Helicopter Engine Failure Autorotation Practice Control Inputs Real Time

All right, Kenny, with helicopter only ground school here. Heather Height running camera. Today we're gonna go shoot some auto rotation videos for practice for me and for fun and to share with you on YouTube. We've been hitting all this, you know, fatal accidents and all this heavy duty stuff lately. And you know, it's all stuff that needs to be said. But we're not always just harping. All the bad right there's good. So we're gonna go have fun, sun shining, we're gonna go shoot auto rotations and I'm just gonna talk about whatever comes to mind. So I already checked the weather. Winds 230 10, gusting 15. And I'm looking around, I've been listening to radio. I don't hear anybody out there at all. I'm looking, don't see anybody. So I'm going to depart from here and go around and set up for 2 7, I think. All right, looking clear, don't see anybody at all.

Warsaw Traffic helicopter November 8626 Papa departing the hangars on the north end of the field. Westbound, we're making a right turn back for traffic to 27 Warsaw.

All right, and away we go. So the first thing I'm going to do before I start our rotations is I'm going to shoot a normal approach, make sure everything is good and warmed up and I'm going to do some quick stops. There's your 300 AGL. So I'm going to make a right hand turn. So it's. One thought is, and it's kind of cool, is to practice quick stops before going out and doing auto rotations. Just because in essence the quick stop is very similar to your flare in the auto rotation. So I'm just going to go around, do a normal approach, talk about some of the ins and outs and just things I've seen and learned over the years. Key to a good auto rotation is a good setup. Just like the key to a good normal approach. It's a good setup. Good hoverado, good setup. If you set it up nice, it's gonna be nice. And first objection. People say, well, yeah, but you're, you never know when the engine is gonna quit. It's not gonna be always perfect. Well, yes, you're right, but we have to train to a standard. So when you're training to a standard so you can perfect it and do well for an examiner on a checkride or check everyone for an interview flight for a job you want to be current and good at auto rotation. So we practice To a standard to hone our skills. Okay. And so I'm just gonna. We got north and south Runway and east and west Runway. One's 2, 3, 0. So I'm gonna use the west Runway. I'm actually gonna go the taxiway. There's not much traffic out here. But that way if a jet comes in or an airport comes to, airplane comes into work in the pattern, they can have the Runway. We're on the taxiway. We're not gonna aff. It won't affect what we're doing. So everything's looking good. I'm on a right base, getting ready to turn final land to the taxiway. Everything's in the green, everything's warmed up. Good. There's also sometimes people say that you shouldn't go right out and do auto rotations. You should go around the pattern at least once and let everything get warmed up. And I think that's probably good advice, not saying you have to, but, you know, just to kind of get things warmed up. And I'm going to decide what our spot's going to be. Probably the first. Let's see.

Andrews Traffic Cherokee 4946 Lane moves about 5 miles to the northwest and bound to land over the top, Runway 13. Andrews.

I'll make a radio call here.

Warsaw traffic, helicopter 26, Popeye. Right, base. Turning, final landing, the taxiway, parallel two seven, Warsaw.

Okay, I'll go to the third intersecting taxiway. That's going to be our landing spot today for the autos. Right now I'm just going to shoot a normal approach to that spot.

Cherokee November 5, 9, 3, 8, Uniform 10 to the left and follow.

A little fast. Faster than normal for starting a normal. But that's all right. So anyway, so we're going to do some quick stops first just to kind of hone that skill. And back when I started as a new cfi, I've told this story a lot and I'll tell it again because I was terrified of autos in the beginning. I was scared to teach them as a brand new instructor. I worked for a guy who was a weekend warrior, private pilot, couple hundred hours and we went out and he scared the absolute daylights out of me in a bad auto rotation. So I hired a guy to come in. That guy had 4000 hours, bunch of R22 time, super experienced. And I told him about my, you know, our little incident where he almost killed us. And I talked to the examiner about it too, you know, and the examiner kind of laughed and said, well, now you're now, you know, to be prepared now, you know, you could always be ready. I hired this guy to come in, and we did ground first. We talked about everything, all those aspects of utter rotations. And then we went out and he said, we're going to start with quickstops, the thing that he taught me. And we're going to get going here. Warning, caution lights are out. Gauges in the green. We're going to get rolling. And his thinking was, you know, when you practice in this flare in the quickstep, think of it as the flare in your auto rotation. And what I'm going to do is when I start to flare. So I'm going to start in 1, 2, 3. I'm going to flare. And I got a sight picture here of where the compass attaches. It's about the top of the. The tree horizon in front of me. And I'm holding that, holding it, holding and holding it till the speed's almost gone. Now I'm leveling and raising the collective and adjusting the puddles. So it's just good to warm up with. It's just, you know, it's. I think it's good. All right, Warning, caution lights are out. Gauges in the green. Looks good.

