Helinut,
You have hit the nail on the head.
I wonder how many others carry out this procedure. It gives you a much larger margin than closing the throttle (into the detent) at 300ft especially if your a novice.
Sounds like this guy got it wrong and he has probably been flying all his life. So what chance has a brand new PPL got to complete it sucessfully. And don't mean to be able to walk away.
AAIB Bulletin No: 8/2002 Ref: EW/G2002/06/10 Category: 2.3
Aircraft Type and Registration: Robinson R22 Beta, G-BOEW
No & Type of Engines: 1 Lycoming O-320-B2C piston engine
Year of Manufacture: 1988
Date & Time (UTC): 10 June 2002 at 1103 hrs
Location: Cranfield Airport, Bedfordshire
Type of Flight: Aerial Work (Training)
Persons on Board: Crew - 2 Passengers - None
Injuries: Crew - None Passengers – N/A
Nature of Damage: Tail boom severed and tail rotor drive shaft damaged
Commander's Licence: Airline Transport Pilot’s Licence (Helicopters)
Commander's Age: 65 years
Commander's Flying Experience: 11,778 hours (of which 543 were on type)
Last 90 days - 93 hours
Last 28 days - 24 hours
Information Source: Aircraft Accident Report Form submitted by the pilot
The flying instructor was demonstrating a practice 'engine off' landing for a student. It was the seventh such landing that he had carried out that morning. During the run on, one main rotor blade struck the tail boom causing both the boom and tail rotor drive shaft to break.
The helicopter was landing on the grass helicopter strip, designated 22, heading into wind. The surface wind was reported as being from 230° at 24 kt. The initial ground contact was made on the port side skid on the right hand edge of the strip, which has a boundary marked with scraped earth that is slightly raised above the surrounding grass.
The pilot felt that the initial skid contact with this edge destabilised the run on and his subsequent attempted corrections led to large control inputs at a low main rotor speed.
The pilot commented that there were no cockpit indications to show that any damage had occurred, but he felt a slight vibration and a change of rotor noise following the event. The accident was observed by ATC who alerted the pilot and advised him to shut down.
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Published 8 August 2002
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