James

Absolutely wild footage, this is a real world engine failure in a MD500 (Think Magnum P.I. helicopter) over Kauai, Hawaii out on a tour flight. You’ll probably have to watch this a few times but the video starts out with the helicopter under power and then the engine sound goes silent. The beeping you hear is the engine-out audio beep to inform the pilot that engine power has been lost. This maneuver that pilot is doing is called a Autorotation and the way to think about helicopter flight, the engine is turning this big fan (rotor blades) on top of the body and sucking in air from the top and projecting it downward to overcome the force of gravity. When engine power is lost, you experience a reverse in airflow because now gravity takes over and the air flow is coming from the bottom of the main rotor disk. The only thing the pilot can really do is to make sure the rotors keep spinning by changing the pitch of the rotor blades through the use of the “collective” which is a lever next to the pilot’s left leg and it only moves up and down. The pilot has to manipulate the collective during an auto rotation to make sure the blades keep spinning. If the pilot pulls up too much on the collective, the rotor blades will bite too much of air causing a resistance and slow the rotors down. If the pilot doesn’t pull enough collective.. the blades will speed up and potentially cause a catastrophic failure. The other control the pilot has is called the cyclic. This cyclic sits between the pilots legs and and manipulates individual pitch of the rotor blades to tilt the rotor disk aka “big fan” and make the helicopter go forward, backwards, left, right. So essentially in this type of emergency, you have to manipulate the controls in a delicate balance because no matter what, gravity is taking you to the ground because the engine is no longer producing power. The pilot did an outstanding job here given the geography and limited amount of flat terrain to put the helicopter on the ground. Thankfully it sounds like no souls were lost and only one injury according to a news report (see the link below)👇 Of course there is a lot more to helicopter aerodynamics but I’m trying my best to put this in simpler to digest terms. Big thanks to @Combat_learjet for sharing and definitely worth a follow!