Originally Posted by
SASless
Doesn't the wonderful 225 AFCS/Autopilot do all this when Captain George is put in charge of things?
I know its not a serious question, but the answer is "more or less, but not quite!" The AP will of course maintain attitude and heading, and it always wants to have at least 96% Nr, therefore it will lower the collective (regardless of a collective upper mode engaged or not) until 96% is restored. I say "almost" because the max trim rate is not that fast and it will probably take too many seconds to lower the lever enough. Also, once it has lowered the collective, there is no mechanism as far as I know, to raise the collective again once the Nr is restored and inevitably overshoots into overspeed.
Anyway, someone mentioned the yaw pedals and it is interesting to contemplate what should be done with them. Many helicopters have collective /yaw coupling so that the pedals are pretty much in the same position at cruise power as they are at flat pitch (EC225 excepted) so why the need to move the pedals when the engines fail? Well it's just to cover the period when the lever is still up - so the collective /yaw coupling is applying a fair bit of pitch to the tail rotor - but the engine torque has disappeared. So a dab of pedal is required simultaneous with starting to lower the collective, to kill the yaw. After that, on many helicopters the pedals go back to the neutral position, just a little bit in the anti-power direction. The initial yaw - occurring during the pilot reaction time - will typically cause the nose to dip (I am talking about in cruise flight, where me and my colleagues spend most of their time) so another good reason to apply some aft cyclic as an autonomous action, rather than in response to a perceived attitude change - the latter taking longer to process of course.
Originally Posted by
SASless
If the Autopilot can....and does.....why do Humans have such problems with doing it?
Because the 225 autopilot is your GOD and you should bow down and worship it. Obviously.