The picture autorotate on the phone... arrrgh!!

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorotation

I find it almost impossible to believe Neil had no concept of autorotation. That's ridiculous. It's common knowledge.

Smarter Every Day - How Helicopter Autorotation works has been added as a related post - related requested by nanrod on that post.

"Absolute safety by design"

- open props and the passenger has to pass between them to get into the cockpit. all it takes is a false ignition or some other mistake after it lands , and the person is cut in half.

- drone design. just one of the 4 engines fails, and that shit drops to the ground like a brick, because it has no gliding properties and it can't autorotate like a helicopter or gyro, and at the height it will operate, I doubt a parachute would be of any use.

yeaaaahh... Not really anxious to try one out

My understanding is that a correct autorotation is NOT accompanied by a hard landing. However, it IS very difficult to pull off (hard---what a pun!), the closest personally analogy I can think of, being docking a boat by chopping the throttle while still tens of yards away from the dock, casting it up alongside just So---with all the kinetic energy elegantly spent before kissing the dock side.

The helicopter analogy, again, to my knowledge, is that once engine failure is clearly happening, you flatten the pitch, give up the lift the blades were generating, start falling and preserve main rotor RPM as much as possible---and you get exactly one chance and one chance only to pull pitch (make the rotor blades bite the air) at just the right distance above the ground to decelerate the helicopter just as all the rotational energy of the blades finishes spending itself in generating that last, final iota of lift--and then you kiss the ground.
Or not.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'helicopter, pilot error, crash, hard, landing, no injuries, 2009' to 'helicopter, pilot error, crash, hard, landing, no injuries, 2009, autorotation' - edited by xxovercastxx

Is an autorotation landing ever *not* hard?

YouTube description:

According to the pilot-in-command (PIC), he was performing autorotations at the lower part of the main rotor rpm green arc in part due to weight considerations. Upon entering the accident autorotation, he maintained an airspeed between 85-90 knots in the hope that extra speed would allow a more aggressive deceleration flare prior to touchdown, which should in turn further slow the rate of descent and forward speed. The helicopter's rate of descent was high, and as the PIC turned the helicopter onto the runway heading it was apparent to him that the rate of descent was excessive and that he was too low to execute either a proper deceleration flare or perform a power recovery. He attempted to level the helicopter as much as possible prior to impact to minimize the damage to the helicopter and prevent injury. The helicopter landed hard with the left skid contacting the runway first. The left skid collapsed, damaging the outboard landing gear damper attachment structure. The helicopter slid about 100 yards before coming to a stop. According to the manufacturer, the main rotor rpm range is 90 percent to 106.4 percent. At the helicopter's weight and the density altitude on the day of the accident, the main rotor rpm during the autorotation should have been above the 106.4 percent limit (red line), requiring the pilot to increase collective pitch to maintain the rotor rpm within limits. Performing autorotations at the lower part of the green arc provides less availability of rotor energy to perform an autorotation landing. The pilot should have recognized that he was not achieving the required main rotor rpm for the autorotations and terminated the maneuvers. The helicopter was within weight and balance limits.

The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows:

The pilot's failure to maintain adequate main rotor rpm during an autorotation, which resulted in a hard landing.