nigelh: Ok . So you are all brilliant at autos to the ground .
Yes
The undeniable point which I defy you to disagree with is this ....... Far far more helicopters have been written off practicing autos to the ground than have ever been bent by real engine failures !!!
I actually tend to doubt that. I would agree that probably more machines have been lost to practicing autorotations than to engine failures, but would suggest that most of those had nothing to do with autos to the ground, and instead occurred by allowing sink rate to get high while having inadequate airspeed, or by misjudging the flare and striking the ground even when a power recovery was intended. The fact is that most autorotation training in the R22 is to power recovery, until the candidate is working on his instructor rating, and a large percentage of autorotation training accidents is in R22 training during primary instruction, to a power recovery. This has a lot to do with less experienced instructors, and a pretty unforgiving amount of rotor inertia in that particular helicopter, and little to nothing to do with trying to take the auto to the ground.
Additionally, when I think about the machines I know of first hand that were smashed up (about 12), none of them had to do with autorotations... It was tail rotor strikes dynamic roll over, LTE (with a subsequent roll down the mountainside), and running out of gas (which involved an autorotation, but they weren't
practicing autorotations when they ran out of gas
While I know all of those people first hand, I actually don't know anyone first hand who has trashed a machine while practicing autorotations to the ground!
The chances now of an engine failure are tiny , especially in turbines..
It's not
that small. I know a number of people first hand (8 that come to mind) who have had engine failures in singles (2 of those in turbines), including myself (but that was an airplane). And only two of those were really high time guys (but those were the turbine failures so I agree that piston power ups the chances a bit).
As for all the other things you think should be taught: I agree! I don't think it's an either or situation, though. A good training syllabus should be preparing pilots to deal with all kinds of usual and unusual occurrences.
As for whether we should be teaching
touchdowns, I generally feel that at the private pilot level the student should have seen at least a couple by the time they get their ticket ( I usually demonstrate one just before solo and then again before they get their ticket ), just so they can understand the difference in the last few feet. By the time you get your commercial you should have seen a bunch and done at least a few yourself, and by the time you're an instructor you should have done quite a few yourself. Some of this depends on the machine. Certainly the R22 is a more difficult machine to take to the ground. An Enstrom, R44, or 206 is quite easy and involves minimal risk with an experienced instructor on board.
Shameless plug for one of my youtube videos on autos to the ground:
https://youtu.be/8Tez1Npd0Gc