Is there any effective way to land a helicopter if the tail rotor stops?

Answer 1

Maintain airspeed. If you have to do a landing to a point (like a small field) chop the throttle and autorotate to landing. If you have the luxury of an airport, complete a running landing.

As long as you either have airspeed, or the altitude to regain it, loss of tail rotor should be a recoverable emergency.

Answer 2

I was told by a Helicopter Pilot that if your tail rotor stops, you must immediately increase your forward speed to compensate for the torque and rotational pull of the main rotor blade.

In other words, you must now fly your helicopter like an airplane, to have the wind rush past the tail rotor, the wind on both sides keeping you somewhat in a straight line.

Keep flying like "a Bat out of H--L" until you can descend, landing onto a hard surface airport or road.

You'll skid for a long distance before stopping.

I used to watch Pilots practicing this method when I was a military Air Traffic Controller, stationed at Wheeler Army Airfield, Hawaii.

Answer 3

only way is to stop engines, since if there's no torque you don't need any tail rotor. however it's highly advisable to have some forward motion so you can keep control of helicopter's movement by cyclics. some helicopters like russian mi24 are even designed so that they have a /FIXED/ vertical fin. others are ch53, even apache. anyway you have to fly with extreme caution and land the helicopter rolling. if malfunction of tail rotor occurs while in hover, you won't have enough time to push the cyclics forwards, and you will end up like those guys from blackhawk down movie /R.I.P./

Answer 4

In my manual:
1)throttle - fully closed
2)fuel shutoff valve - open
3) collective - full down
4) pedal - firm left pressure untill turn coordonater is centered
5) cyclic centered

At this point, upon reaching the green zone on RPM indicator, you would pull the collective up. The cyclic should stay mostly centered, occasionaly correcting for bank on attitude if its way off.
At this point, you pull up on the colective until you are slowly decending just above the ground. Flare higher to lose forward speed in exchange for a higher impact rate (bog, marsh, or soft) or flare lower if forward speed is okay but downward is not (tarmac, perhaps field).

Back in the army, we did this maybe twice a month, but now I only do it perhaps 2 times a year. For a full turbine failure, skip steps 1&2.

Answer 5

have you ever seen a merry go round?. imagine you sitting in the middle of one, while giants spin you around at (insert rotation speed of main rotor here) rpm.

the tail rotor works to counter spin the top rotor. if you lose that

pray to the virgin mary to save your soul and dont bail out (unless you wanna be sliced meat)

Answer 6

Are you in the helicopter right now???
If you lose the tail rotor then you will pretty much have a hard time maintaining control. the best thing to do is take it slow and don't make sudden moves.

Answer 7

Don't slow down and do a run on landing like an airplane. The rudder looking attachment on the tail will stabilize the directional control if you keep your speed up.

Answer 8

Good answers also don't let rotor speed slow below minimum.

Answer 9

Pray. The torque effects of the main rotor will turn you into a blender.

Answer 10

If crash landing is an effective way to land, yes.