Autorotation Help?
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Autorotation Help?
hello fellow heads! I am a flyspeck on the window of becoming a licensed helicopter pilot in the USA. Honestly, im 35 hours into my private rating and everything is going well except for ONE thing. I cant get over the rush of the ground when i am trying to do autos with my instructor. I dont know if its just nerves, fasination, fixation on the ground rushing or what, but im having a dog of a time doing ALLL the movements right... i enter well, establish a good glide and speed. But she says the closer i get to the ground she feels me nudging the collective too early, and while im doing that im not initialting the flare as fast as i can, either taht or im aft cyclicing the hell out of the flare and i balloon. I have done everything else to her satisfaction, including hover autos, quickstop, swp, max t/o and steep. havent done night or pinacle yet but still have enmough time to do that before i hit 40 hours... my goal is to be proficient enough to test out at 50 or less. Its almost a necessity since i have financed this myself and thas all the cash left LOL .... anyone give me any pearls to follow or had a similar prob with the autos, advice would be greatly appreciated ! Brian... Massachusetts USA
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try to keep your eyes out front and wait to start your flair when the feild/ground starts to flatten out in front of you.
keep your airspeed up to whatever is recommended before the flair as long as you can before you pull back on the cyclic, and keep it straight as possible.
resist pulling pitch until you start to settle unless necesssary to control RRPM.
hope this helps, good luck.
keep your airspeed up to whatever is recommended before the flair as long as you can before you pull back on the cyclic, and keep it straight as possible.
resist pulling pitch until you start to settle unless necesssary to control RRPM.
hope this helps, good luck.
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Leaving the collective alone (other than to control rpm) is just a discipline, try sticking your left thumb out so it touches your thigh, so you have an additional cue to follow that you're pulling early.
Judging the flare is a tough one and I can still cock it up on occasions. The only hint I can suggest is flaring in segments and seeing what happens after each burst. That might help develop your feel better than an all or nothing haul back. You can count them off out loud by saying flare 1, flare 2, flare 3. It also means you can make adjustments between each one, pause a little longer if you've overcooked it, or go straight into the next one if you need to be a bit more aggressive.
Hope that helps.
Judging the flare is a tough one and I can still cock it up on occasions. The only hint I can suggest is flaring in segments and seeing what happens after each burst. That might help develop your feel better than an all or nothing haul back. You can count them off out loud by saying flare 1, flare 2, flare 3. It also means you can make adjustments between each one, pause a little longer if you've overcooked it, or go straight into the next one if you need to be a bit more aggressive.
Hope that helps.
What fun Police said.
As an instructor with students and in my own periods of unsatisfactory performance this is the single most common fault.
If you are having trouble with the flare and termination, if the world seems to be rushing at you, you are probably looking just over the tops of your toes. At somewhere around 150 to 150 feet I mentally say "Vision Out". It is too late to make a major change in the touchdown area so let's just go for a good termination.
With your vision out front the apparent rate of decent is much less (thus less intimidating) and you have many more visual clues for judging altitude, heading control and ground track control.
As an instructor with students and in my own periods of unsatisfactory performance this is the single most common fault.
If you are having trouble with the flare and termination, if the world seems to be rushing at you, you are probably looking just over the tops of your toes. At somewhere around 150 to 150 feet I mentally say "Vision Out". It is too late to make a major change in the touchdown area so let's just go for a good termination.
With your vision out front the apparent rate of decent is much less (thus less intimidating) and you have many more visual clues for judging altitude, heading control and ground track control.
Below the Glidepath - not correcting
You might try getting your instructor to do a couple with her flying and you completely hands off, while you reacquire the correct ground perspective on the way down and ground rush at the bottom. This helps get the Primary long distance view combined with the close in visual cues.
