Gordy says:
I too have my "cunning plan"... (although to be honest, mine is all about IIMC---never really had to think about the plan for engine failure....it just came natural like)
Well I guess for the 2011 "Mosby" pilot (the texting EMS guy), his plan didn't come "natural like." Either he didn't have a plan at all or he messed up the plan he did have. And since he was a 2500 hour, military-trained pilot...it makes you wonder, doesn't it?
If you're cool with bottoming the lever
first and starting an immediate descent upon engine failure, hey that's fine by me. Because maybe in your limited way of thinking the descent is inevitable anyway, so why not start now?
But me, I'd rather get the nose up first and hold altitude (if I can) while searching for a place to put it down. Getting the nose up buys precious seconds, especially when I'm bopping along at well above best-auto speed.
Engine failures don't always happen in the training environment at 80 knots with good forced-landing areas in reach.
I know that all of the helicopters I've flown will benefit from "cyclic-back"
first in cruise. Now don't be stupid. Don't be dense. Don't assume that I mean you can bring the cyclic back and...
la-la-la...do nothing else. OF COURSE the collective needs to go down
now! Of course. Nobody is disputing that. But the instinctive priority should be on getting the nose up while you get your hand back on the collective and start pushing it down. While you're doing these things (without looking at the controls) you can be looking for a place to set down. In my last job my flights were frequently 1.5 to 2.0 hours long in stabilized cruise. No way am I going to sit there with my hand on the collective the whole time. No thank you, my left hand will be on my knee, just inches and microseconds from the control.
The "Mosby" pilot was down to around 300' agl at 116 kts GS when his engine quit. And then, according to the NTSB, five seconds later the helicopter hit the ground at a...
a 40° nose-down attitude at a high rate of descent with a low rotor rpm.
A 40 degree angle. Huh? How could that happen? I'm sure his "plan" was to bottom the pitch, which, is probably exactly what he did...first. I mean, do we think he was incompetent? Do we assume that he did
nothing? That he froze on the controls? Not me. I believe he at least bottomed the collective as we all would. After all, he was worried that it would quit...expected it to quit. And still F'ed it up. Why? Let's let the NTSB fill in some blanks.
The simulator flight tests conducted after this accident showed that when a loss of engine power occurs in the Eurocopter AS350 B2 at cruise airspeeds, the pilot must simultaneously apply aft cyclic and down collective in order to maintain rotor rpm and execute a successful autorotation. However, the pilot’s autorotation training was done at airspeeds below cruise where less aft cyclic is needed to enter an autorotation. Further, FAA guidance on performing autorotations stresses lowering the collective as the initial step in entering an autorotation, does not emphasize the importance of other flight control inputs, and provides minimal information on the critical entry phase of autorotation.
Oh snap! Talk about the NTSB "dissing" the FAA! Wow. Because that's what's important here: The ENTRY into autorotation. Did you notice how the NTSB put "aft cyclic"
first in their description of the entry into an auto for the AS350? Even the NTSB concedes that bottoming the pitch isn't the solution; it
must be accompanied by a
simultaneous aft cyclic input. How much and how fast you make that input will depend on how low you are and whether you have a forced-landing area all picked out. So there you have it, straight from the horse's (NTSB's) mouth:
Collective-first is wrong.
In our hero brains we all assume that we'll respond expertly and correctly to every emergency God can throw at us. "Mosby" proved otherwise. Because - from cruise speed, anyway - the urge to bottom the collective
first is the wrong one. Yes, it's what we've all been taught since our first days of dual in that helicopter that auto'd at the same speed it cruised at, or in the training scenario where the engine was pulled at 80 knots in the traffic pattern. But in reality...out in the real world, in aircraft that cruise along at a speed much higher than best-auto, the instinctive reaction should be to get the nose/tip path plane up first, and
then get the pitch going down. That's
my plan.
Will other plans work? Sure, obviously, if you have the time and altitude to get into a stabilized auto before you start running out of options. But if you don't...?