Autorotations

It's getting pretty boring here. So, who has done an actual emergency
autorotation and what was the outcome?
As previously posted, I've done at least five with various failures and
all to successful conclusions. Geeez guys....it's Christmas! Can't we
say something or do something to brighten up the spirit of the season?
I have a phyxed wing student who just did a terrible landing recovery
this week and jammed the nose wheel up into the cowling doing about 30K
of damage to a C172SP. Curled the prop and all. Talk about a dampener
to the Xmas spirit?
So, what have you done lately? Anything to brighten up the day?
Ol Shy & Bashful

I've done a bunch through the years. Actually, most of the "unexpected"
engine out auto's I've done were pretty much uneventul. Even entered a
couple of them from inverted but had enough altitude to deal with it.
Dropped the collective, hit throttle hold, and split S'd to upright and put
the bird on the ground.

The first "oh sh**" auto I ever did, which occured while I was actually
practicing to "learn" how to do auto's, was the result of a tail rotor
failure. That one was "real" interesting but successful nontheless. I wish
I could claim skill on that one however it was nothing but dumb luck. I'll
take luck over skill any time! ;-)

Fly Safe,
Steve R.


"Ol Shy & Bashful" wrote in message
ups.com...
It's getting pretty boring here. So, who has done an actual emergency
autorotation and what was the outcome?
As previously posted, I've done at least five with various failures and
all to successful conclusions. Geeez guys....it's Christmas! Can't we
say something or do something to brighten up the spirit of the season?
I have a phyxed wing student who just did a terrible landing recovery
this week and jammed the nose wheel up into the cowling doing about 30K
of damage to a C172SP. Curled the prop and all. Talk about a dampener
to the Xmas spirit?
So, what have you done lately? Anything to brighten up the day?
Ol Shy & Bashful

Oops. Sorry guys, wrong newgroup. One of the pitfalls for loitering
around one geared to the full size birds and one geared to the RC versions.

Please ignore the previous post.

Fly Safe,
Steve R.


"Ol Shy & Bashful" wrote in message
ups.com...
It's getting pretty boring here. So, who has done an actual emergency
autorotation and what was the outcome?
As previously posted, I've done at least five with various failures and
all to successful conclusions. Geeez guys....it's Christmas! Can't we
say something or do something to brighten up the spirit of the season?
I have a phyxed wing student who just did a terrible landing recovery
this week and jammed the nose wheel up into the cowling doing about 30K
of damage to a C172SP. Curled the prop and all. Talk about a dampener
to the Xmas spirit?
So, what have you done lately? Anything to brighten up the day?
Ol Shy & Bashful

"Ol Shy & Bashful" wrote in
ups.com:

It's getting pretty boring here. So, who has done an actual emergency
autorotation and what was the outcome?
As previously posted, I've done at least five with various failures
and
all to successful conclusions. Geeez guys....it's Christmas! Can't we
say something or do something to brighten up the spirit of the season?
I have a phyxed wing student who just did a terrible landing recovery
this week and jammed the nose wheel up into the cowling doing about
30K
of damage to a C172SP. Curled the prop and all. Talk about a dampener
to the Xmas spirit?
So, what have you done lately? Anything to brighten up the day?
Ol Shy & Bashful


So far I've only had one engine failure (piston) - it happened on the
ground during the run up! Best engine out procedure I ever handled

The school here has had a few though. Pistons like to quit during
practice autos just to check you really had a good place to go when you
chopped the throttle. They've all ended up OK....

However, a few autos to the ground (engine still working), that haven't
been so successful - definitely seems that practicing for autos is more
dangerous than the real thing...

Merry Christmas guys. Fly safe.

toad.

At first, I only read these with interest and then I remembered that I did
have the engine quit one day and I successfully set it down. I had about 12
hrs total helo time and was in the process of hovering off some test time on
my Baby Belle. The mixture at idle was a little rich so I tweaked the
mixture back until the engine ran smooth while I warmed it up. When it was
ready, I lifted off into a hover and the engine quit. Too lean a mixture
for full power. I had never practiced a hovering auto in my ship yet but I
guess the reflex action was correct. Thanks to "Ol Shy & Bashful"'s
posting, I now can say I have had an auto to the ground. This one was so
quick I didn't have time to get scared.
--
Stuart Fields


"Toad-Man" wrote in message
1...
"Ol Shy & Bashful" wrote in
ups.com:

It's getting pretty boring here. So, who has done an actual emergency
autorotation and what was the outcome?
As previously posted, I've done at least five with various failures
and
all to successful conclusions. Geeez guys....it's Christmas! Can't we
say something or do something to brighten up the spirit of the season?
I have a phyxed wing student who just did a terrible landing recovery
this week and jammed the nose wheel up into the cowling doing about
30K
of damage to a C172SP. Curled the prop and all. Talk about a dampener
to the Xmas spirit?
So, what have you done lately? Anything to brighten up the day?
Ol Shy & Bashful


So far I've only had one engine failure (piston) - it happened on the
ground during the run up! Best engine out procedure I ever handled

The school here has had a few though. Pistons like to quit during
practice autos just to check you really had a good place to go when you
chopped the throttle. They've all ended up OK....

