[fireman15]

My wife and I are aviation enthusiasts and have lived on a small aiport with our airplanes for the last 25 years. In general rotorcraft will always be more dangerous than fixed wing aircraft. According to the NTSB they are only a little more dangerous, but it takes some real accounting gymnastics to get there. The truth is that you would be much safer sitting behind a biker dude on a cross country trip to Sturgis than taking a two or even four seat helecopter on the same trip.

We had a rotorcraft go down on the opposite side of the feild from us a few years back. Unlike the myth that they just gently autorotate to the ground when they have a problem. This one went straight in and there was virtually nothing left. It was a very ugly scene. Fortunately most the people who live here are veterans and had previous expeience with ugly scenes.

[lepton]

Unlike the myth that they just gently autorotate to the ground when they have a problem.

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Don’t they A) have to be moving forward at a substantial speed, and B) the problem has to be only with the rotation of the main blades, and not any of its other controls?

[Still Thinking]

That certainly seems to be the case.

Of course, my buddy that flies an RV9, if someone asks how far it will glide unpowered, says “All the way to the crash site!”