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keep the ideas coming everyone... funpolice, you and the instructor hit on something.. i am usually looking directy through my feet like theyre a gunsight, and im fixated on when i can start to see grass, and i think when i do i instinctively start trying to retard the momentum with collective. and if im not doing that, im bouncing between rpm and airspeed indicator. The flares arent bad, i start them too high though.. my instructor is great, shes super paitent with everything. I just want to make these damn things work. so .. i fly a cb300, is it better to be looking out the front upper glass at the world instead of the lower one that im looking trhough... like straight ahead instead of down ... and one last thing.. im deathly afraid of a tailstrike in the flare.... how do i overcome that underlying concern for the weedwhacker back there ???? :o)
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This is the same problem airplane pilots have in judging flare height for normal landiings, almost all of the anxiety built up is due to a poor understanding of exactly how much altitude is left prior to skid contact. I suggest this technique:
On a flat ramp, stand up and spot the horizon. Then slowly sink down and drop your eye level as you keep looking toward the horizon. Note the "flattening" of the earth as the sight plane gets more and more edge-on. Imagine a rectangle painted on the earth that looks like a perfect box shape from directly above, but begins to look more and more foreshortened, and more like a triangle as you get lower. Keep getting lower until your eyes are about 2 feet from the ground. This "flattening" of the earth is how you judge height, and is the only way to do it. If you spot the ground below you and try to judge its rushing up toward you, you will not be able to tell when to expect contact, and you will undoubtedly pull early (because the jolt of not pulling collective is too horrible to even contemplate).
Now ask your instructor to let you make some running landings that get you closer and closer to the ground, and you predict the EXACT time and height that the skids will touch, literally within 1/4 inch. Do this three times and you will have the height judging confidence to make the correct collective pull.
On a flat ramp, stand up and spot the horizon. Then slowly sink down and drop your eye level as you keep looking toward the horizon. Note the "flattening" of the earth as the sight plane gets more and more edge-on. Imagine a rectangle painted on the earth that looks like a perfect box shape from directly above, but begins to look more and more foreshortened, and more like a triangle as you get lower. Keep getting lower until your eyes are about 2 feet from the ground. This "flattening" of the earth is how you judge height, and is the only way to do it. If you spot the ground below you and try to judge its rushing up toward you, you will not be able to tell when to expect contact, and you will undoubtedly pull early (because the jolt of not pulling collective is too horrible to even contemplate).
Now ask your instructor to let you make some running landings that get you closer and closer to the ground, and you predict the EXACT time and height that the skids will touch, literally within 1/4 inch. Do this three times and you will have the height judging confidence to make the correct collective pull.
Last edited by NickLappos; 30th Jan 2006 at 04:47.
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As everyone else has said.
If you are still having trouble try this;
You said your entry and descent was ok, so what you need is some sort of reference to tell you when to initiate the flare.
During the descent keep the scan going, do not get tunnel vision or fixate on anything.
1. Set yourself a gate (autospeed correct, aircraft straight, RRPM mid green at say 300ft AGL). Have the aircraft in position at your selected gate height. YOU CHOOSE the height!
2. From this position you are going where you are going (as mentioned before) so eyes outside.
3. If you are still having trouble picturing the initial flare height try and visualise something you know that is the same height, like a hangar or a utility pole. This will help give you a cue to when to commence the flare while you are still looking out at the horizon.
4. As mentioned before talk to yourself and thus talk yourself through it.
5. Whatever happens (even if you have more ground speed than you would like) level the aircraft (re skids) back to the hover position (2ft) prior to ground contact. This should avoid tail strikes.
If you are still having trouble try this;
You said your entry and descent was ok, so what you need is some sort of reference to tell you when to initiate the flare.
During the descent keep the scan going, do not get tunnel vision or fixate on anything.
1. Set yourself a gate (autospeed correct, aircraft straight, RRPM mid green at say 300ft AGL). Have the aircraft in position at your selected gate height. YOU CHOOSE the height!
2. From this position you are going where you are going (as mentioned before) so eyes outside.
3. If you are still having trouble picturing the initial flare height try and visualise something you know that is the same height, like a hangar or a utility pole. This will help give you a cue to when to commence the flare while you are still looking out at the horizon.