However, a few autos to the ground (engine still working), that haven't
been so successful - definitely seems that practicing for autos is more
dangerous than the real thing...

Merry Christmas guys. Fly safe.

toad.

Heres a new one for the books and possibly stir things up a little. I once
had to do an auto from about 500 ft AGL but with a power recovery. When
doing my warm-up I noticed the rotors spool up a little more than normal but
didn't think to much of it at the time. Once all the temps were in the green
I set out and departed and all seemed normal. Once at altitude I notice that
my EGT's would sky rocket as soon as I reduced the throttle for cruise, did
I mention I was in a Mini 500. The mini has two sets of carburater jets, one
for cruise, and one for higher power settings. So my only option I could see
at the time was to keep climbing or go faster, both using the higher power
setting, or auto back to my departure point. I did a quick circuit back so
as to auto into wind and then cut the throttle to idle and entered the auto.
At the bottom of the auto I did a power recovery at about 10 ft agl and set
it down uneventfully, changed the jets to richer ones and set off again with
no problems. Just goes to show that I should have noticed that with the
rotors spooling up at idle (slightly higher engine RPM do to the leaner
jets) I should have looked into what was the cause. I should also mention
that this was the only engine problem I had in appox. 300 hrs of flying the
Mini.
Kirt

"Stuart & Kathryn Fields" wrote in message
.. .
At first, I only read these with interest and then I remembered that I did
have the engine quit one day and I successfully set it down. I had about
12
hrs total helo time and was in the process of hovering off some test time
on
my Baby Belle. The mixture at idle was a little rich so I tweaked the
mixture back until the engine ran smooth while I warmed it up. When it
was
ready, I lifted off into a hover and the engine quit. Too lean a mixture
for full power. I had never practiced a hovering auto in my ship yet but
I
guess the reflex action was correct. Thanks to "Ol Shy & Bashful"'s
posting, I now can say I have had an auto to the ground. This one was so
quick I didn't have time to get scared.
--
Stuart Fields


"Toad-Man" wrote in message
1...
"Ol Shy & Bashful" wrote in
ups.com:

It's getting pretty boring here. So, who has done an actual emergency
autorotation and what was the outcome?
As previously posted, I've done at least five with various failures
and
all to successful conclusions. Geeez guys....it's Christmas! Can't we
say something or do something to brighten up the spirit of the season?
I have a phyxed wing student who just did a terrible landing recovery
this week and jammed the nose wheel up into the cowling doing about
30K
of damage to a C172SP. Curled the prop and all. Talk about a dampener
to the Xmas spirit?
So, what have you done lately? Anything to brighten up the day?
Ol Shy & Bashful


So far I've only had one engine failure (piston) - it happened on the
ground during the run up! Best engine out procedure I ever handled

The school here has had a few though. Pistons like to quit during
practice autos just to check you really had a good place to go when you
chopped the throttle. They've all ended up OK....

However, a few autos to the ground (engine still working), that haven't
been so successful - definitely seems that practicing for autos is more
dangerous than the real thing...

Merry Christmas guys. Fly safe.

toad.

I had two Lycoming T53-L13A engines come apart in 1970 during my tour flying
Hueys in RVN (240th Assault Helicopter Company).

The first one happened at cruise (~100 kts) at perhaps 100 feet AGL while we
were flying east from Bearcat (near Long Thanh) to the coast along highway 1
just southeast of the Gia Ray massif. When the compressor blades let go, it
sounded like an explosion, I thought for a few seconds that we had taken an
RPG. Anyway, the autorotation and successful albeit skidding landing on a
paved highway went exactly like we trained for low-level autorotation.

During the week it took to install a new engine in my bird (67-17565), I
flew other machines assigned to my platoon, one of which did the same thing
to me (don't remember its tail number), although this time we were hovering
from POL (fuel) to the revetment after completing the day's missions. For
this one, I recognized the sounds from the earlier catastrophic compressor
failure so I didn't think about an RPG and just performed a successful
hovering autorotation, just as we trained to do them. This engine failure
came after our formation had flown low and slow in a hard rainstorm back to
Bearcat from the Rung Sat swamps east of Saigon during which it was raining
so hard that we had to fly in a skid at about 40 kts in order to see each
other and to avoid flying into any obstacles (primarily, trees) while our
flight lead navigated home using pilotage.

