07-24-2026, 11:10 AM
(Edited 07-24-2026, 11:28 AM by Orv Neisingh.)
Yes the goal is to make it stop as much forward motion as possible during the flare before settling onto the surface then pull the collective to cushion your landing. You do not want to stop up in the air and then lower your collective, I know someone who did that during flight training and almost got his flight instructor and himself killed Brad.
The correct procedure for an auto is to first immediately fully lower the collective when you sense something is wrong, "when in doubt, auto out". Next once established in the auto and rotor RPM is established maintain or increase your airspeed to build inertia for the flare. During the flare I tell myself to "make it stop all forward speed" before leveling and pulling collective to cushion the landing.
I remember a student that I was instructing many years ago who thought that it would be a good idea to surprise me while doing steep approach training. I had told him to do one more steep approach and then I would demonstrate an autorotation. That particular student decided to instead show me that he could do an auto his way without warning me. At altitude he pulled collective and chopped the throttle, I was not guarding the controls because his flying was very good up until that point.
I was able to wrestle the collective and throttle out of his hands and with full throttle applied, and full down collective, the helicopter shook and shuddered at the edge of rotor stall all the way down to around 100' AGL at which point I regained enough RPM and cyclic authority and was able to flare and set the helicopter down. From that day on I have never flown with a student without my hands and feet guarding the controls from surprise inputs from the student. That was a valuable lesson for me as a new flight instructor Brad.
The correct procedure for an auto is to first immediately fully lower the collective when you sense something is wrong, "when in doubt, auto out". Next once established in the auto and rotor RPM is established maintain or increase your airspeed to build inertia for the flare. During the flare I tell myself to "make it stop all forward speed" before leveling and pulling collective to cushion the landing.
I remember a student that I was instructing many years ago who thought that it would be a good idea to surprise me while doing steep approach training. I had told him to do one more steep approach and then I would demonstrate an autorotation. That particular student decided to instead show me that he could do an auto his way without warning me. At altitude he pulled collective and chopped the throttle, I was not guarding the controls because his flying was very good up until that point.
I was able to wrestle the collective and throttle out of his hands and with full throttle applied, and full down collective, the helicopter shook and shuddered at the edge of rotor stall all the way down to around 100' AGL at which point I regained enough RPM and cyclic authority and was able to flare and set the helicopter down. From that day on I have never flown with a student without my hands and feet guarding the controls from surprise inputs from the student. That was a valuable lesson for me as a new flight instructor Brad.