4. As mentioned before talk to yourself and thus talk yourself through it.
5. Whatever happens (even if you have more ground speed than you would like) level the aircraft (re skids) back to the hover position (2ft) prior to ground contact. This should avoid tail strikes.
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Brian,
Where do you practice your autos? Are you going down to a field where you can land anywhere or a runway where there is lots of room, or do you always aim for a specific point;such as a painted spot on a taxiway or the numbers of the runway? I had the same problem when I first started practicing autos, around 100ft agl i would start giving aft cyclic to slow the rate of descent as I saw the ground rushing towards me. The problem with this is when your at proper height to iniate the flare, your airspeed is lower than it should be to regain rrpm. When practicing autos in the pattern we always shoot for painted spots on the taxiway that are easily visible from the air; so to overcome the ground rush, instead of looking straight down past the pedals, I concentrated on keeping the same glide angle all the way down. Use something in the aircraft to judge the angle when you enter, (depending on how tall you are the trim strings usually work), then concentrate on maintaining that the whole way down, while also quickly scaning airspeed and altitude. If the spot moves up, you need to extend it; if it starts moving down then you need to shorten it up with s-turns. If necessary, make sure your altimeter is set to the field elevation and force yourself to maintain your airspeed and dont touch the collective until you see on the altimeter that you are approx 40 ft agl. Since i also did my private in the 300cb, i found the easiest way to rejoin the needles was to roll the throttle to approx 2000rpm just before i began the flare. Then when you pull collective as your leveling out from the flare, the correlator will bring the rpm into the green for you. I found this to be alot easier then trying to pull collective and roll on at the same time. One last tip, i found that the easiest way to maintain your heading during the flare and level out was to use a reference point out in the distance, at least several hundred feet away, a windsock, a taxiway sign, a tree, whatever. Most beginners tend to yaw quite a bit when the power is brought back in, but if your looking at a fixed point instead of the ground moving beneath you, then you naturally make the pedal inputs to compensate without even having to think about it. I hope some of my comments will be helpful and good luck in your training!
Mike
Where do you practice your autos? Are you going down to a field where you can land anywhere or a runway where there is lots of room, or do you always aim for a specific point;such as a painted spot on a taxiway or the numbers of the runway? I had the same problem when I first started practicing autos, around 100ft agl i would start giving aft cyclic to slow the rate of descent as I saw the ground rushing towards me. The problem with this is when your at proper height to iniate the flare, your airspeed is lower than it should be to regain rrpm. When practicing autos in the pattern we always shoot for painted spots on the taxiway that are easily visible from the air; so to overcome the ground rush, instead of looking straight down past the pedals, I concentrated on keeping the same glide angle all the way down. Use something in the aircraft to judge the angle when you enter, (depending on how tall you are the trim strings usually work), then concentrate on maintaining that the whole way down, while also quickly scaning airspeed and altitude. If the spot moves up, you need to extend it; if it starts moving down then you need to shorten it up with s-turns. If necessary, make sure your altimeter is set to the field elevation and force yourself to maintain your airspeed and dont touch the collective until you see on the altimeter that you are approx 40 ft agl. Since i also did my private in the 300cb, i found the easiest way to rejoin the needles was to roll the throttle to approx 2000rpm just before i began the flare. Then when you pull collective as your leveling out from the flare, the correlator will bring the rpm into the green for you. I found this to be alot easier then trying to pull collective and roll on at the same time. One last tip, i found that the easiest way to maintain your heading during the flare and level out was to use a reference point out in the distance, at least several hundred feet away, a windsock, a taxiway sign, a tree, whatever. Most beginners tend to yaw quite a bit when the power is brought back in, but if your looking at a fixed point instead of the ground moving beneath you, then you naturally make the pedal inputs to compensate without even having to think about it. I hope some of my comments will be helpful and good luck in your training!
