YouTube video (Day 143 of the “Coffee with Kenny” series) by Kenny Keller (Helicopter Ground School) about complete loss of tail rotor or tail rotor drive during cruise flight. Keller explains that during a complete loss of tail rotor thrust in forward/cruise flight the correct emergency action is to immediately enter autorotation, maintain recommended cruise/minimum airspeed (example POHs cite roughly 70 kt as an operational reference), select a landing site and perform an autorotation landing; if no suitable landing site exists, reduce power and fly to a suitable area while maintaining the POH-specified airspeed, then re-enter autorotation to land. The video also includes promotional notes about Keller’s books and a Memorial Day sale.
Questions this video answers
May 28, 2019.
Immediately enter autorotation, maintain the POH-specified minimum/cruise airspeed (example wording cites ~70 knots), select a suitable landing site and perform an autorotation landing; if no suitable site is available, reduce power and fly at POH airspeed until a site is found, then re-enter autorotation to land.
Chapters
People will tell you and here's what my examiner said, absolutely not. People want to say, well, but I can manipulate the nose of the helicopter with the throttle even without the tail rotor and I can continue flight and get back to my home airport. Okay, my examiner says negative in emergency. You want to know what to do. Hey, welcome to day 143 Coffee with Kenny. I'm Kenny Keller, creator of Helicopter Ground School. Had set the coffee down. Day 143 going to cover a question that you will see on your telecopter check ride, private commercial, doesn't matter. They're always going to ask this and it's about losing the tail rotor or tail rotor drive shaft, a complete failure during flight. And some people might be surprised at an answer that some people want to give and right straight from our examiners like, please, that's not the right answer. And before we get to that, I am creator Helicopter Line Ground school, Author of these two top Amazon number one best selling books, Helicopter Checkride and top 10 checkride tips I did with 2018 Flight Instructor of the year, Dan Taz Christman. You can get those books below. Just pay with the shipping and handling. We ship you the book for free paperback available on either one. We send them to you again, you just pay shipping, handling. We bought the books for you. So on this question, it's going to come up during a check ride. Now, before I proceed, of course, check the manual for the helicopter you're flying. I'm going to talk about two different helicopters in this example example, both the Enstrom and the Robinson. Now the same examiner I've known for 20 years in the recent past asked me, he said, kenny, could you do some videos on tail rotor failures and talk about the differences between the different types of failures from this examiner. He says the biggest problem he's having and seeing is people not understanding the differences between the different types of failures that you can have. So take that as your tip number one from the same examiner. I learned many years ago on the checkride, when the question comes up, you're in forward flight, let's say 60, 70, 80 knots or mile per hour, not talking low level flight in slow speed. This is at cruise flight, you're flying along and the examiner may very well give you a scenario. You're flying along 1,000ft AGL, cross country trip and your drive shaft snaps or the tail rotor flies off. You have a complete loss of tail rotor in the drive system. Okay? Not to be confused with the other tail rotor issues. And he says that Happens during cruise flight. What are you going to do? The answer is enter auto rotation, look for a spot. If there's no spot available, bring the power back. Fly until you can see an open area, a safe spot to go to. Reenter auto, go to the ground. Enstrom POH says something very close to that. Same thing with Robinson. So if you're in an R20 or two R44, the verbiage is almost the same. I'm going to use the Robinson. For example, loss of tail rotor thrust during forward flight. Immediately enter auto rotation, maintain at least 70 knots, select landing spike site, roll off throttle and perform auto rotation landing note when a suitable landing site is not available, the vertical fin may permit limited controlled flight. Very low power settings and airspeeds above 70 knots. However, prior to reducing airspeed, re enter full auto rotation. So you're going to read that in the R22, the R44, the Nstrom helicopters, they all read very similar to that. Okay, so flying along cross country flight, you've got airspeed, you lose the tail rotor. It's in a rotation. Look for a spot. If there's not one available, reintroduce power, fly until there is a spot and then go into a second auto rotation. People will tell you, and here's what my examiner said, absolutely not. People want to say, well, but I can manipulate the nose of the helicopter with the throttle even without the tail rotor, and I can continue flight and get back to my home airport. Okay, my examiner says negative. In emergency, you want to know what to do. And there's a reason why something broke back here. Drive shaft's broke, tail rotor's gone. Whatever that failure is. What if the rotor drive system is busted the and it's back here spinning? Could it start eating your tail boom? Yes, it could. I've seen pictures of it. I've heard stories of it. So we'll do some more videos on this. But I want to keep this one at this one only. Cross country airspeed and tell major failure. Drive shaft, tail rotor, whatever it is, enter auto rotation, look for a spot. If you've got an open area to go to, you can get there safely. Proceed on with your auto rotation all the way to the ground. If not, pull the power back in. Keep that airspeed. Depending on what your PoH says, 70 knots, 60 knots. Whatever the PoH says, keep that minimum airspeed. Fly until you've got an open area, a field parking lot, whatever you've got. Re enter your auto rotation. So that's a good one. CheckRide Question Day 143Please subscribe to our channel and give us a like on the video. And hey, when you subscribe, click the button to be notified of our daily video, if you would. And hey, I'm going to tell you about a special Memorial Day sale that ends the end of the month for this discount. Ends the end of the month, May 31, right? 31 days in May, 30% off the yearly or the big professional pilot package. When I put the links below that take you directly to those SAL sales pages where you you'll see the discount right there when you go to those pages. So those will be down below. All right. Gonna wrap it up. Seven years online helicopter line, ground school. Heck yeah. We love the community. Just keeps getting better. So gonna wrap it up. Please like subscribe. Give us a comment down below. Give us a thumbs up if you like the video. If you dislike the video, just make sure you click the dislike twice and we'll see you in day 144. Sa.
