But Lonewolf, look at the way the NTSB wrote it. Yes, they said "simultaneously," but then they put "aft cyclic" first before saying
"down collective." I, for one, find the wording of that phrase curious. It's
like they know that during the autorotation entry, the aft cyclic input
is as important, if not more so, than lowering the collective. But who knows.
And again, auto entry from cruise airspeed. There is more than one case of the need to enter an auto, as you know.
And Hughes, you're not missing something. We've heard over and over in this thread from people who claim that the first response to an engine failure is "LOWER COLLECTIVE!!" with a kind of "oh yeah" addition of "maintain attitude" as if the latter part isn't as important as the prior.
No, that's not right. Control Nr, fly the aircraft, and the controls work together.
But we don't always have the luxury of time.
True. In the Mosby case, trading airspeed for rotor energy was available but not taken as a method to get into the best auto situation his circumstances presented.
1. When the engine quit, the pilot uttered either one or two or three four-letter words as he rapidly dumped the collective, just as he was trained to do and just as Thomas Coupling suggests. This probably bunted him over into a 40 - 50 degree nose-down attitude.
If you let the nose fall like that, you aren't flying the aircraft, it is flying you.
2. When the engine quit, maybe the pilot did actually panic and freeze, and did nothing with the controls for the remaining five seconds which probably seemed very short to him. Hey, I've seen it happen!
Possible. This goes well with the idea that he didn't have a plan, as noted a few posts back.
3. When the engine quit, he knew he was boned and that it was all going to come out...the lack of preflight, the poor planning, the texting with his girlfriend...the girlfriend herself (and wouldn't his wife be surprised to hear about that!). So maybe he just said, "Goodbye, cruel world!" and rode 'er in with a feeling of intense resignation and despair.
Probably not.
I don't know. I *do* know that if he merely dumped the collective first, as so many here seem to suggest, then he sealed his own fate.
And if anyone here has suggested that one applies the controls in isolation from one another, they need to be reminded that such is not how helicopters fly nor should be flown.
The energy management concept certainly seems the better framework for teaching about this facet of helicopter flying.
Cheers.