Warsaw traffic, helicopter 26 Papa departing taxiway parallel 27 for right traffic, Warsaw.

Okay, so what we're going to do is we're going to go around, do a straight in auto rotation first, and.

Then we're going to do 916. Lee Motel is approximately five miles to the south of the airfield. We're going to be transitioning west northwest.

Currently at 2,100 for tire traffic. What was I saying we're going to do?

Okay, Cherokee November 5938 Uniform 5 to the west. Be entering an extended left dominance at 27.

Wait until I get my 300 AGL here, start my turn. So we're gonna start with straight ins. And on each auto rotation, I'm gonna have Heather focus the camera on a different control. Because so many people in the videos I've made over the years, hey, I'd like to see the control inputs. Hey, I'd like to see the instrument panel. And that's hard to set cameras up on all those. So I told Heather, let's go out today, and each other, each auto rotation, I'll let you focus the camera on one of the controls just to help, you know, people visualize what's going on. A lot of our movements are on my note that you won't even see some of them. You will See, but we're going to give you what you've been asking for. We're going to show you what the controls look like and what the instrument looks like. Okay, so as I said, I'm going to start with a straight in, then I'm going to do a 90 and then we'll work our way into the 180s. And this guy that I worked with, his name was Adrian.

Actually.

Adrian was really cool. Haven't seen him in many years. Don't know where he's at or what he's doing these days. But anyway, he said, I'm going to show you something, Kenny. We're gonna do the 90s and then we're gonna try the 180 auto in two 90 degree turns. And he said, not something you have to do, but it might be something that you might like and it might help you. Turns out I like the 290 degree turns versus the full 180. Ultimately you're doing the same thing, but instead of just making one swooping 180 turn, you make a 90 degree turn, level out and then make another 90 degree turn. And depending on whether you've judged your spot well or not, that can kind of give you time to like, you're in. Once you level out, you're going, okay, I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait. Now I'm going to turn. To me, it just seems easier to. It makes it easier to. It makes it easier for me to hit my spot. So I like it. It's a method you can try if you've never tried it. Some people like it, some people don't like it, some people prefer just to make the full 180 sweeping turn. So, you know, in helicopter training I say all the time, well, I learned from my examiner years ago, there's a million ways of teaching quickstop. As long as the maneuver is safe, who cares, right? So I don't, I don't like getting arguments over, oh, a maneuver has to be done this way. If it, if it's to a standard and it's safe, who cares what method you're using? Okay, so I'm going to enter about. We're at 1400ft. That'll work. That's about 600 AGL. My speed's a little fast. I'm at 80. I'm going to try to slow it to 70. I'm going to make a radio call and get that out of the way.

Warsaw traffic, helicopter 26 Papa's on final for the taxiway parallel seven, parallel two, seven. Practice engine failure. Warsaw.

All right, Warsaw three uniform midfield left Alpha 27. Helicopter traffic insight. All right, 25.

