Robinson R-22 Autorotation Entry

Jul 02, 2018

Robinson R-22 Autorotation Entry

The video is courtesy our Helicopter Online Ground School New Operations Manager Brian Rutledge. Also Dave Redmond CFII.

Dave goes in to great detail with his explanation of the Autorotation Entry in the Robinson R-22.

What I think is really powerful is how Dave makes sure that the Helicopter Student understands you must add a small amount of aft cyclic when you enter the Autorotation! Otherwise the nose drops and the typical student will start chasing rpm and airspeed all the way down to the end! Check out the Helicopter Training Video below on Autorotation Entry!

Hey, this is David Redmond at Odyssey Aeronautics. Doing some more videos for Helicopter Online Ground School. Today we are going to do some stuff on autorotations. Now, the videos we are shooting are two parts put together. It's going to be both for the new student trying to learn how to do an auto. Also, for a CFI trying to teach, introduce an auto and techniques.

Now, before we even get started, a couple of things that we need to go over ... This has to do with all of the flying. In general, especially in autorotations you want to be very slow and have very small, smooth inputs. You don't want to being moving the thing all over the place, because you are just going to cause RPM's to go everywhere.

Robinson R-22 Autorotation Entry

Also, as a flight instructor you have to choose your words carefully. You don't want to be in the auto and go, "Recovery." Or go, "Well, roll on." The student is going to panic and roll the throttle on. Always choose your words that make the student feel relaxed and do slow inputs. For example, when I'm ready to remarry the needles I don't say, "Roll on," or "Power up." I say, "Crack the throttle." Or like, "Ease the RPM's up," or "Gently bring the RPM's up." That way the student does it slower, because that what he or she should do.

The first step when I am going out and starting to introduce autorotations the student must understand the correlation between raising and lowering the collective and the attitude of the aircraft. When you are entering an autorotation, we are always going to take and lower the collective. Well, when you do that the nose is going to drop. Now, to keep the nose from dropping, as you are lowering collective you have to be given acyclic. Not we are not trying to give acyclic declined. We are just trying to get acyclic, so that the nose stays level and stays at about that 65 nav/attitude.

Robinson R-22 Autorotation Entry

As you are lowering the collective your giving a little acyclic just to keep the nose from dropping. First of all, we start everything when the lights are out. Needles on the green. One, teo, three on the green. Feels good. Pulling up a little bit carb heat. It's a little cold today.

It's important to understand the relationship between the collective and your attitude. If I'm flying along ... Lets say I'm doing 65 knots. I start to lower collective. I do nothing else. When I start to lower the collective, watch what happens to the attitude of the nose. So, here I am going to start lowering and do you see how the nose drops. Now, if I raise collective, watch what happens. The nose comes back up. I'm doing no cyclic inputs at all.

It's important to understand that the collective will control your attitude as well. Think of it this way, when you raise collective, you're producing more lift. So the nose comes up. When you're lowering, the nose drops. So, when you're going to enter an auto, the reason why you're lowering the collective and acyclic, is not because you're trying to keep the nose level.

Robinson R-22 Autorotation Entry

Now, that you and the student understand the correlation between collective and attitude. Now, we are ready to start doing auto entries. Now, I don't actually like to take students out and just go, "Here's doing auto. Three, two, one. Boom. Now, copy me." There's too much going on. They don't understand it. It's too much all at once. So, kind of like I approach any maneuver is I break it into it's parts and I slowly build the student up to where I want them to eventually be.

Step one, is I do what I call a slow auto entry. Now, when you are flying along ... Now, you are under powered flight. If you just start lowering the collective, the nose will start to come down a little. So, you have to go a little acyclic. Then, if you just keep 65 knots with acyclic and you start lowering collective a little more, and little more and little more, your engine is going to be working less and less and less. Now, if you just slowly keep lowering the collective, eventually you are going to be in an autorotation. That's basically what I am doing is just doing a nice, slow entry. I'll be flying along and I'll say, "Keep 65 knots." Then, I will start lowering collective and I will watch the manifold pressure going down, down, down.

Now, I am familiar with my ship. The engine usually idles between 10 and 11 inches of manifold pressure, so I know when the manifold pressure gets there the engine is not doing anything. So, I will just continuously slowly

start lowering collective and then when the engine gets down to 10 to 11 inches, it's not really doing anything. You will feel helicopter kind of yaw a little bit. It's like the engine is confused. Am I powering the rotor system or am I not? Am I powering it or am I not?

Right about there, you slow down a little on lowering the collective and go a little more. Then, you will start to see the engine RPM's will start to separate from your rotor RPM's. As soon as they start to separate you are in an autorotation. Just stop lowering collective and at that point you can gently roll throttle off. That is the smoothest easiest way of just going from powering flight into autorotation. You're doing all of the same stuff. You're doing all of the same stuff, it's just that you are doing them much slower. So, you can learn it and it makes sense.

Now, we are going to start our slow autorotation entry. Once again, lights, needle. One, two, three, needle is good. Carbon. Now, what I am going to try to do is maintain 65 knots and all I am going to do is start lowering collective and about 10 to 11 inches of manifold pressure, the engine will be idling. At that point I can roll throttle off. Maintaining 65 knots.

Robinson R-22 Autorotation Entry 

I am just going to start slowly lowering collective, with right pedal and gentle acyclic. Just trying to keep 65 knots. Keep that nose from dropping. There's 14 inches of manifold pressure. Thirteen. There's about twelve. Helicopter is going to start to yaw a little bit. That's the engine being a little confused. If I push through, you're going to see my rotor RPM's start to separate a little. As soon as that rotor RPM starts to separate from the engine, I'm just going to stop lowering collective. So, right about there, you can see them start to separate and then I can go ahead and roll to idle and we are in an autorotation. Nice and easy.

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