked together in the 1970's. He was a great guy, and I liked him. Back then he was an excellent, enthusiastic, well-rounded professional pilot whose skills were beyond reproach. I have no doubt that he got even better as his career progressed.
...But none of us is perfect.
Look, Russ knows he screwed up. He knows that he misidentified the emergency, calling it a tail rotor failure to JFK Tower when in fact it was a hydraulic failure. He even knows that he *probably* should have caught the inside-out hydraulic drive belt on preflight, given all the publicity that Astar hydraulic failures have had.
But we don't have to beat him up over this. (That ride-along pilot sure threw him under the bus!) Who among us has never made a mistake? I know we're not "supposed to" make mistakes but I've sure made my share! At least Russ's worked out okay, let's be charitable and give him that. We don't often get to speak to those involved after the fact; they're usually dead. We'd prefer that he say, "Yeah, I wish I would've done better, but I did not. Oops." But hey, it can be hard admitting your mistakes, even years later. (Just ask me about my first marriage sometime - it was all HER fault!)
And if some TV show wants to overdramatize the event, well, that's TV for you. But yeah, they really did a poor job on it.
On the other hand, I think it was brave of Russ to put himself into that sim. Holy cow, I would've freaked out! But I also think that he should have flown sooner after the initial crash - not let so much time go by. (Did the FAA not require a "709" ride of him?)
Lesson learned, eh? Preflight those hyrdraulic drive belts well. And be more spring-loaded for the hydraulic failure in a single-belt Astar, not the tail rotor failure because the former is *probably* more likely to happen than the latter.