I'll let him. We'll just keep the camera out front this time. First one. One, two, three. Enter. Collective down right pedal. I want to trim into the wind. Look at my air speed. Look outside, check my rpm Back outside, check my trim. Bunch of right pedal in there about treetop level. I'm going to start a flare which is about there. I'm going to keep making it bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger. Speed's almost gone. Level it out. Roll in the throttle and level it out. Not too bad for my first one. Let's see, I did one a couple weeks ago when I was out with my daughter playing around. So that was straight and out of rotation. I'll go do another one. And I know there's a guy in the pattern here, so we're gonna. If you look out the right hand side, make sure it tells Claire, Heather. Gotta do a clearing turn. Then we can see that guy that's in the pattern. And again he's on down one, I think he said. But if he does left traffic, we do right traffic on the taxiway. Then I don't disturb him and he don't disturb me. The regs do require that we make way for the fixed wing aircraft, so. All right, warning caution lights are out. Gauges in the green. Looking good. Gonna start a nice gentle takeoff. So I think this time we're gonna go around and we're going to. We'll do another. Let's go ahead and go to it. Let's go ahead and do a 90. And you know what I'll have. When we're doing it, I'll have Heather take the camera to the collective. She's got a collective right beside her seat. So I'll have her put the camera on it so you can kind of see what goes on with the collective. Of course, you're going to see the collective go down in the initial entry of the auto rotation. And then you might see raise or lower just a little bit. It won't be a lot. The auto rotations in these instruments are amazing. And as long as you set it up and hold your speed, you really don't have to do a lot. And the mechanic that's been maintained this aircraft its entire life, he knows right where to set them. And the RPM is perfect. We're full of fuel, which I'm doing. I did that on purpose because it's cold out and there's only two of us and I know during autos the RPM will stay in the low side and which is fine, but it makes me, it makes me able to go ahead and take the extra weight for today and burn off some fuel while we're doing autos. And it doesn't hurt a thing because it's actually nice to have that extra weight to help keep that RPM up there. Okay, so let's see. I said I'm going to do a 90, so I'm going to start getting set up. Make a radio call.

Warsaw traffic helicopter 26 Papa entering right downwind for taxiway 27, Warsaw.

All right, so again this was introduced to me years ago as a new instructor. I like doing the 90s. We'll do one or two. And the thing that experienced helicopter people already know that you the RPM is going to rise during a turn. If you're new to this, then maybe we just told you something you didn't know. Most generally when you turn during an auto rotation, the RPM is going to rise in this 90. It's probably not going to rise much because it's set on the low side. I may not have to raise it at all. Maybe I will. I don't know. We'll see. All right, clear left and right looks good. Got 70 on my airspeed. That's good. Got plenty of altitude. I'm up around 1600. That's alright. Alright Heather, if you want to put the camera down on that collective right there beside the seat. We're going to go 1, 2, 3. Enter collective down right pedal. Start my turn, looking at my spot, looking inside, looking outside. I got collective all the way down. Doing nothing with it. I split, I rolled. Throttle back just a little bit. Still in my turn. Haven't raised the collective at all. This thing is beautiful. It sets so nice. The RPM center of the green perfect where I want it to be. Treetop level coming. So I'm going to start a gentle flare. I'm going to make it a big flare. I'm going to make it a big flare. Make it a big flare. Bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger. Level it out. Raise collective, roll a little bit of throttle and boom, there we are. I didn't raise it once. Now I'm guessing in the 180. I'll probably have to raise it a little bit because that'll be, you know, a little more aggressive. But we'll see. So pre takeoff check. Warning caution lights are out. Gauges in the green. Looking good. I'll get started here, make a radio call.

Warsaw Traffic Helicopter 26 Papa Parting Taxiway, parallel 27 per right. Traffic Warsaw.

Man, just nice to get out and fly on a sunny day, ain't it?

Yeah.

So beautiful today.

Four star base three uniform. Could I get fuel back at the tubes?

Okay, Heather, so we're gonna go do two night. We're gonna do two 90 degree turns.

And.

I think I'll have you show the pedals in this one. There won't be a lot of action other than when I enter. I'm gonna put a whole bunch of right pedal in there. And then a trick that I was taught early on. You know, the auto rotation comes out so much better if you put in all the pedal you need to keep it in trim during the auto rotation. And if it's out of trim, it just doesn't come down as nice. It just makes everything nice to keep it trimmed. So we'll kind of talk about and focus on the pedals in this one so you just see what we're doing. And I know from experience that a lot of times I don't put enough pedal in. I look down at the trim. Oh, I need more pedal. Oh, I need a little more pedal. Which is what I say all the time in these videos as an instructor. You're riding around going, right pedal, more right pedal, more right pedal. Students get tired of hearing it, and finally, eventually they start pushing the right pedal. All right, so we're going to get set up again. Keto. Good auto rotation is good setup. If I don't like the setup, I don't enter it. I'll go around and set it up again. The day that we had that bad one in the beginning of my career, that almost made me quit instructing the owner of flying the aircraft, rushed it. I'm trying to talk him about talking about. I'm talking to him about setting up the 180 and taking your time and getting it ready. And it was all going in. It was all going in one ear and going and going out the other. And anyway turned into a nightmare. So I take my time getting set up.

