Re: Got lucky at the drive thru

On 2025-04-13, Cindy Hamilton wrote:

Helicopter accidents are notoriously difficult
to walk away from. They don't glide very well.

Very true. Moreover, even if the guy reads the book
and resolves to keep it to running speed & jump-down
height until he has overcome the well-known universal
tendency of beginners to overcompensate stick movements,
without practical guidance or simulation, self-learning
has never been accomplished.

After initial failures of the first helicopters built
by Sikorsky, the engineers build a sort of 'jig'
instead of landing gear that only allowed a few
feet of movement in all 'degrees of freedom' so that
incipient pilots could just practice hovering.

It was also on a sort of pedestal to allow for
maximal blade excursions from horizontal.

If it were me, I'd shop around for a military model
with a cabin parachute. Auto-rotation without simulation
or guidance would seem to be more dangerous to practice
than the likelyhood it might prevent a safe landing.