Original Message

FWIW, while I was working for FSI a while back, I had a pilot from Peru going through recurrent who asked me if I could set him up facing into a mountainside at about 2 or 3 thousand feet and fail the engine.  We had an area modeled in the sim that would work.  He flew close enough to the mountain that a 180 degree turn wasn't and option, then hovered for a bit and asked me to fail the engine.  The first thing he did was aft cyclic and, as soon as he got moving backwards, lowered the collective.  After a few seconds backing up, he the the nose swing around and wala, was running downhill to a perfect autorotation landing.  When he landed, he looked at me and said, "I thought that would work!"  He then explained they did a lot of that kind of flying where he was and he always wondered what would work "if."

He did a couple me and I tried a couple too.  They worked just fine.  You can learn something from everyone, even if it's what NOT to do!