Fulton county traffic. Cessna 12874, five miles to the northeast. Inbound Runway 29, Fulton County Warsaw traffic.

Helicopter 26, pop right downwind for taxiway 27 entering practice. Engine failure to the taxiway Warsaw.

All right, got speed about Warsaw traffic.

Mooney 70X Ray is descending through 4,005 miles south southeast inbound land two, run, three enter.

Go ahead and put your camera down the pedals. Heather, down collective right pedal start my turn. I need more Right pedal. Got my turn going. Looking good. I'm gonna level out here for a minute. Rpm's good, speed's good. Everything's nice. Now. I'm gonna start my second turn. I got a whole bunch of right pedal in there. Almost making my freaking leg cramp. I hate that. But the auto rotation is looking good. Inside, outside, inside, outside, inside, outside. We're lined up. Treetop level started to flare. Gentle flare. Make it bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger. Level it out. Roll in the power. And there is two 90s. I entered the 90, turned right, leveled out, waited until I wanted to make my second hand or second turn, and then I did it. All right, warning caution lights are out. Gauges in the green. Got lots of fuel. We've all been flying about 15 minutes. We got over two hours of fue. We're good to go. Here we go.

Warsaw traffic, helicopter 26 Papa departing taxiway, parallel seven. 27 for right traffic, Warsaw.

All right, get the left pedal in there. Color. All right, so that one was 290s. This time I'll go try the big old 180 sweeping turn. So Heather showed you the pedals, and she showed you the collective we want to do. You want to do cyclic or you want to do the panel on the next one? Heather, what do you want to do? Pick one.

Cyclic.

All right, so we're going to do the sweeping 180 turn, 180 degree out of rotation. One big sweeping 180 degree turn. You won't see a lot going on with the cyclic, but it'll be interesting. I guess when I enter, I just enter with a small aft cyclic pull. You probably won't even see it. And then depending on whether it's a good auto or a bad auto, hopefully it's a good one. And you're not gonna see me move much at all. The changes. Excuse me. The changes that I'm gonna make will most likely be like, use the force, Luke. You know, like, more like you're willing it to move than you're actually moving it. But we'll see. We'll see how it comes out, and we'll see how it shows up in the camera. So again, I want to be in kind of nice and close. I want to make sure I get ready. I'm doing plenty of altitude because I can. I know my landmarks about where I want to be, about where I want to enter. So get my speed back up a little bit. I got about 700 AGL. I'll make a down one.

Call Warsaw traffic, helicopter 26, pop up right downwind. Entering practice.

Engine failure to the taxiway.

27, Warsaw.

All right, Marion traffic, November 3166 Bravo. 10 miles northeast of the field. Inbound for Heather.

If you want to put the camera on the cyclic, I'm getting ready to enter here. We are going to go in 1, 2, 3. Enter. Collected down. Little bit of split on the needles. Got to start my turn. A little aft cyclic pool in there if you already didn't see it. Using cyclic to make the right hand turn. Looking good. I'm gonna keep my turn going. I like this. I think I'm gonna hit my spot. I'm digging it, digging it, digging it, digging it. My speed's good, trim's good. Oh man, I'm gonna go right to my spot. Okay, I'm bragging. Alright, treetop level. Start a flare. Make it bigger. Keep it bigger, bigger, bigger. Let it sink. Level it out. Roll in the power. And there is another auto.

So Heather, head seven 0x rays. Changing the Runway 27. Extended downwind, turning base for 27.

Okay, so we'll go do one more and then the next one. Heather can put the camera on the instrument panel. I really have to put my money where my mouth is because you're going to be able to see how good I really do. Or not. Claris to the right. Heather, if you would. I'll do a left hand turn. I heard traffic.

Mooney 70X Ray turn two mile final Runway 27. Warsaw.