I always figured that my guardian angel was on the job since both engine
failures came at very nearly optimal moments. The training that the Army
gave us in flight school really prepared me to handle the power failure
situations as in those days we carried almost all autorotations to the
ground. I loved autorotations! I always thought autorotations were the
best way to land a Huey when flying combat assaults primarily because an
approach to a 3 foot hover before landing just served to increase the
exposure time. My mantra was to keep moving and try to avoid flying a
predictable ground track whenever possible, meaning no straight-in
approaches to a hot LZ. Must have worked because despite taking fire I
never took rounds when using these techniques! Of course, some said that I
was a cowboy, but I never got anyone killed so I'm happy with the results.

Thankfully, the Lycoming guys figured what was caused these types of engine
failures and fixed the problem in the L13B, which I flew with until
"retiring" from Army Aviation in 1978.

Cheers,
Leonard Ellis (Greyhound 28)

"Ol Shy & Bashful" wrote in message
ups.com...
It's getting pretty boring here. So, who has done an actual emergency
autorotation and what was the outcome?
As previously posted, I've done at least five with various failures and
all to successful conclusions. Geeez guys....it's Christmas! Can't we
say something or do something to brighten up the spirit of the season?
I have a phyxed wing student who just did a terrible landing recovery
this week and jammed the nose wheel up into the cowling doing about 30K
of damage to a C172SP. Curled the prop and all. Talk about a dampener
to the Xmas spirit?
So, what have you done lately? Anything to brighten up the day?
Ol Shy & Bashful

Leonard Ellis wrote:

I had two Lycoming T53-L13A engines come apart in 1970 during my tour flying
Hueys in RVN (240th Assault Helicopter Company).

The first one happened at cruise (~100 kts) at perhaps 100 feet AGL while we
were flying east from Bearcat (near Long Thanh) to the coast along highway 1
just southeast of the Gia Ray massif. When the compressor blades let go, it
sounded like an explosion, I thought for a few seconds that we had taken an
RPG. Anyway, the autorotation and successful albeit skidding landing on a
paved highway went exactly like we trained for low-level autorotation.


Some great moments there Leonard. Of course I think you didn't think
that way as the engines came apart.

I retired in 1995 and, after flying a season with Papillon Grand Canyon
Helicopters, I had enough money to buy my dream aircraft, the RAF2000
Gyro. The reason I was choosing the Gyro was the ability to land on
country roads, stop the rotor and line it up fore and aft, and drive it
like a motorcycle to a country gas station or big Truck Stop for a
break, food and a shower and a motel for the night. Some time camping
beside the aircraft was another possibility I was looking forward to.
Adding the required lights, brakes and other safety equipment would be
no problem and the Gyro can be licensed as a homebuilt motorcycle. I
couldn't get my Sprint II ultralight street legal with the wings
attached so it wouldn't be worth the bother.

But even with it being street legal, too much driving on the tires would
not be good for it although good street tires can be found I think.

But health going down hill and getting married to a German Tourist I met
flying over the Canyon put the plans on hold. But I still think about it.

Reading all the posts here has been great. Posts about aircraft like the
mini 500 and others are good reading. Is there a place where a person
can go to see some of the helicopters people own here? Maybe someday
I'll get back on track with my old plans.


--

boB,
SAG 70

U.S. Army Aviation (retired)
Central Texas - 5NM West of Gray Army Airfield (KGRK)

Actually, there was really no time for contemplation prior to landing, as
I'm sure most pilots of single-engine, low-level helicopters will recognize.
One's training kicks in and takes most of the "thinking" out of the
situation, particularly when fast and low. I always loved the questions one
gets from the maintenance guys after such an engine failure, "what was the
oil temperature? pressure? N1 speed?" My usual answer "I don't know! I
was busy trying to avoid flying into anything and then busy trying to land
the aircraft without busting my ass!"

Neither I nor my peter pilot got off a mayday call on the first engine
failure, I was busy flying the machine and he was busy sucking the nylon
netting from the armored seat up to where the sun don't shine (high pucker
factor situation for a FNG). After the bird stopped sliding I turned off
the main fuel & battery, and shouted to the crew to "unass this thing". We
all bailed to the drainage ditch on the side of the road.

Maybe a minute later I thought about having neglected the radio call and
since we hadn't taken fire or seen any bad guys since landing, I ran up to
the bird and fetched the ammo box we used for an emergency kit and returned
to the ditch. Opening the box, I extracted the rinky-dink survival radio
and used it to call for help. No one heard it. We were less than 3 miles
from the firebase at Gia Ray, there was lots of chopper traffic around that
firebase, and not one aircraft heard my mayday call. That survival radio
was an absolute pick of junk and clearly not worth having along.

