C'mon then chopjock - let's hear it.....................
I was grunting along at 1500 ft agl in my 280C, doing about 85 mph over hilly terrain on a windy day. Wind from the right. I heard a grumble from the back and felt a vibration in the pedals. and the nose yawed to the right, then the grumbling stopped and everything returned to normal. Must be turbulence I thought so continued on. Then it happened again, but more pronounced, so I thought this turbulence is getting worse, then a loud bang and a severe yaw to the right and a hell of a noise grinding away from the back.
So now out of trim and flying at 85mph. I reduced power, kept the speed up and looked for somewhere to put down. There were steep hills and trees all around, so decided to enter a shallow decent, maintaining speed and headed for a hill top in the distance where I could see an open field.
Getting closer I saw two fields, both sloping, one with cows in it and another with a flat area on top. I decided to enter auto rotation and gently wound the throttle back, feeling the response as I did it to make sure the engine was still there if I needed it. then turned into wind and did a perfect zero speed landing.(This is easy in an Enstrom).
On the ground I could feel a hell of a vibration and a loud grinding noise was coming from the back so I shut down right away without cooling the engine. When I got out I could see the tail rotor was not turning but the main rotor was.
I called my engineer and he came out the next day with a replacement tail gearbox and I flew it home.
Quite an experience I thought.