I got that guy coming in for two seven. Looking around for anybody else. Don't see anybody. All right, so we're gonna do one go do another auto rotation, do 180 and we'll get. Radio's busy today. Sun's out, everybody's out flying. All right, so people remember, cover pre takeoff check every single time. Whether you're a student or you're an EMS guy or whatever. Gotta check to make sure everything's good to go. Warning, caution lights are out, gauges in the green. Fuel's good, temperatures are good, Everything's looking nice. So we're going to depart.

Warsaw traffic. Helicopter 26 Papa departing taxiway parallel 27 for right traffic, Warsaw.

Okay, here we go. So the key to an auto rotation is a good setup. And yes, I do go out with students and we do autos also. Kind of a more real world kind of thing where we just were out flying around and I. And I give him a simulated engine failure.

Marion 66 Bravo, it's five miles to the northeast, inbound straight in two two.

Marion and I do give them in odd scenarios when I feel like we can do it comfortably and we could land. Okay. If the engine really quit. To give them, you know, not to purposely scare them. I don't chop the throttle. I'll never do that. And I'll never do it surprise without at least announcing it. I'm going to at least say engine failure, you know, 1, 2, 3. And then push the collector down on them. But I don't purposely try to scare them.

On a six mile final for two, two.

And I don't chop the throttle. I can roll it off easy if you need to, depending on what aircraft you're flying. Maybe you roll the throttle off, maybe you don't. Maybe you roll it all the way off, maybe you split it just a little. Depends on the aircraft and depends on who you're flying with and what, what procedure is for any school or. And of course, whatever the POH says, the manufacturer's POH. All right, so gonna be a 180 degree auto rotation. We're gonna let Heather focus on the airspeed, the altitude and the rpm. Those are all the six top gauges. So she'll just kind of hold the camera in that area. You're doing a handheld today, no stabilizer. So we'll see how good she does. We'll see. I'm sure it'll be good. Heather's turned out to be a pretty good camera operator. He can normally get the shot that I want by just kind of explaining it. Alright, so we're getting ready to do it. I'm gonna put my money where my mouth is, hopefully because I'm just embarrassed myself. This sucks.

Warsaw traffic, helicopter 26 Papa right downwind. Entering practice. Engine failure to taxiway parallel 270.

Warsaw about 70 on the speed. That's beautiful.

Traffic. Mooney seven zero X rays on the Runway 27 on the ground.

Runway two, two, one. Marion two enter collective down. Right pedal. Start my turn. 70 on the airspeed. Looking good. Trim, I need a little more right pedal. My spot's looking good though. I'm looking at my spot, looking inside it, looking outside to my spot. About 80. That's good. I'll go a little aft cyclic. RPM's good. I have not even raced the collective, not once. Gonna overshoot my spot a little, but that's okay. Speed's still good. Okay, there's treetop, so I'm gonna go start a gentle flare. As I get closer to the ground. I'm gonna make it bigger. I'm gonna make it bigger and bigger. Man, this thing wants to fly. Bigger. Bigger, bigger, bigger. And now I'm rolling in the power. And there we are, 180° out of rotation. All right, that was fun.

The movie reporting has stopped.

I wonder if it made it just.

Now, like, right when you were done.

Forestall traffic. Mooney says, clear Runway.

Right. When you said, okay, it stopped it.

I guess that's the way the video will end.

I guess.

Screw it.

All right, well, we can always add an ending when we get back.

I'll probably just. Probably just leave it.

That was crazy. I mean, literally.

How did that happen?

Yeah, I can go ahead and turn it off now, right?

Yep.

Save battery.

Yeah.

Literally, right when you said, okay, that was it.

Awesome.

Well, I hope.

I mean, look at that.

I hope they.

It was five miles to the north. I couldn't see very good through there. It did get shaky here and there, but.

It should be fine.

Not too awful. Nothing else.

It was fun. Want to see downtown Warsaw?

Heck, yeah. Which one is big?

Chapman.

I get so lost when I'm up here.

Oh, you want to go over Chapman? We can do that.

Marion 66 Bravo two mile final two two. Watching for landing traffic. Marion, Fulton county traffic. Cessnate seven four, final two nine, Fulton County.

Well, those were fun to practice.

That's fun. Aunt.