I gave up on the rinky dink radio, climbed into the bird, flipped on the
master and fired up the ARC51BX UHF radio. Everyone heard the mayday call
that went out on that one and we had air cover from an OH-58 within a couple
of minutes. About 15 minutes later, a unit of armored vehicles came roaring
down the road and set a perimeter around my machine. They stayed until a
Chinook came and carried our bird home for a new engine. The next day I
borrowed the CO's machine and carried several cases of cold beer out to them
as my thanks. Cav guys are worth their weight in gold!

A bit before the hook showed up, two pilots from our unit (who on their day
off had been taking the sun on top of our bunker back home) came out with a
spare Huey so I and my crew took that machine on to finish our day of
hauling people around Ham Tan province and my colleagues rode back to their
bunker on the rigging ship. I was a little sad to miss seeing the hook
bring my bird home, but better to go fly all day than to sit around the
company area dealing with whatever the operations or company staff could
dream up to occupy my time. Additional motivation was that my crew chief
would not have been happy if I had left him to fly all day with some other
A/C after the adventurous way we had started the day.

Gyrocopters strike me as a little scary. Several guys 3 doors down from our
Skyhawk's hanger have one. There ain't much to it. I don't think you can
carry much more than yourself, a 16 oz bottle of water, and a toothbrush in
one of those things. Still, I would like to try flying one someday.

Cheers,
Leonard



e muchthe first one, on the highway,
"boB" wrote in message
...
Leonard Ellis wrote:

I had two Lycoming T53-L13A engines come apart in 1970 during my tour
flying Hueys in RVN (240th Assault Helicopter Company).

The first one happened at cruise (~100 kts) at perhaps 100 feet AGL while
we were flying east from Bearcat (near Long Thanh) to the coast along
highway 1 just southeast of the Gia Ray massif. When the compressor
blades let go, it sounded like an explosion, I thought for a few seconds
that we had taken an RPG. Anyway, the autorotation and successful albeit
skidding landing on a paved highway went exactly like we trained for
low-level autorotation.


Some great moments there Leonard. Of course I think you didn't think that
way as the engines came apart.

I retired in 1995 and, after flying a season with Papillon Grand Canyon
Helicopters, I had enough money to buy my dream aircraft, the RAF2000
Gyro. The reason I was choosing the Gyro was the ability to land on
country roads, stop the rotor and line it up fore and aft, and drive it
like a motorcycle to a country gas station or big Truck Stop for a break,
food and a shower and a motel for the night. Some time camping beside the
aircraft was another possibility I was looking forward to. Adding the
required lights, brakes and other safety equipment would be no problem and
the Gyro can be licensed as a homebuilt motorcycle. I couldn't get my
Sprint II ultralight street legal with the wings attached so it wouldn't
be worth the bother.

But even with it being street legal, too much driving on the tires would
not be good for it although good street tires can be found I think.

But health going down hill and getting married to a German Tourist I met
flying over the Canyon put the plans on hold. But I still think about it.

Reading all the posts here has been great. Posts about aircraft like the
mini 500 and others are good reading. Is there a place where a person can
go to see some of the helicopters people own here? Maybe someday I'll get
back on track with my old plans.


--

boB,
SAG 70

U.S. Army Aviation (retired)
Central Texas - 5NM West of Gray Army Airfield (KGRK)

Most folks here know I'm not a rated pilot for full size but if I may, this
is a story that someone else posted on this forum a number of years ago.
Nick Lampos I think? Anyway, I got such a kick out of it back then I'd like
to share.

It seem that the original poster had been in the office at the local FBO,
talking to the fuel guy. In the background, was the usual traffic one might
hear on the unicom frequency at your average uncontrolled field. There was
a helicopter student out on one of his first unsupervised solo flights. He
was returning to the field and announcing his intentions over the radio.
The transmission went something like this.

"???????? airport traffic, this is helicopter 1234C, five miles south,
inbound for ....... OH SH**!!, rpm, rpm, rpm, rpm, rpm, rpm, flare, flare,
flare, level, level, cushion, cushion, cushion ............. Oh my God!!!!!
I DID IT!"

I don't remember what the orginal poster said the problem was with the
aircraft but the engine had shut down for some reason. The student, having
keyed the microphone to announce his arrival in the pattern, never let go of
it when the engine quit and everyone got to listen to him talk himself
through the ensuing autorotation. Which, by the way, he executed perfectly.
Not even a scratch on the skids! The airport personnel went and picked up
the pilot and after thoroughly discussing the incident at the airport, went
to the local pub afterwards. The student bought the first round! :-)

When I first read that, I could see the entire incident in my mind. It was
wonderful. Maybe someone here will remember who originally told this story
or fill in any details I forgot or messed up.

Fly Safe,
Steve R.