Mike
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Its just practice im about 25 hours into my licence and also struggled with judging the flare plus pulling back on the cyclic to early as the ground rush starts. My instructor can do them without raising the lever on landing, you need about 15kts of wind because the skid landing can be quite fast
The timing of the flare is a judgement thing that can only come with practise.
The auto descent speed is important to provide enough rotor thrust at the bottom, both during and after the flare, to stop your ROD for the touchdown.
However, the PRIMARY reason for the flare is to reduce your groundspeed for the touchdown. If you are coming down vertically in auto at zero speed, or doing 50Kt with a 50Kt headwind, you don't need to flare for the touchdown do you?
My advice is to commence the flare when the groundspeed appears excessive. As you get nearer the ground, for a constant groundspeed, the PERCEPTION of your groundspeed will increase. (Doing 450KT in a jet at 40,000' the groundspeed seems slow, but do that speed at 50' and it feels fast indeed).
It is like saying to yourself "I am going to hold my speed until the last possible moment before I MUST flare to lose the groundspeed". If I don't start putting the brakes on now, I won't be able to stop in time. Like coming up to the stop sign in your car and saying "not yet, not yet, not yet, NOW I have to start braking or I will not stop in time".
Flare too soon and you will have too much height at the end and probably hit hard. Flare too late and you must accept an excessive touchdown speed or hitting the tail.
Don't fixate on the ground, roll up your sleeves and work fast and scan. Try jugding when to stop for the stop sign by looking at the first bit of road you can see over the bonnet, rather than down the road a bit. Which do you think is easier, and gives you better judgement?
The auto descent speed is important to provide enough rotor thrust at the bottom, both during and after the flare, to stop your ROD for the touchdown.
However, the PRIMARY reason for the flare is to reduce your groundspeed for the touchdown. If you are coming down vertically in auto at zero speed, or doing 50Kt with a 50Kt headwind, you don't need to flare for the touchdown do you?
My advice is to commence the flare when the groundspeed appears excessive. As you get nearer the ground, for a constant groundspeed, the PERCEPTION of your groundspeed will increase. (Doing 450KT in a jet at 40,000' the groundspeed seems slow, but do that speed at 50' and it feels fast indeed).
It is like saying to yourself "I am going to hold my speed until the last possible moment before I MUST flare to lose the groundspeed". If I don't start putting the brakes on now, I won't be able to stop in time. Like coming up to the stop sign in your car and saying "not yet, not yet, not yet, NOW I have to start braking or I will not stop in time".
Flare too soon and you will have too much height at the end and probably hit hard. Flare too late and you must accept an excessive touchdown speed or hitting the tail.
Don't fixate on the ground, roll up your sleeves and work fast and scan. Try jugding when to stop for the stop sign by looking at the first bit of road you can see over the bonnet, rather than down the road a bit. Which do you think is easier, and gives you better judgement?
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Hi,
The autos is not so easy to feel comftable with and they require a lot of training (and also training to stay current on). You have to remember that you still have very limited flight experience
When I was teaching autos to students I used to brake the auto down to 4 steps.
1. The Entry
2. The Glide
3. The Flare
4. Power recovery (in most cases, especially if you train in an R22)
It looks like that you have some problems with the Flare. The flare is not a magic thing that happens during a couple seconds...it is just normal flying and you have to do the flying! I used to brake down the flare in two staps.
Step 1. At about 40 feet (R22) start to do a very gentle flare and level off so the aircraft is flying along the ground at 5-10 feet and then
Step 2. Start to tighten up the flare to get rid of forward speed. When you still have some forward motion (maybe 10 kts in 0 wind condition) start level of the aircraft.
It is very important that you maintain your airspeed during the glide. As you come close to the ground (lets say at about 100 feet) the airpseed wants to bleed of (because the head wind is less close to the ground) so you have to add some forward pressure on the cyclic (pressure only not movement)to maintain proper airspeed). So, until lets say 40 -50 feet maintain airspeed by looking on airpeed indicator).
