Do a search on Helicopter Urban Myths, you will see how the mantra has been accepted by even the FAA.
From Nick Lappos, ex-Chief Sikorsky Test Pilot, also worked for Bell and Gulfstream:
"Ascend Charlie has is dead on. Most helo pilot can't experience LTE becausae most helos cant get LTE.
The term LTE makes me wince. The concept of the tail rotor somehow losing effectiveness is a convenient one for folks to use, because it allows the people who make small tail rotors to blame a mysterious force of nature instead of fixing their problem.
There are two possibilities for an LTE event to be triggered. They are both the result of you having entered a region where the tail thrust is not enough to counter the main torque because the main torque rose by itself.
They are neither because the tail rotor suddenly experienced massive reduced thrust.
LTE is almost always because the tail rotor has too little thrust BY DESIGN to account for small normal reductions in its thrust. Typical thrust variations of 5% are easily handled by tail rotors with that much margin above the thrust needed to do their jobs. When a tail rotor has no margin, by design, these 5% variations are too much, and the main rotor torque dominates, causeing loss of yaw control.
The two cases cited by hilico show how the term has now been so badly abused as to have entered the lexicon for any pedal stop event. An overloaded helo that runs out of yaw control does so as its tail rotor is producing thrust well in excess of its design capability. The tail rotr is not the cause.
LTE is a term invented by the team from one manufacturer who has to quickly train a bunch of pilots to compensate for a marginal yaw control. the worldwide data base shows that about 95% of legitimate LTE events is experienced by one type of helo (the 206).
Look at the hover curves of several helos to note that the hover weight is not determined by the power, it is determined by the tail rotor design thrust. These are prime candidates for "LTE" because the have "Tailo Rotors Too Small".
Please, to be precise and to teach proper procedure for recovery, do not call overpitching and loss of yaw control LTE, call it overpitching."