Kenny Keller shows how to stretch an autorotation glide to reach a safer landing spot after engine failure. Standard training aims for the nearest clear area, but reducing rotor RPM while maintaining airspeed extends your distance. He demonstrates the technique in flight with real-time calls and collective adjustments.
Lose an engine, and there's a spot that's farther, a little farther than you normally would go to, but it's your only really good spot. Being able to stretch that glide could be the difference between walking away at the end or flying into a bunch of trees and having an accident and maybe losing your life.
Stretching the glide. And I'll have to be honest with you, I do not. I kind of talk about it a little bit, but I don't really show it because I always, you know, the thought process. If I have an engine failure and I enter an auto, I'm pretty much going right here in the immediate area. So I have to be honest with you. I don't really talk much about stretching the glide. Now, remember, we're always talking about keep that RPM up, keep it in the middle of grain, or keep it on the high right.
We train it over and over and over and over and over. Top of the green, top of the green, top of the green. Why is this not in the pts? Why do we not train to this? In a normal standard, I would enter.
It to hit the spot that we normally do. So let's see what happens if I enter and we stretch it. So here we go in three, two, one. Okay, so I'm gonna keep the speed up. RPM is staying. I'm gonna raise collective a little bit. There's 70 rpms a little high for what they want. I'm gonna raise collective up a little bit more. Keeping an EY. There's 80. See, now I got to burn all that air. Speed off. I'm on a float. Look at that float.
Yeah, we went quite a ways past. Ultimately, you stretched that quite a bit.
Yeah. Oh, yeah, we went. It's kind of. We're way past where I mean, we had that big float there at the end. Let's do it again.
I think it goes back to. Because we're always taught. Top of the green, top of the green, top of the green, top of the green. Especially when we flew our 22s, right. When we beat it your head Pontiac. So when that pilot showed me I wasn't comfortable pulling the RPM clear down to the low side during an auto because of my training. You might need to stretch that glide in the real world to make a parking lot, right? Or an open field or whatever it is you're trying to get to.
Here we go in 3, 2, 1.
Runway 09. Entering down 1. Definitely felt a little light seat action there.
Trying to keep the speed up, trying to stay in. I'm adding a whole lot of left pedal rpm. I'm still trying to break down just a little bit. This is weird. This just feels weird to me. Start my flare. Of course, it's gonna have to be. God, look at that float. Throttle's coming back in. Kind of neat, though. Something different to think about.
Definitely food for thought. Man. Another tool in the toolbox.
Yep.
Down below, we have a helicopter maneuver guide based off the helicopter flying handbook. It's a free PDF, something cool that you can download. You can just look at your electronic device. You could print it off on paper if you wanted, make adjustments for the aircraft you're flying. But we made it courtesy of our operations manager, Brian Rutledge. Put it together. Just something that's inside ground school for our members. We decided to give it away for free for anybody that just wanted a maneuver guide that they could take and look at and just have, you know, separate from going to the helicopter, flying about hammock and looking all at all the maneuvers.
