How would a new student fare in a helicopter if the instructor is kaput?
 

I imagine regardless of your choice of training helicopter, after only a couple of lessons, the outcome would not be as pretty!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-...rgency-landing

Fair play to the guy who got this down and air traffic for giving good guidance.

Yeah, that question's pretty much already been answered.

To the OP's question:
I'd say that depends on when and how the helicopter instructor becomes incapacitated. My very first flight had me on the controls, en-route, going 60 kn. That way pitch or rpm didn't need much attention, pedals are irrelevant, and one is introduced to the cyclic and its operation, accompanied by the instruction that "we don't climb or descend using the cyclic like a plane uses its elevator but only by adjusting pitch". I actually was given that piece of information right during my first 10 secs at "some" the controls.

Now if my instructor would have fainted at that point of our flight
AND would have fallen over towards the door's side
AND would not have crumpled over the cyclic,
I'd be in panic, probably talking to the airfield's tower, hoping the flight schools boss might be within reach.

The only way I could imagine to have landed the thing would have been airplane stlye e.g. w/o hover:
Suuuper long final, very low, still doing the 60 kn I already encountered.
Hopefully gradually lowering pitch and doing a 60 kn screeching landing right onto the 3000ft tarmac.

Would I have known to avoid low airspeeds (as I wasn't able to hover, back then)?
Would I have known to avoid the grass for such a high speed "landing"?
Probably not. But I think a helicopter with skids can be landed safely as describe even by a 0 h "pilot" .

However would the instructor have fainted during takeoff or landing,
would he have sunk over the controls, maybe pushing down the pitch in the process, I'd be toast, for sure.

does this sound right or am I misjudging 0 h pilot's skills ?

Misjudging skills by a long way.

A Zero-Hr-Bloggs hasn't really learned that "Attitude is Airspeed" and "Power is Rate of Descent". He cannot fully appreciate the small adjustments needed to hold an attitude. He certainly hasn't learned about the secondary effects of the controls, and that if one control is moved, the other three must be moved to compensate. The absolute necessity to keep the aircraft straight with pedals, gross inputs and tiny inputs.

The Z-H-B is a dead man (or GLBTVPDQGW, whatever the mnemonic is now) unless he has had EOC in the hover and has made a reasonable running landing from 10-15kt.

Remember that an aeroplane is dynamically stable, and wants to fly. A helicopter is dynamically unstable, and wants to crash.

This whole thing is made up-IMHO.

Show me one student who can use the radios and talk to the tower while simultaneously flying the plane...IN HIS FIRST HOUR! - Just not happening..


So either this guy had previous training (some people taught themselves how to fly in a simulator pretty well), or I don't know what....

How hard can it be?
 

I think helicopter pilots like to perpetuate the idea that helicopters are really difficult to fly. Some years ago I was offered the chance to fly a Bell 47 from the right seat. I knew the owner and he knew I had recent time in airplanes and gliders. I had only been in a helicopter once before and that was in the passenger cabin with no view of the pilot or the controls. I made the first takeoff without any demo. With only about 30 minutes on the controls I performed takeoff, hover, hover turns, departure climb, approach to hover, and landing all with no intervention from the owner. The only part I remember being at all difficult was keeping the rpm in the power band since the required coupling of collective and throttle had no equivalent in my previous flight experience. It didn't take long to get the feel of that.

Congratulations, you're a natural. You may collect your trophy and commemorative medal on the way out :}

Your incredible story of such derring-do, without the merest hint of modesty are very impressive - I've got a semi just thinking about it.....

There are so many variables to this equation. More than one fixed wing student pilot has been "talked down" successfully, so this latest episode is not as bizarre as it may seem. I listened to the entire ATC recording and this guy seemed to have nearly zero knowledge of flying and how to operate the radio or transponder. He never did figure out his audio volume problem or what a transponder was. And, just as an aside, the controller did a much better job than the instructor that showed up, the latter only lasting a few minutes until the controller took the radio back. But I digress...

As a fixed wing pilot, i.e. an add-on, on my very first helicopter lesson, the instructor did the pick-up, taxi and departure, but I got all three controls from climb-out to entering the first hover on landing. With the fixed wing experience, a decent amount of book knowledge and a tiny bit of happy fun playtime with some crappy model helicopters, I had no problem with descents, climbs, level turns or speed changes. Not saying they were super smooth or anything, but they were serviceable from a survivability perspective. Of course it all went to total sh*t on that first hover, ha ha! :} If my instructor had bought it on that flight one of three things would have happened: 1) I would have got it close to the ground, tried to hover not knowing what I didn't know, realized I was in trouble, dropped the collective to rapidly put it on the ground and probably roll it, 2) with luck, someone would have talked me through a running landing, which I would have executed but still rolled it at the end, or 3) running landing and gotten incredibly lucky.

But someone with zero or very little time in any combination of aircraft, simulator or book knowledge trying to fly and land a helicopter on the first flight: almost certainly doomed.

Remembered this from some time ago:
https://www.boston25news.com/news/na...ness/859694317

Even understanding the theory of how the damn things fly, as a fixed wing driver I found my first hands on flight in an R-22 a real handful.
Straight and level forward flight fine.
Turning - amazing how just an imperceptible of the cyclic started the movement.
But hovering - jaysus.
Within 10 seconds I was in PIO, too high and outside the box on the ground.
Very humbling...

Well whatever turns you on but it was simply a factual account of my first helicopter flight. Maybe the Bell 47 is unusually easy to fly. I wouldn't know that since I have not flown any other helicopter types.

Of course not. As I said - helicopter pilots like to perpetuate the idea that flying helicopters is difficult. I was briefed that it would take a light touch and small control inputs. With hundreds of hours in high performance sailplanes I was used to having a light touch and making small control inputs.

I was not looking for admiration or praise. I was simply answering whether a pilot with almost zero helicopter time could land a helicopter.

For somebody with less than 1h experience, I think keeping the forward speed and progressively lowering the altitude AGL to some flat area presents the best chance of survival.
Many initial students can keep aircraft stable with some forward speed.
Most will lose control below ETL on the back of the power curve when it's time to push the power pedal.

Come on, girls, you have all had students airborne for their first-ever taste of flying, the TIF. And you have all seen how the student eventually loses it, even just on cyclic only, because their muscle memory isn't yet fine-tuned for the teensy cyclic movements with their right arm resting on the right thigh. Give them 4 controls and their ability to split concentration by rapidly scanning from one thing to the next (make it point, keep it flat, control the height) falls to bits.

Unless the potential student has a LOT of fixed-wing time and understands Attitude is Airspeed, the student will come unstuck as he approaches the ground and naturally wants to raise the nose. Speed bleeds off, yaw, sink, perhaps a sudden yank on the collective to stop the sink, and the secondary effects all come into play. Pitch up (for more speed loss), yaw (unexpected, probably combined with some roll) and panic. Splat.

Keep going, keep going! It's working for me. Why don't you tell us all how easy it is to fly with just 1 hand, while you fiddle about with other small things in the cockpit with the other?

I've risen to a high hover, and I sense a slight shuddering.... or would that be ETL kicking in?

Do pop back to tell us more EXDAC. Don't be pit off by those who for some reason are unimpressed with your tales of your incredible skills and natural abilities straight from the womb!