500: I am not demeaning (thats a word that is getting used a lot lately) of your endeavours - far from it. In fact as I told 170' recently, I salute your bravery. And bravery is the word (not bravado) because you sure as hell need it to get your job done, when it is a known, well tested, well tried fact of life that hovering inside the H/V curve ends in tears.....as it did with your previous post statistics.
All I ask is (a) that operators like you recognise the work done by those test pilots who have laid out the danger zones for us mortals to fly around and (B) you don't try to mitigate your reasons for being there in the first place. Given the choice one would never do what you do ...but you have no choice it seems (as I dont know your industry).
PS: Describing the H/V curve as a "Disclaimer" is atleast disingenuous, at most ignorant.
Fly safely 500..................
Pilot and apprentice (you sure you arent rvdt as well?) IF he had done waht you suggested, the drop from his flare would not justify the impact crater size and depth. That is a very substantial deep crater: I'd say 30+ G?