Try to do a "cyclic flare" ie. so you only use your cyclic during the flare (especially if you fly an R22). To judge your flare you can not look strait down on the spot you are going to, because you will only see "green grass rushing toward you" with a terrible speed. It is therefore important that when you start flaring very gently at about 40 feet start to look well ahead of the intended spot you are going to (maybe 200-300 feet in front of the spot). Then you are ably to judge your flare very precisly so you end up flying along the gtround at about 10 feet. And then (and only then)
start to tighten up your flare to get rid of forward speed.
I had my students very often to write on the paper the autorotation (the 4 steps + 2 steps for the flare ) and then to explain in detail the hole manouvre to me. You can train autos in your mind when you are at home. Just sit down in the sofa, close your eyes and "fly true the hole manouvre in your head" with all the steps, speeds etc.... and it´s free, no charge
Just be carefull so your naibourgs don't see you doing it
Just go with an openmind for the next lesson and ask for a good briefing on the autos with your instructor before practising in the air.
Goooood Luck
The autos is not so easy to feel comftable with and they require a lot of training (and also training to stay current on). You have to remember that you still have very limited flight experience
When I was teaching autos to students I used to brake the auto down to 4 steps.
1. The Entry
2. The Glide
3. The Flare
4. Power recovery (in most cases, especially if you train in an R22)
It looks like that you have some problems with the Flare. The flare is not a magic thing that happens during a couple seconds...it is just normal flying and you have to do the flying! I used to brake down the flare in two staps.
Step 1. At about 40 feet (R22) start to do a very gentle flare and level off so the aircraft is flying along the ground at 5-10 feet and then
Step 2. Start to tighten up the flare to get rid of forward speed. When you still have some forward motion (maybe 10 kts in 0 wind condition) start level of the aircraft.
It is very important that you maintain your airspeed during the glide. As you come close to the ground (lets say at about 100 feet) the airpseed wants to bleed of (because the head wind is less close to the ground) so you have to add some forward pressure on the cyclic (pressure only not movement)to maintain proper airspeed). So, until lets say 40 -50 feet maintain airspeed by looking on airpeed indicator).
Try to do a "cyclic flare" ie. so you only use your cyclic during the flare (especially if you fly an R22). To judge your flare you can not look strait down on the spot you are going to, because you will only see "green grass rushing toward you" with a terrible speed. It is therefore important that when you start flaring very gently at about 40 feet start to look well ahead of the intended spot you are going to (maybe 200-300 feet in front of the spot). Then you are ably to judge your flare very precisly so you end up flying along the gtround at about 10 feet. And then (and only then)
start to tighten up your flare to get rid of forward speed.I had my students very often to write on the paper the autorotation (the 4 steps + 2 steps for the flare ) and then to explain in detail the hole manouvre to me. You can train autos in your mind when you are at home. Just sit down in the sofa, close your eyes and "fly true the hole manouvre in your head" with all the steps, speeds etc.... and it´s free, no charge
Just be carefull so your naibourgs don't see you doing it Just go with an openmind for the next lesson and ask for a good briefing on the autos with your instructor before practising in the air.
Goooood Luck
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lately autos have all been at the airport and to the grass parallel to the runways. Used to do them in a cranberry bog, but its just as easy to add practice in the pattern this way, and if something DOES go wrong while practicing, everythings right there. all your comments are great! i now also realize my field of view outside is all wrong. instead of looking arround im probably fixated on the ground rush... someone suggested looking for a ref point... like the roof of the hangers... thast about right height.... theyre 20 or so feet tall im sure... and someone said, the flare is for retarding groundspeed... i was always thinking of it as the flare is to stop vertical decent so tyou dont hit! i know it does that also, but im thinking change in attitude (mental) might put it in different perspective and make me think of these a little less hairy. and the ideas about talking it down.. maybe moving my mouth will force me to move my eyes arround more...
Vertolot, i fly a cb300...
Vertolot, i fly a cb300...
