Helicopter Check Ride Part 8 180 Autorotation Tips

Aug 13, 2017

 Helicopter Check Ride Part 8 180 Autorotation Tips

Chapter 8: 180 Autorotation Tips

      I got an email this morning from a customer who was requesting help with his 180’s. This is a common issue. The last two CFI members that just recently passed their check-rides, when they first contacted me for help with some of the ground stuff, the first thing that they said was, “Man, I'm really struggling with the 180 Autorotation.”

      This is a very common question that I get a lot. The point is, these are two guys, two of our members that are going for their CFI's and struggling with the 180 Autorotation. Don't feel bad if you're going for your private or your commercial and you're struggling with the 180, a lot of people have trouble with this.

      The key to any maneuver is a good set up. If you set up a maneuver sloppy, it is probably going to be sloppy. I think a lot of the problem people run into is they're coming around on their 180 Autorotation and you have to turn in tighter and usually make it a faster turn. People are not quite ready when they enter a lot of the time, which is the problem.

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Helicopter Check Ride Part 8 180 Autorotation Tips

      When I was a brand new instructor, a brand new CFI, I went out with the owner of the flight school (a rated private pilot) to work with him on the 180 Autorotation. He about kills us when he abruptly enters the maneuver with a sloppy rushed set up. I almost gave up instructing because it scared me so bad, I did not know if I even wanted to instruct anymore.

      When I tell my examiner this story, he kind of laughs at me and says, “Hey, now you've had your first scare, you survived it, you did okay, everybody's alright. Now you know; any time you're in the aircraft, you never trust that the guy beside you knows any more than what you do.”

      He suggested that I hire a Robinson R-22 pilot with four thousand hours of instruction experience, to go out with me and do some autorotation practice just to get me fresh and back up.

         I paid out of my pocket for the aircraft and for his time. What do you think is the first thing we do? We do ground school and talk about autorotation. Then, once we got the ground out of the way, the first thing we did was quick stops. It is a great idea to always do quick stops before you get into the autorotation.

      This instructor takes me out and he says, “Let's just do it in two nineties.”

      We started out with the straight in autorotation, then we started doing a 90 degree autorotation, perfected the 90 degree turn, and then he says, “Now let's turn it into two ninety degree turns for the 180.”

      That really helped me out as a new instructor, just breaking it down into smaller steps. Number one: we did the ground school, went out, did straight-ins or quick stops first, then straight-ins, then did some nineties, got comfortable with the nineties and then turned it into two ninety degree turns. Of course this is not absolutely necessary, but it is a nice tip you can use that helped me out a lot. It's also helped many other students struggling with 180 autorotation.

Helicopter Check Ride Part 8 180 Autorotation Tips

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