Question about the birth of autorotation

Maxnr said:
When I was a commercial pilot, I was co-piloting with a guy named John. We were re-poing back home at the end of the day. Ops called and said that the corporate board of directors were in house. Look sharp. I was on the controls, in a six foot hover taxi to parking. John, the impish scallowag that he was, said "Bet you can't hover taxi in this cross wind with the autopilots off." I said "Oh yeah?" He then punched them off. Over parking, he then chopped both throttles and I suddenly had an unplanned hovering auto. It came off OK despite it being my first hovering auto in the "Igor" 76. Had to pull it off with that audience.
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When I was new to the S-76, I thought it was weird that the autopilots were needed just to fly the thing. While flying with one of our senior guys, he forgot to turn the switches on in a S-76A++ and I picked up to a hover in a very confined area with no stabilization. It took him a while to realize the APs were off and was amazed I was able to control the aircraft. He had never attempted it!
 
Velocity173 said:
I got handpicked to solo twice though when another student’s stick buddy tapped out. First approach, dude rolls the throttle down at hover! Low rotor alarm goes off and we slam onto the pavement. I look over at him and he’s like “sometimes I get nervous and roll the throttle off.” :eek: Now that I think about it, probably a good thing the Army doesn’t do a true solo anymore.
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We did real solo in the UH-1H when I went through, but I also rode along with one of our weaker guys during his "solo." They didn't trust him alone in the helicopter.
 
Piperonca said:
No doubt you could do that. It had plenty of inertia. My favorite thing was to very gently lower the left skid heel to the ground so that you couldn't feel it, then slowly let the aircraft settle on the skids, cushioning very gradually with collective so the net result was a hovering autorotation with no impact feel at all.
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I could never get the feel for the UH-1 during slopes. It was just too unresponsive. I could do a hovering auto to a cross slope easily, because it was going to land no matter what I did with the controls!

We were the first class to do a full Nighthawk and NVG training phase. My IP won a bet of a six pack of something when he told my final checkride evaluator that I could nail a hovering landing to a slope under goggles, and I did.
 
Hueys weren't the best for slopes. I did a bunch very carefully, but that was my primary aircraft for years. First incident I knew about was RVN where a new captain just made A/C, then went out on his first mission, rolled a slick (UH-1H) on a slope and killed his peter pilot. Left our unit the next day. Nice guy, too. He should have stuck around, but I can understand. Another one was my reserve unit back in the late '80s. Our first female pilot went out to our practice area to do slopes and sure enough, rolled it up. Nobody hurt, but area was called LZ Mary from that point forward.
 
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Piperonca said:
Hueys weren't the best for slopes. I did a bunch very carefully, but that was my primary aircraft for years. First incident I knew about was RVN where a new captain just made A/C, then went out on his first mission, rolled a slick (UH-1H) on a slope and killed his peter pilot. Left our unit the next day. Nice guy, too. He should have stuck around, but I can understand. Another one was my reserve unit back in the late '80s. Our first female pilot went out to our practice area to do slopes and sure enough, rolled it up. Nobody hurt, but area was called LZ Mary from that point forward.
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Friend of mine rolled a Black Hawk in a brownout. Infantry soldier in the back unbuckled, was thrown from the aircraft and it rolled on him killing him instantly. He wanted to call it quits and leave the Army. I can understand. Don’t know if I could continue if someone died while I was on the controls. His CO / peers convinced him to stay and he flys 160th today. Think he’s a CW5 by now. Good dude too.
 
IK04 said:
When I was new to the S-76, I thought it was weird that the autopilots were needed just to fly the thing. While flying with one of our senior guys, he forgot to turn the switches on in a S-76A++ and I picked up to a hover in a very confined area with no stabilization. It took him a while to realize the APs were off and was amazed I was able to control the aircraft. He had never attempted it!
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I hired on with Air Logistics in the 80's. Air Log was the launch customer for the S-76 and had 16 on inventory. We had 6 to 8 based at KPTN and Sikorsky had a Tech Rep based there also. They all were delivered without any type of autopilot. Not even a yaw dampener. The old hands had little or no trouble with them. New guys like me did. They were OK when speeding up to about 100-120 KTS, and then the dutch roll began. Not that wing rocking thing that some CFIs call dutch roll. This was the real deal. It was a hand full at 155Kts and would be a real peril if allowed to persist. New guys like me followed instinct and made roll corrections which only made it worse. The secret with coping with dutch roll is in your feet. Its a yaw problem.

It was not until the mid 90s that any loss of AFCS or yaw dampener required an AS reduction. It didn't show up in Limitations, but was in Normal procedures. It restricted AS to 125 if one or both Autopilots were inop. Oh yeah. Get to VFR asap. Vmin and Vmini are listed in the Limitations section.

How much do you need an autopilot? The loss of a Leonardo (Agusta) 609 in Italy was blamed on a minor autopilot issue. The 609 was doing about 350 KTS on a test flight to test some aerodynamic clean up of the aft fuselage. The triple redundant BAE auto pilot sensed a small yaw due to a slight down L aileron and input a small correction. This began a self amplifying cycle where the FDR recorded full lateral stick inputs (corrective?)by the test pilot. Only made it worse until it broke up. BTW, my avatar is a Leonardo 609 in Bristow (my carrier) colors. We laid down the bucks for two delivery positions.

Sure. The 609 was in airplane mode at the time, but dutch roll was the culprit. Dutch roll is the main reason why helicopters need autopilots. Helps to keep passengers complaints down too.
 
Something about the Brantly. It’s so ugly, it’s attractive. Sure seems to auto like a brick though. :eek:

 
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