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R22, 300, B47, whatever. the principles are all the same.
if you are doing 180degree autos keep in mind that you have to get the machine around quickly. this is one of the things that i had trouble with when i trained. don't loaf around and you will do fine.
there is some excellent advice in the previous posts.
good luck.
if you are doing 180degree autos keep in mind that you have to get the machine around quickly. this is one of the things that i had trouble with when i trained. don't loaf around and you will do fine.
there is some excellent advice in the previous posts.
good luck.
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Great thread and info. Normally I just lurk to pick out the great information on this board, and have little to add.
fhvn4d,
I'm at about the same point as you are and have found that I've been doing the same thing (fixating on the ground rush). I'm training in a B47-G2. Sometimes I can pull off a nice smooth recovery to a hover, and other times I can't resist the urge to pull collective and flare too early. It must be that I'm not keeping my eyes up.
Thanks everyone, reading through your explanations and process should really help me out. I’m sure that my instructor has said it before, but reading it and sitting here visualizing it is helping crystallize it in my head.
fhvn4d,
I'm at about the same point as you are and have found that I've been doing the same thing (fixating on the ground rush). I'm training in a B47-G2. Sometimes I can pull off a nice smooth recovery to a hover, and other times I can't resist the urge to pull collective and flare too early. It must be that I'm not keeping my eyes up.
Thanks everyone, reading through your explanations and process should really help me out. I’m sure that my instructor has said it before, but reading it and sitting here visualizing it is helping crystallize it in my head.
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Originally Posted by cyclic flare
Dolmanger
Are you aware the stick get a little stiff in the bell 47 when its goes quiet.
it gets a bit tricky unless your rambo
Are you aware the stick get a little stiff in the bell 47 when its goes quiet.
it gets a bit tricky unless your rambo
I've spent some time with the bypass valve pulled (Rambo is right), and we (instructor and I) did a hydraulics off run on landing a few weeks ago.
When I questioned a full engine off auto with no hydraulics the basic answer seemed to be that either your adrenilline will take over it won't
At some point I'll probably request a demo autorotation with the bypass pulled to at least get an idea of what I'd be up against.
FHvn4d - since you are having trouble judging the correct height to start the flare, get your instructor to fly straight and level at this height at normal auto speed and have a good look at what the world looks like at that height and where, when looking out the front window, the horizon is relative to the windscreen bar or instrument coaming. Then get her to climb and descend through that height to see if you can recognise it purely from external references. Once familiar with the 'picture' at flare height, get her to fly an auto and you tell her when to flare - if you get it right it's your turn.
The only place to look, as others have highlighted, is out the front window so you can accurately control the attitude and the rate of change of that attitude, (you don't drive down the road staring at the hood ornament after all so look well ahead when you fly).
If you can start the flare consistently at the same height then you can try varying the flare to suit the conditions.
The only place to look, as others have highlighted, is out the front window so you can accurately control the attitude and the rate of change of that attitude, (you don't drive down the road staring at the hood ornament after all so look well ahead when you fly).
If you can start the flare consistently at the same height then you can try varying the flare to suit the conditions.
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this is completely awesome.. this was my first post on this site and the information from that one post has really helped me! from the instructors and the salts of airbeaters who posted a heartfelt thanks! dont stop posting advice on it. to the autovirgins like me, thanks for letting me know im not the only one who cant get past the ground rush. I am going to try to be especially vigilant on the next lesson to look ABOVE the window frame thats above my feet , using the treeline asa refrence.... and im going to try to relax my left arm, thinking of the part that im having trouble with as a two stage finish to an auto..... the flare flare flare, THEN level and collective together . i think i might even ask the instructor to talk to me like its a quickstop .... she usually says "3,2,1 quickstop... and if i start to balloon shes like flare flare flare THEN level level level.
One more question.. is finishing and getting licensed in 45 hours being overzealous???
oh yeah, im in massachusetts.... anyone else in new england usa??
One more question.. is finishing and getting licensed in 45 hours being overzealous???
oh yeah, im in massachusetts.... anyone else in new england usa??