If you lose your tail...

[quadrirotor]

The problem with the tail rotor is that if you lose it, you are done!!! even with a rotor with offset hinged blades, imagine with a teetering rotor...

http://www.break.com/index/helicopter_crash_at_airshow.html#

[brett s]

Depends on how you lose it - if it's still physically attached & just not working, enter autorotation & land as best you can. Depending on what you're doing when it happens & what you're over at the time that may be a crash, may be a landing with no damage...

If it departs the airframe, like that one did after a mid-air collision, the cg shift is probably too much & all bets are off (they never killed power, made it even worse). Your pet design won't survice such an occurance any better though. When large pieces of any aircraft get knocked off you're screwed!

[karlbamforth]

Look at this link, stolen from another thread, the chopper survives fine.
May need the crew cushions replacing with something cleaner but it survives with reasonably light damage.
http://www.videosift.com/video/Helicopter-Madness-A-Close-Call

[Cobra Doc]

We had a tail-rotor depart the aircraft on a UH-1 at Ft. Campbell with a full load of grunts on board. Forward airspeed was 90kts at the time. The Chief parked my helicopter at Campbell Army Airfield in the grass at 60 kts. No big deal. Nice little 45* turn at the end and we were stopped. We had a failure of the T/R shaft itself. The tiny little PC bolts made no attempt to hold the assembly on.

[hstearnsjr]

We had a tail-rotor depart the aircraft on a UH-1 at Ft. Campbell with a full load of grunts on board. Forward airspeed was 90kts at the time. The Chief parked my helicopter at Campbell Army Airfield in the grass at 60 kts. No big deal. Nice little 45* turn at the end and we were stopped. We had a failure of the T/R shaft itself. The tiny little PC bolts made no attempt to hold the assembly on.
If you're moving forward fast enough, the drag of the tail will let you fly to your destination (with some yaw), then auto in.

[brett s]

Depends on the type - some can, some can't. Some will depend on how heavy you are too...

[greywuuf]

the oft quoted (at least where I work) figure for the UH-60 is 60 knots
and ours are HEAVY (HH60's actually...lots of extra "toys")

missed a freefall from 10K today as baggage (Tandom) due to circumstances on the DZ.

[brett s]

The UH-60 can't maintain level flight if it loses tail rotor drive - straight from one of the test pilots, Nick Lappos:

I flew the early prototypes as one of the test pilots, and was involved with this factor early on.
The vertical fin on a Black Hawk won't support powered flight home, but it can make a powered descent at about 1000 fpm possible, if you feel like being a test pilot during an emergency. The trick is to recognize the anti-torque failure (right yaw, dead pedals, heart in mouth) then get the aircraft under control (down collective, autorotate, pull engine levers if necessary). Once in a real, stable auto descent, then you can try to bring back some power, and side slip - If your copilot and pax agree that the possibility of losing control is preferable to landing into what is below you (freezing sea, 150 foot triple canopy, etc.) The way to do it is to remember that as the collective comes up and the power comes in (use torque as your guide) the aircraft will sideslip to the right, and left bank and nose down will be needed to keep the speed up and the turn stopped. If you let the speed drop, you will spin like a top and ruin your day! Keep the nose down and beady-eye the airspeed, keep it above 110 and preferably 120 KIAS. You should find that some torque can be carried while in the sideslip, and the ROD will be much less than a full auto. This will stretch your glide a bunch. At 6000 feet at 120 Kt (2 NM per minute) and 1000 fpm, you can go almost 12 miles! As you line up the place to land, get over it, then lower the collective, slip back the engine levers and auto into the place.

If you screw up and lose airspeed and the nose slides around to the right sickeningly, drop collective like a rock, cut the levers and lower the nose sharply to gain speed. Follow around the turn with the cyclic and as you pick up speed, stabilize in the auto descent, and dont try to get like Captain Midnight again!

The tail cutout was made during initial development to help the sideward flight at high altitude (45 knots at 8,000 ft DA at max weight) because it reduced the blockage of the tail rotor, but the fin was never able to let you fly home under power, regardless. In fact, I know of no tail rotor helo that can do so, period. The fenestron birds have enough tail feathers to let you fly home if light, at least one USCG dolphin has done so.

[Cobra Doc]

Brett,
I never said it was easy! Mr. Shanks and I had a long discussion about flying with out anti-torque controls. He had a lot of experience with T/R loss from Viet Nam. The Huey has enough fin that between cyclic control and the fin there is a "sweet spot" where controlled flight can be maintained. According to the Chief, it wasn't a big spot but it did exist.
I never had the joy of experiencing T/R loss in a 60. It seems like I heard at one point the vertical fin area was increased on the 60s. I was in ATC by then, so I had other things to worry about. It's hard to believe the Army has been flying the 60 almost 30 years now.

[Chris Burgess]

Back in 1970 or so, I was a range OIC (Officer In Charge) of an aerial gunnery range at Ft Stewart Ga. This is where all the Cobra's (AH-1G) practiced shooting and firing their weapons. I was also a Cobra rated pilot and this is where I ended up after VietNam. I witnessed a Cobra AH-1G loose the tailrotor and 90 degree gearbox on a firing run. The IP immediately entered autorotation as the aircraft started into a tight right descending turn. It was ugly to say the least. He did great but landed hard. I think the pitch pull may have been a little late, however the CG shift from loosing the tailrotor and gearbox may have contributed immensely to landing attitude. The Cobra remained upright on it's skids (darn things are skinny) but the rotor rapped around the aircraft, luckily without killing anyone, which is a miracle in it self. Both pilots got out. The engine was still running at flight idle so I got in and shut it down. All this happened "down range" where all sorts of "bad" stuff is everywhere. We responded with the range support truck as soon as we saw it going down. I remember driving through a chained entrance to the range. Like said before, there are many variables as to if you survive or not.