The BV234 in auto floated like a thistledown from what I remember. SE landings were a nose high run-on flaring just like an aeroplane that used a fair distance to stop. What was the full auto technique though, run on again or flare-check-level?
Flying the ILS backwards (from ground upwards) was a favourite trick in the sim.
To demonstrate how easy it was to fly my mum flew a circuit from rolling t/o to rolling landing without me touching the controls (coaching all the way of course) - agree with SAS, queen of the skies without doubt, wish I'd been fortunate enough to use the military version too.
The only vices I recall was a tendency to slide on slippery surfaces (only the aft stbd wheel steers) necessitating two wheel (nose high) taxi on ice and snow which was fun but created some downwash, and a known weakness of the aft gear especially to side-loads I think. Anyway, they were considered breakable and were to be treated gently, unlike the rest of the thing. They take one heck of a load, those aft gear legs.
Max translational lift occurred in sideways flight to stbd so in timber harvesting Columbia would hook up a translational load (too much to lift vertically) on a hillside, move well to the left of it keeping the long strop tight and then max power sideways to the right hauling the load off over the valley with translational lift and transition to forward flight. Probably a vid on youtube somewhere.
Last edited by Wageslave; 5th May 2016 at 09:14.