I wonder if the FAA's decision is related to this accident.

Did mine on the R22 at Jandakot Western Australia back in 1989. Right down to the ground many times with Colin who ran West Coast Helicopters. No doors in a hot climate with your hand always on the collective. I can't say I enjoyed it but Colin is always there at the back of my mind. The Robbo is an uncomfortable little helicopter but traches you to fly just like the PA 38 fixed wing. If you want a nice aircraft never buy either.

Is Colin still around? Must be in his 70's if so.

No doubt a result of the hazards associated with the cheapest form of helicopter training in the cheapest available machine. Not to mention any particular helicopter manufacturer, of course!

CAA examiners in the UK can't rescue an EOL either, so they fudge it in the UK too, the only guy from the 'Campaign' (Against Aviation) who can do it is FC, and then only just !

pathetic !

Dynamic Rollover said:That was our local examiner who died in that one. I'd flown with him once or twice; a good guy and a good pilot. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if that was partly why they've changed the requirement.

The other thing that relates is that a few years back the requirement for touchdowns was suspended for a while... What we were hearing on the East Coast is that it was lobbying by some of the California schools - they were claiming that their insurance companies were not allowing it. I suspect that if the rumor was even true, it was more about trying to reduce insurance rates than being told it wasn't allowed.

As Rotorgoat8 hints, the R22 can be a pretty difficult machine to stay current on touchdowns. I have about 2.5K in R22s but I haven't flown one in a few years, and I'm sure I'd have to work back up to proficiency after having flown higher inertia machines for quite a while now. The difference between a pretty good touchdown and a really bad one in an R22 can be just a couple feet of altitude when the RPM starts to run out.

I'm against the current change because I think the change is reasonable, but will be abused. I suspect flight instructor candidates will have a couple touchdowns demoed to them, and then will get to do one or two (with his/her instructor right there on the controls to prevent any problems) and then will be declared ready for checkride, i.e. without really the experience to do it by themselves.

I grant you that if you can get within 5 feet of the ground you're probably going to walk away from an autorotation, but you can mask a lot of errors during a power recovery... It's really the touchdown that shows you that you aren't cheating... that you in fact have enough energy/RPM to achieve a safe landing.

Obviously those of us lucky enough to be teaching in higher inertia machines will continue to teach touchdowns, but given the vast numbers of R22 trained instructors, it does worry me that this requirement is being changed.

Worth repeating:

The modern corporate world is driven by risk aversion, they have a whole encyclopaedia on the topic, because that's how the bean counters think that's how to make money.

It's also a sad and pathetic day when saving money is put ahead of saving lives.

it all part of dumbing down and de-skilling

AC, sounds a bit like the Army Kiowa doing fixed float autos to the water on Ross River dam in behind Townsville - had been broadcasting ops normals and then couldn't get radio contact, wonders why and then sees his tail boom come floating past ... something like that anyway!

The problem with EOL's in low inertia helicopters like the R22 is that there is no half way house in terms of practice. As instructors and examiners, you either do them all day, every day as I used to or none at all. No two autos to the ground on the same day same conditions finish up exactly the same. Tiny variations in wind and flare make large differences to what happens at the bottom. There is no one size fits all technique that you can get away with like on 47's, 300's and 206's. Lack of practice ends in tears.