SAS - I consider myself mildy admonished......HOWEVER....
The S92 is a fine ship and there is no intimation in my post that the AC let them down. A poorly timed set of maintenance requirements within the airworthiness constraints contrived to cause their problem. But as you clearly allude to, the mistaken belief that the crew may have had more time to react due to a false assumption may have been the reason for the final catastrophe.
It is to this which I refer when seemingly qualified people dismiss Peter Gillies doctrine to recover NR by challenging the values of NR using alternatives that are not in the RFM. Proffesional they may be but these are dangerous statements made in direct contradiction to the very sound advice from Peter that, unless we are morons, is completely irrefutable. Surely SAS you must agree that the most efficient and sensible way to recover decayed NR is to flare. If you do not have the speed to flare you are in deep do do.
TC please do not apologise on my behalf. Your ridiculous presumption that the cyclic should not be moved in case you need to do a range auto sets you apart from your peers as not really knowing of what you speak. However, being a fair man I will offer you a chance to withdraw that statement and agree that the number one priority is to safely establish into autorotation....followed by assessing your options.
Regardless of the totally distracting irrelevant information posted by some on this forum I have and will continue to follow Peter Gillies doctrine. If the pilots instinct is to trade speed for NR, ASAP, he will always end up in a better position than any possible alternative.
DB
Edited: to say on reflection I did not want to be rude to the two Johns although reading my post this seems apparent. I would just like them to step in line with Nick's posting that the RFM, is our only reference and in doing so hope that the Test Pilots (maybe them) got it correct the first time.