My daily internet time is limited, so I can't spend too much time debating point for point. But Shy of Torque makes some assumptions that are not correct. For instance, I'm not an angry man. But I get that way when I see pilots do stupid things without thinking.
When I fly with rated, supposedly experienced pilots in their own aircraft, "CRM" does not apply. Eventually, these chaps are going to be flying by themselves or with non-pilot family members onboard. You cannot spoon-feed them. They've been through the best flight schools (and in some cases factory schools) and they swear that they know what they're doing. In pre- and post-flight talks, I do give them the benefit of my years of experience but they continue to do it their way. For the most part, I let them - just as my mentors let me do some incredibly dumb things on the way to experience and seasoning. (I could tell you stories about some of my own early cock-ups, but Danny tells me that I'm limited to 2,000 words per post now.)
Sometimes the best way to learn something is to make the mistake yourself. Pilots are incredibly reluctant to learn from the mistakes of others. They say they do but they don't. If I'm flying with such a pilot and he does something dumb, as long as it does not jeopardize my personal safety or violate any rules then I let him run with it to see how he'll handle it. Will he recognize the situation, and how soon? How will he resolve it?
In the case of the pilot who liked flying low and descended so low that he could not see the airport, it took all of my self control to not react angrily, since I had repeatedly admonished this pilot against descending prematurely in the past. But he flew by rote. At this distance from the airport he needed to be this high. It was a formula he applied EVERY time, reguardless of conditions. I think the point finally got driven home...but I'm not sure. And no, we were not flying over "congested areas" by anyone's definition. Contrary to popular opinion, I am not stupid.
As for the pilot caught in the hot/high situation who almost pranged his ship, again, he'd been warned. We had talked about it repeatedly. So how far do you go? I knew that very shortly I would be leaving this chap to his own devices, operating from an airport based in the mountains, and summer was coming. Had he learned nothing up to that point? Evidently. I wanted him to see the folly of his shallow, airplane-like approaches. And it worked. I did over-ride him on the controls at the very bottom, but I would have been just as happy to leave the damaged aircraft and it's red-faced owner there and catch an airline flight home.
In these cases, I was not acting as CFI. There was no "crew concept" in place; these guys were essentially flying their own machines home SOLO, as they were legally and insurance-wise able to do. I went along on the ferry flights as uncompensated personal favors, to help with the nav and offer the occasional advice. In retrospect, I wish that I'd yielded the seats to these Robbo pilots who are always clamoring for stick time.
For the record, I do avoid approaches shallower than 10 degrees. I think they're unnecessary. Helicopters do very nice, very safe 10-12 degree approaches. Steeper than that? Sure, if the conditions warrant.
But I never advocated that pilots routinely or casually make 45-60 or 90 degree approaches. Anybody who read that into my posts is loony. Unfortunately, that particular brogan fits a number of you lot.
Let's keep in mind that in single-engine helis, with very few exceptions (AS-350 comes to mind), the H-V chart is located in the Performance section of the AFM...*not* the Limitations section. As such the chart guarantees nothing. It does not guarantee a safe autorotation if you stay outside of the shaded area, nor does it guarantee a crash if you fly inside the shaded area.
Further, the chart is derived from throttle chops performed in cruise flight at MGW over flat, smooth areas with a one-second delay in pilot response. Reduce or improve any of those things (or add some wind) and the shaded area shrinks. It can even disappear under the right conditions.
In an earlier post, a South African R-22 pilot known as "crab" went positively apoplectic at the mere thought of infringing on the shaded area. Many inexperienced pilots do. Shy of Torque thinks that you can be held negligent in a court of law after an incident or accident. So I posed three scenarios to this "crab" fellow - three common situations that pilots sometimes find themselves in:
1) Approach to an oil platform that is 100' feet above the water;
2) A landing to an off-airport site 100' in diameter surrounded by tall trees;
3) An approach to an airport where the designated landing spot is near the field boundary, where there are obstructions in the approach path.
I asked "crab" for his suggestions of possible technique. As I expected, no response. All he did was give a verbal hand-job to Shy of Torque for lambasting me. You guys can be very juvenile.
Each of the above scenarios requires a steep approach. Also, very likely each of those approaches will require that the pilot transgress upon the dreaded "shaded area" at some point and for some time. Perhaps "crab" has the luxury of always operating from airport runways where he can make those less-than-11-degree approaches that Shy of Brains feels so adamant about. But the rest of us fly in the real world.
On yet another flight with another very experienced pilot at the controls (who happened to be my boss), the tower directed us to do Scenario #3 - land right on the ramp of the gen-av FBO. As we neared the field boundary the approach we would have to make looked awful (to me). My boss however kept on going, intending to do as instructed. Yes, it would've worked out but it would not have been pretty. This time, because we *were* flying as a two-pilot crew, I intervened. I suggested an alternative: a shallower-but-lengthier approach to a taxiway that was parallel to the active runway with a hover transition to the ramp. My boss said, "They'll let you do that?" Only one way to find out, right? It was a military field and they did not get a lot of transient helicopters. The controller hesitated for a moment (conferring with his supervisor/trainer?) but ultimately cleared us as requested.
The point is that you cannot always follow orders blindly. You have to think about what's going on and be flexible.
Nevertheless, I would still be interested in hearing how "crab" would handle an approach to an oil rig in a 206L that was at or near MGW - in which he finds himself at 200' and back below ETL with a handful of power pulled. Or how he would handle picking up some executive at an off-airport site landing that was not as big as he'd like it to be. These are things I've had to do in my short career. And yes, sometimes I've had to come more or less straight down from 100 feet. That's not so bad. What I worry about is going more or less straight back up to 100' before being able to flying away. But such is the life of a commercial pilot sometimes. I'm just glad I don't do things that are really risky. Like logging...