My mind goes quickly to “protect tail rotor”. What I did was a quickish stop to about 40kts and at the same time a bit of right pedal in case the door did come off – in retrospect I believed this to be OK
I’d be interested in comments from the Pros/Old timers
Don't know if I'll go near the Pro bit but perhaps the old timer will suffice.
I wouldn't do a quick stop, think about the direction of airflow through the main rotor in forward flight. Now think about it in even a gentle quickstop - ugh. If it is still there by the time you are evaluating - then it would stay there for a while longer.
If you've checked the door security, hinge split pins or whatever on your daily it would be near impossible for it to fall off in a short time, I'd slow down gently, get safe in your flight mode, then secure the door, land if necessary first.
You could perhaps pass onto others to think about the time at say sixty knots it would take for a loose article to travel from the cabin into the T/R. Would you react, and get the T/R out of harms way faster than that?
A door popping is something students should be exposed to a couple of times by their instructor, part of the "be prepared and react properly" syndrome. When they pop it usually scares the living S' out of you first time, '47's did it all the time. Had it happen in a B58 on take off once, bloody 'ell.
In my vague old timer cells I remember two incidents from somewhere in OZ, from about twenty five to thirty years ago. One ended OK the other tragically, each involved stupidity.
I.E. A pillow under the head of a patient on a Bell 47 litter, supposedly for the comfort of the patient.
The one that was OK was one of ours just US'd the T'/R, red face for pilot; the other somewhere, else took T/R off with resultant C of G loss - very ugly.
Loose articles is certainly a priority for
tourists drivers.