Kenny Keller from Fort Wayne Helicopters walks through autorotation setup and execution. Start at 500 feet AGL with zero descent rate and 70 knots. Lower collective, split the needles on the engine, add right pedal and back cyclic to control speed, then flare at treetop level before adding power back in.
Hello, everybody. Kenny, with Fort Wayne Helicopters today, I wanted to do something about auto rotations or something on auto rotations, the thing that we all love to do, getting into the fun stuff. Auto rotations are fun and can be fun, they can be stressful. But I want to give you a few tips and then I'll follow it up with a short video. Basically, on auto rotation, the key is a good setup. It's like a good normal approach or the keto, good hoverado, anything is a good setup. So on a straight in auto, you want to have your 500 AGL, you want to have your vertical speed near zero, have the altitude you want, whatever that may be. MSL, you want to be 500 AGL. And in the instrument we're using 70. We enter just a little bit above 70. So that when you enter, if you have a nice setup, you enter nice and smooth. You do three things. Lower collective, roll off the throttle a little bit and the instrument just roll enough to crack the needles. Add a little bit of right pedal and a little bit of aft cyclic to set your speed. If you have a nice entry, that's all you have to do at the beginning. And then on your way down, you're doing a cross check. Looking inside, looking outside, looking outside, at your spot, back inside at your rpm, back outside, back into your airspeed. If you set it up nice, it's going to be nice. As you're flying it down, you're going to wait until about treetop level and at approximately treetop level, you're going to start a gentle flare. As you bring it in, make a bigger flare and then 8 to 10 foot height skid clearance. You want to level the aircraft, raise collective, rolling your power, adjust your pedals. So real quick, one of the videos I shot before auto rotations, again, key is a good setup and I'm going to show you right here we're getting ready for our spot. We have our 500 AGL, your vertical speed near zero. You don't want to be climbing or descending right there at 0.500agl, it's about 800ft above sea level at C65. So we're using 1300 airspeed close to 70. I like to be just a little bit above. So when you enter it, you can do your aft cyclic down, collective roll off your throttle. Three, two, one, enter. Here's where I entered in the instrument, we can do it nice and slow. And some of the other helicopters, training helicopters, you got to do it a little bit faster. Once the needles are split. You are then in an auto rotation. So you're looking inside airspeed, RPM outside treetop level. Start your flare. Start it with a gentle flare. Make it a little bit bigger flare, keeping that airspeed right up until the very end. Slow the aircraft down 8 to 10ft. Level it out. Roll in your throttle. Adjust your pedals, adjust your cyclic. Get everything where you need. So again, the key is a good setup. If you enter it nice, it's going to be nice. So if you like this, please click the like button. And something that I haven't been mentioning that I want to mention is please leave comments, good or bad. We have a lot of time invested in making all this, these videos to kind of help you along the way. And we appreciate feedback, good or bad. We're continually trying to make them better and improve in lighting and improve quality. And we're doing the best we can with the economy we have to work with and the way things are today. Anyways, thanks for tuning in. Please hit the like button and feel free to leave comments, good or bad. Let us know what you think. Thanks a lot. We'll see you later.
